The Hindu : Kelly: Blair faces new questions

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 25, 2003

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International

Kelly: Blair faces new questions

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JULY 24. After a marathon five-nation tour, dogged by echoes of domestic controversies over the Kelly affair, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was back in Downing Street today as the issue threatened to become more serious following fresh allegations.

The Prime Minister's office was accused of deliberately playing down the status of the Defence Ministry's weapons scientist, David Kelly, to discredit the controversial BBC report alleging that the Government had exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein. The report was based on a background briefing by Kelly who committed suicide last week after being caught up in a row between the Government and the BBC about the source of that report.

Contrary to Downing Street's attempt to portray Kelly as a marginal figure, it emerged that he played a central role in assessing the intelligence which went into the dossier published by the Government last September claiming among other things that Iraq had the capability to deploy its weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. Security experts claimed today that he was privy to secret intelligence reports and had briefings from defence intelligence officials.

"Far from being an obscure scientist, Dr. Kelly was one of the British intelligence services' most valuable advisers, inextricably involved in the analysis of secret intelligence on Iraq,'' said Glenmore Trenor-Harvey, a security specialist in The Daily Telegraph.

The revelation appeared to vindicate the BBC's claim that its report was based on a `credible' source — a claim which Downing Street had consistently sought to question in an attempt to undermine the seriousness of the allegations made in the report. Among other things, Kelly had questioned the credibility of the "45-minute'' claim and suggested that the Government had included it in the dossier simply to hype up the threat from Saddam Hussein.

There was also pressure on the Government to explain who decided to make Kelly's name known to journalists as the BBC's source, exposing him to media glare and the consequent pressure that drove him to suicide.

After Mr. Blair emphatically declared that he "did not authorise the leaking of the name of David Kelly," fingers were being pointed at the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, who visited Kelly's family on Wednesday amid reports that it was extremely bitter at the way Kelly was treated by the Ministry.

The judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death is expected to look closely at allegations that it was the decision to leak his identity that triggered events leading to his suicide.

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