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12-8-2003 Scotsman The Hutton Inquiry: Witnesses turnheat on Hoon By GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT DAMNING evidence from the first day of the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly left the position of Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, looking increasingly untenable last night. It emerged that two defence intelligence officials were so concerned about the way Downing Street's Iraq dossier was being written they complained to their superiors. The complaints were passed to Mr Hoon, but disregarded. It was also made clear that far from being a "Walter Mitty" fantasist, Dr Kelly was one of the government's leading weapons experts who advised MI6, the CIA and the British military before the war with Iraq. Taking evidence in the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday, Lord Hutton heard how the language used by No 10 in its draft dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction triggered a minor protest from two military intelligence officials. Martin Howard, Mr Hoon's deputy chief of defence intelligence, robustly defended No 10 but confirmed under questioning that one of his officials had disagreed and had written a memo criticising the dossier. "As probably the most senior intelligence community official working on WMD (weapons of mass destruction)," it said, "I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessments were being presented in the dossier ... that I was moved to write ... recording and explaining my reservations." The inquiry was also told that an intelligence officer with the Ministry of Defence was unsettled after speaking to Dr Kelly about the dossier's claim that United Nations weapon inspectors had been unable to account for 20 tonnes of biological growth agents. The unnamed official wrote: "The existing wording is not wrong but it has lost (sic) of spin on it." Mr Howard told the inquiry it was a typing mistake and the individual intended to type: "It has lots of spin on it." A document produced during yesterday's hearings also revealed that Mr Hoon had been personally informed of at least one of the official's concerns. But Mr Howard played this down, saying: "This sort of debate is quite normal." Julian Miller, the chief of assessment staff in the Cabinet Office, denied that Alastair Campbell had been involved in inserting into the document the claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. But he admitted the Prime Minister's communications director had been involved "informally" in drafting parts of the document before it was published. The protests within the MoD which were later overruled by the Joint Intelligence Committee will fuel fears in Whitehall that Mr Hoon's department is becoming increasingly dysfunctional under his tenure. Mr Blair is rumoured to be lining up a replacement for Mr Hoon - either Margaret Beckett, the Agriculture Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, the Trade Secretary, or even Jack Cunningham, the former Cabinet "enforcer". It emerged during the hearing that Dr Kelly was so highly regarded by the MoD that he had special clearance to brief journalists about government policy. But he had been unhappy with the way he had been treated by his employers. Moving between Whitehall departments, he was worried about his pension and complained that he was in danger of falling into a "black hole". But Richard Hatfield, the MoD's director of personnel, accused Dr Kelly of going too far in speaking to Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter, and breaking civil service rules when he spoke about matters not related to government policy.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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