British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would have resigned if the BBC's claim that his government had 'sexed up' a dossier on Iraq were true.

Deposing before an inquiry panel, Blair said the dossier used to justify joining the American action in Iraq was based on intelligence sources and was never used or manipulated for political reasons.

The panel is looking into the death of  defence ministry official, David Kelly, who committed suicide after the government identified him as a likely source of a BBC report.

The BBC report had claimed that British government had 'sexed up' it's report on WMD to indicate that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

Blair -- who was jeered by several  anti-war protesters who had gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London -- claimed that the report came from British intelligence.

"I also knew it had to be a document that was owned by the Joint Intelligence Committee and its chairman John Scarlett...we could not produce this as evidence that came from anything other than an objective source," he said.

The inquiry, headed by senior appeals judge Lord Hutton, is trying to ascertain how and why the government exposed Kelly, placing him under intense media pressure and forcing him to testify before two parliamentary committees.

Blair has denied responsibility for identifying Kelly, though his defence secretary Geoff Hoon told the panel earlier that  the prime minister's office had authorised a press release saying an unidentified official at the defence ministry had acknowledged speaking to a BBC journalist.