A judge investigating the suicide of a Defense Ministry weapons adviser should also ex-amine the British government's use of intelligence to justify war with Iraq, critics in British Parliament said yesterday.

　　Microbiologist David Kelly was the source for a disputed British Broadcasting Corporation report citing claims that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office doctored an intelligence dossier on Iraqi weapons to bolster the case for war. On Friday, Kelly's body was found near his home in central England. One of his wrists had been slashed.

　　Lord Hutton, one of the Law Lords who form Britain's highest court of appeal, said yesterday his inquiry into the suicide would investigate the "circumstances surrounding the death of Doctor Kelly."

　　"It will be for me to decide, as I think right within my terms of reference, the matters which should be the subject of my investigation," Hutton said, without elaborating.

　　It was unclear whether Hutton intended to meet demands for a broader inquiry into the British government's handling of intelligence on Iraqi weapons.

　　Blair has said he is prepared to testify before Hutton's investigation, but yesterday he suggested the scope would be limited to Kelly's death.

　　"This is a very exceptional situation which is why we decided to hold a judicial inquiry, because of the concern that there was," he said during a trip to China. "Of course, there will be continuing debate as to whether the war was justified or not. I happen to believe it was."

　　Opposition Conservative Party lawmaker Oliver Letwin called for the inquiry to examine whether Blair's office exaggerated the threat posed by Iraqi weapons.

　　Kelly's body was found three days after he testified to a parliamentary committee about his unauthorized encounter with BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, who on May 29 quoted an anonymous source as saying officials had "sexed up" evidence about Iraqi weapons to justify war.

　　Gilligan said the officials had insisted on publishing a claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy some chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes, despite intelligence experts' doubts.

　　The journalist later pointed to Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications director, as the key figure in rewriting the dossier. Campbell vehemently denied it.