U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier on Thursday ordered the full document released, saying BP had withdrawn its confidentiality claim.

'LIMITED' INVESTIGATION

The sentences appear in a section of the 39-page brief in which Justice Department lawyers attack BP's internal investigation of the oil spill.

Government lawyers charge that the internal inquiry, run by BP executive Mark Bly, ignored embarrassing emails from drilling supervisors that preceded the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 people.

"Bly and BP's management in London purposefully limited the investigation by excluding any of the systemic management failures that led to the disaster," the lawyers wrote.

They continued: "This was a decision designed to ensure that the public and legal lines of accountability would be focused exclusively on blue collar rig workers and other contractor/defendants - but at all cost, not upon BP management and the inexplicable behaviors that coursed through the pages" of the internal BP emails.

BP's statement on Thursday stood by its own inquiry.

"All official investigation reports have been consistent with the core conclusion of the Bly report: that the accident was the result of multiple causes involving multiple parties," the company said.