People's Democracy

                                                        The Dr Kelly Trial & The “WMD” Claim

     From Kitty Menon

 In London

THE ground beneath Tony Blair is shifting rapidly and sinking fast, particularly after the alleged suicide of Dr Kelly on July 18, following on claims and statements  turning out to be false, the latest being what the media refers to as the Niger Time  Bomb, and compounded by the crass and insensitive denigration of Dr Kelly as a “Walter Mitty” character by Blair’s official spokesman 48 hours before his funeral, and on the eve of the enquiry by Law Lord Hutton starting today, and to continue for the next four months.

Almost a year has passed since Tony Blair’s government issued the first fateful dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, published on September 24, 2002, containing the warning that Saddam had chemical or biological weapons ready to use within 45 minutes of the order being given.   This was not what became known as the plagiarised “dodgy” February dossier, which the enquiry, amongst other matters, is to investigate.   The controversy around the first dossier however, has turned out possibly to be more grave.

WHO WAS DR KELLY?

Dr Kelly was a former Porton Down  (Britain’s chemical and germ warfare defence establishment) scientist, a UN weapons inspector in Iraq, and worked for the ministry of defence(MoD) as an expert on biological warfare for four years.  He was among those involved in compiling the first dossier. 

 Conversations, some months later, between Dr Kelly and his friend Tom Mangold, the television journalist, suggest that while Kelly was broadly supportive of the document’s content he was sceptical of the “45 minutes” claim. He later laughingly told Mangold that “it would take the most efficient handlers at least 45 minutes just to pour the chemicals or load the biological agents into the warheads”.   Dr Kelly was reputedly a precise man, irritated by inaccuracy. Thus, he believed the dossier exaggerated intelligence for effect, and said as much in a telephone conversation on May 7 with Susan Watts, the science editor of BBC’s Newsnight, a conversation which, though he did not know it, was being recorded.   He repeated this reservation in subsequent conversations with other BBC correspondents, which were used in their separate broadcasts, and reported by Andrew Gilligan, the defence correspondent of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to the Today audience on May 29. 

NO 10’s MISHANDLING

The attempt at denigration of Dr Kelly’s character came with this report,  in which, basing himself on what he had been told by “one  of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the September dossier”, Gilligan accused the government of inserting the “45 minutes” claim, followed by an article on June 1, in the Mail on Sunday, naming Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s chief spin doctor and communications chief, as the one responsible.

In its crassness, not to speak of its insensitive timing, this denigration touched the nadir of Downing Street’s performance in this whole affair, constituting its change of tactics of switching from the earlier attack on the BBC -- that the latter had broadcast false reports, refused repeated opportunities to apologise, that it was guilty of “sexing up” the document, not Alistiar Campbell as claimed, -- to the scientist, and sums up how badly No. 10 has mishandled matters.

Ironically, the death of Dr Kelly and the fallout from it might not have happened if the spotlight had not turned on Andrew Gilligan’s report, which had focussed on the 45 minutes’claim in the September dossier.  Some government detractors claim this  was a cynical diversionary tactic by Alistair Campbell to deflect the focus from the plagiarised “dodgy” February dossier, as well as the question as to what had happened to Saddam Hussain’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. 

But with Dr Kelly’s suicide the whole scenario changed. With the BBC revealing that Ms Watts had taped her conversation with Dr Kelly, and that he had mentioned Campbell,  Downing Street could no longer claim that Gilligan had invented the whole story.  So the attack was switched from the BBC to the shameful operation of questioning Dr Kelly’s  credibility.

THE HUTTON INQUIRY

The task of the Hutton Inquiry is to “urgently conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly”.

There will be two separate stages to the inquiry  - the first will focus on an account of the events from those who took part in them.  The second will involve the examining and cross examining of those witnesses.

In the first half of the hearing witnesses are questioned by James Dingemans QC , senior counsel, experienced in administrative and human rights work, including claims for and against governments.

Both the BBC staff and intelligence officials were the first to appear, including:

 Terence Taylor, a friend of Dr Kelly, director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Washington, was chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, and worked with Dr Kelly in searching for weapons.

Richard Hatfield, personnel director at the MoD;

Julian Miller, senior official in the Cabinet Office’s intelligence and security    secretariat, head of the private office of the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, part of the liason team between No 10 and the Joint Intelligence Committee while the dossiers were bing compiled. Works with Dir David Ormand, head of the intelligence-gathering at the Cabinet Office.

Martin Howard, deputy chief of defence intelligemce and former director of communications at the MoD;

Patrick Lamb, deputy head of counter proliferation at the Foreign and Commonwealth ;

Andrew Gilligan, the BBC’s defence and diplomatic correspondent of Radio 4’s Today programme, whose report that Alistair Campbell had “sexed up” the intelligence dossiers to make the case for war,  angered Downing Street into the bitter row with the BBC;

Susan Watts, Science editor for BBC 2’s Newsnight , who reported similar concerns about the strength of the intelligence case, based on her conversation with Dr Kelly, though stopped short of asserting that Alistair Campbell was responsible for the insertion of the notorious “45 minutes claim” ;

Gavin Hewitt, experienced reporter and documentary maker reported to have also used Dr Kelly as his source;

Richard Sambrook, BBC’s director of news;

Biian Wells director of MoD’s counter proliferation and arms control secretariat, worked in the same office as Dr Kelly, involved in talks with him after the scientist admitted meeting Andrew Gilligan;

John Williams, press secretary to foreign secretary, Jack Straw, former political editor of the Daily Mirror, joined the Foreign Office in 1997 under Robin Cook.