July 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said he won't quit following the death of a defense ministry scientist at the center of a row over allegations the government exaggerated intelligence reports to justify war in Iraq.

Blair has ordered a judicial inquiry into the death of David Kelly, named by government officials as the source of a British Broadcasting Corp. story in May that said the prime minister's aides put pressure on intelligence officials to ``sex up'' their reports on Iraqi arms. The BBC said today Kelly was the source for the story and said it ``deeply regretted'' the scientist's death.

Kelly's death has intensified allegations from Blair's critics that he overstated the threat posed by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his military program. Glenda Jackson, a former minister under Blair, said he should quit.

``We're far from done,'' Blair told Sky News television in an interview recorded in Tokyo earlier today before he flew to Seoul. ``You have got to have broad shoulders in this job, and I have got them.'' He said he still believed he'd been right to go to war with Iraq.

Kelly died after he cut his left wrist with a knife on Thursday, Thames Valley Police said yesterday. A knife and an open packet of painkillers were found by the body.

Members of Blair's own Labour Party have led criticism of his decision to back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. A third of Labour legislators voted against the war, and two ministers, Clare Short and Robin Cook, quit the cabinet in protest.

Judicial Inquiry

Jackson, who left Blair's government in 1999, supported Short's call for Blair to resign in a BBC interview, saying the prime minister should step down because the judicial inquiry will paralyze the government.

``I don't see how the government is going to be able to function adequately,'' Jackson said. ``This is going to be hanging over the government for the whole period of the judicial inquiry.''

Blair said he'll bear any consequences of the legal investigation into Kelly's death, which was confirmed by British police yesterday. ``In the end, the government is my responsibility,'' Blair said.

Blair also rejected a call from Iain Duncan Smith, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, that he should cut short his week-long Asian tour and return home to face questions about Kelly's death.

Parliament

Recalling parliament, which closed for vacation on Thursday, ``would generate more heat than light,'' Blair said. ``I don't think it would be appropriate.''

Police found Kelly's body in woodland near his home in Oxfordshire, southern England Friday after his wife reported him missing the previous night.

Blair ordered the judicial probe into Kelly's death. He said today he would give evidence to that probe. ``I think that the right and proper way is that I speak to the judge in the same way other people will,'' he told a press conference in South Korea.

The move hasn't placated the government's critics, who said that his officials had used Kelly as a political pawn in a battle to refute the BBC story.

Kelly, 59, was told by Ministry of Defense officials that he might be prosecuted under the U.K.'s Official Secrets Act and that he might lose his pension, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported yesterday.

Dossier

The row centers on a September ``intelligence dossier'' published by Blair's office which said that Hussein had chemical and biological arms ready to use at 45 minutes' notice. The BBC said that assertion was inserted into the report at the order of Blair's closest aide, Alastair Campbell, and against the wishes of intelligence agents.

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons earlier this month cleared Campbell of ``sexing up'' the September dossier. It said the ``jury was still out'' over the case for war in Iraq.

Friends of Kelly have said that in the days before his death, he was distressed by his own appearance before the committee, where Labour lawmaker Andrew Mackinlay described him as a ``fall guy'' and ``chaff.''

Kelly told a parliamentary committee he met a BBC journalist a week before a government dossier was published that said Iraq was capable of firing weapons of mass destruction with 45 minutes' notice and was a threat to other countries. He denied he told the journalist there was concern in intelligence circles that the dossier exaggerated Iraq's weapons capability.

Kelly was a microbiologist and former senior United Nations weapons inspector. He visited Iraq on 37 occasions.

Last Updated: July 20, 2003 06:59 EDT