On 20 July 2003, the BBC publicly confirmed that the Ministry of Defence weapons adviser, Dr David Kelly, was the principal source for its report alleging the government had “sexed up” its September 2002 Iraq dossier, which was produced to boost public support for war. The announcement came just three days after Dr Kelly’s suicide.

The September 2002 dossier stated that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. It claimed that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so. In the foreword, Blair declared that the issue was a “current and serious threat to the UK national interest”.

He added: “We must ensure that he does not get to use the weapons he has, or get hold of the weapons he wants.”

In November 2002, the UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1441 to give Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations”. From November 2002 to March 2003, however, the UN failed to find any weapons of mass destruction after 700 inspections.

The invasion of Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom – began on 20 March 2003 after the United States and Britain argued that Iraq had missed its “final opportunity” to disarm peacefully.

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On 29 May 2003, BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan reported that Downing Street had inserted the claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes into its September 2002 dossier despite knowing the assertion was questionable. Gilligan alleged that the “45 minutes” claim was included at the insistence of Alastair Campbell, the government’s head of communications.

The government and Campbell vehemently denied the story, precipitating a major confrontation between Downing Street and the BBC.

On 6 June, Campbell wrote to the BBC’s director of news, Richard Sambrook, claiming that the BBC’s reporting had given the impression that the government took Britain into the war in Iraq on a false basis. Gilligan and Campbell appeared before the foreign affairs committee on 19 and 25 June respectively.

On 30 June, Dr David Kelly, was reported to have informed his MoD superiors that he had met Gilligan on 22 May, but believed he could not have been the main source for the “sexed up” claim. Some days later on 8 July, at a meeting chaired by Tony Blair as prime minister, it was agreed that a statement would be issued indicating that an MoD official had come forward, while stopping short of directly naming him.

The MoD stated: “An individual working in the MoD has come forward to volunteer that he met Andrew Gilligan of the BBC on May 22…

“The individual is an expert on WMD who has advised ministers on WMD and whose contribution to the dossier of September 2002 was to contribute towards drafts of historical accounts of UN inspections.”

The government also took the position that if journalists correctly identified the individual, the government would confirm it. This has been referred to as the “guessing game” strategy.

Kelly’s name entered the public domain on 9 July. He was subsequently subjected to questioning by the foreign affairs and intelligence and security select committees on 15 and 17 July.

Kelly told MPs: “From the conversation I had [with Gilligan] I don’t see how he could make the authoritative statement he was making from the comments I made.”

On 18 July, Kelly’s body was found near his Oxfordshire home.

The government immediately commissioned a public inquiry into Kelly’s death. The inquiry’s terms of reference were to “urgently to conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly.”

At a press conference in Tokyo, where he was meeting his Japanese counterpart, Blair was asked if he had “blood on his hands”. Blair called for “respect and restraint” until the full circumstances were known.

Following Kelly’s death, the pressure on the BBC to name its source intensified. On 20 July, after informing Dr Kelly’s family, the BBC issued a statement confirming he was the primary source for Gilligan’s report as well as subsequent reporting by Newsnight journalist Susan Watts.

The statement defended the accuracy of the reporting while expressing profound sorrow over Dr Kelly’s death. “The BBC believes we accurately interpreted and reported the factual information obtained”, Sambrook said.

“We continue to believe we were right to place Dr Kelly’s views in the public domain. However, the BBC is profoundly sorry that his involvement as our source has had such a tragic end.”

Tony Blair, the prime minister, said he was “pleased that the BBC has made this announcement. Whatever the differences, no one wanted this tragedy to happen.”

The public inquiry, led by Lord Hutton, one of the UK’s most senior judges, began its work on 11 August.

A central issue was the question of how Dr Kelly’s identity became publicly known. Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, maintained that there was not “the slightest shred of evidence” indicating that the government had any deliberate strategy to disclose Dr Kelly’s name.

On 28 August, appearing before the inquiry, Blair said “the responsibility is mine” for the decisions leading to the naming of Dr Kelly.

Blair stated: “The responsibility is mine, at the end of the day. I take the decision as prime minister but I wanted to be able to say that we had played it by the book.”

On 29 August, Campbell resigned from his position as the prime minister’s director of communications. However, he stated that his resignation was unrelated to the inquiry and described it as an effort “to get a life back for me and my family.”

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The Hutton inquiry report was scheduled for publication on 28 January 2004.

While awaiting the verdict on the Kelly affair, the government was simultaneously fighting a fraught parliamentary battle over its Higher Education Bill. The proposed legislation, which was opposed by several Labour MPs, paved the way for universities to charge tuition fees of up to £3,000 per year.

Blair’s position as prime minister would have been in grave danger had he lost the tuition fee vote, due 27 January, and faced a damning appraisal in the Hutton report the following day. Opinion polling found that if Hutton did blame Blair for Dr Kelly’s death, then a majority of the public would have wanted him to resign.

This week was trailed as the “toughest since [Blair] was elected in 1997.”

On 19 January, Blair was subjected to a typically combative BBC Newsnight interview, courtesy of Jeremy Paxman, who posited that the next week would be “more or less make-or-break for your prime ministership”.

Blair replied: “It’s going to be difficult. I can’t remember the last week that was my most difficult week, and it was the week before last. But they come around pretty regularly, as you know, but that’s part of the job and you have to do what you think is right. I know a lot of people disagree with me over Iraq.

“But I believe it was the right thing to do and I know a lot of people disagree with me over this. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

He added: “I’m going to do my best, aren’t I? To win the vote, and I can’t tell you what the Hutton report is going to say. There’s no point in speculating about it.”

After a six-hour debate, on the eve of the publication of the Hutton inquiry report, the Higher Education Bill was backed by 316 votes to 311 – a major reduction in the government’s majority of 161 and the tightest victory of Blair’s premiership.

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The Hutton inquiry, published as planned on 28 January, ran to 750 pages in 13 chapters and 18 appendices.

The report exonerated the government much more completely than had been expected. It concluded that Blair’s government did not act in a “dishonourable, underhand or duplicitous” way in its handling of the events surrounding the death of Dr Kelly. Hutton also described Gilligan’s report that the September dossier was sexed up as “unfounded”.

Campbell argued that the report meant a “stain on the integrity of the prime minister and the government has been removed.”

Hutton was highly critical of the BBC. The report precipitated the resignations of the corporation’s chairman, Gavyn Davies, director general, Greg Dyke, and Gilligan.

In his resignation statement, Gilligan questioned the findings of the Hutton report. “This report casts a chill over all journalism, not just the BBC’s”, he said. “It seeks to hold reporters, with all the difficulties they face, to a standard that it does not appear to demand of, for instance, government dossiers.”

In a commons statement on 28 January 2004, Blair urged those who had accused him of lying to the House to retract their statements. “The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie”, he said.

“I simply ask that those who have made it and repeated it over all these months now withdraw it fully, openly and clearly.”

The relatively wholesale exoneration of the government was met with some scepticism in the media.

The Guardian invited its readers to imagine how Hutton might have interpreted episodes from history.

One contribution read: “I am satisfied that the decision to crucify Jesus Christ was one that was made after an independent and rigorous trial by Pontius Pilate. I am further satisfied that Pilate’s questioning of him was appropriate and that the Jewish and Roman authorities fully exercised their duty of care towards him.”

On 13 May, Hutton appeared before the House of Commons public administration committee and rejected that his report amounted to a “whitewash”. Hutton told MPs that he was “still of the view that I was right”.