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12-8-2003 Scotsman The Hutton Inquiry: Officials' anger at spin over dossier By Gethin Chamberlain Defence Correspondent THE evidence came thick and fast; intelligence briefings, e-mails, personnel files and excerpts from government dossiers flashing up on the banks of computer screens set up on every desk in room 73 on the second floor of the Royal Courts of Justice. For the government, it could hardly have been worse. Just hours into the Hutton Inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, it had already emerged that not only had intelligence officers voiced concerns about the information included in the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but Dr Kelly would have known about the concerns, as would Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary. Other experts had been so worried about the way the claims over Iraq's ability to deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes were expressed that they had written to register their concern. One talked of "lots of spin". While no-one could say for certain that Alastair Campbell had been involved in sexing-up the final document, it was clear he had been involved - albeit informally - in tinkering with the final drafting. By the end of the first working day of an inquiry scheduled to run for two months, the government's position was looking considerably more fragile than when Lord Hutton strode into the room at 10:30am yesterday. If Dr Kelly was a Walter Mitty figure, as the Prime Minister's spokesman, Tom Kelly, said last week, yesterday's evidence portrayed him as a very well-respected and well-informed Walter Mitty. The government had maintained the scientist was not in a position to know what went on in the lead-up to publication, but as the day wore on it became clear he had the ear of key players in the intelligence community, including two members of the defence intelligence staff (DIS), who had voiced concerns that the case against Iraq had been overstated. According to Martin Howard, deputy chief of defence intelligence, the pair had put their concerns in writing, questioning the language used in the dossier. A document produced as part of the evidence revealed those concerns had been passed on to Mr Hoon. Other documents revealed DIS personnel had suggested the language used to describe the continued production of chemical and biological weapons was "too strong". Reading from a document which noted that some staff had been concerned about the way the assertion that Iraq could deploy some chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes had been expressed, James Dingemans, QC, counsel to the inquiry, said their concerns related to the "level of certainty" about the claim - expressed in the dossier's foreword and the executive summary. "The executive summary expressed the point differently as a judgment. The personnel concerned did not share its judgment but it was agreed by the joint intelligence committee," the document noted. Mr Howard claimed he was not aware whether Dr Kelly knew about those views, but conceded the weapons expert knew and spoke to a lot of people. An e-mail, written by one DIS member, revealed the extent to which Dr Kelly was involved in the discussions over the way the intelligence was being portrayed. The inquiry was told the DIS member consulted Dr Kelly over an assertion that the UN weapon inspectors had been unable to account for 20 tonnes of biological growth agents. "The existing wording is not wrong but it has lost (sic) of spin on it." Mr Howard agreed the individual had intended to type: "It has lots of spin on it." Whether Dr Kelly was authorised to express his concerns to the media was, however, hotly contested. Richard Hatfield, the Ministry of Defence personnel director, said while Dr Kelly's job involved talking to the media, he knew the rules and had overstepped the mark when he spoke to the BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan. "My interpretation, I'm afraid, of thinking back over his history is that he could not have done that without realising he had gone outside the scope of his discretion." But the inquiry heard a wealth of evidence to suggest Dr Kelly had, at least up to that point, been regarded as a safe pair of hands when dealing with the media. He had previously briefed Mr Gilligan and was authorised to conduct unattributable media briefings. One document produced by Mr Dingemans referred to Dr Kelly as "the expert of choice" on Iraq issues for the media, while another said he "expressed himself clearly and put across HMG's (Her Majesty's government's) line with authority". A former colleague, Terence Taylor, described him as a "superb" scientist whose work helped uncover Saddam Hussein's secret germ warfare programme and who had been greatly respected by experts in Britain and the United States. Dr Kelly, he said, had played a key role in tracking down Saddam's biological weapons programme at a time when the Iraqis firmly denied its existence and that role had been recognised by the government with the award of the Cross of St Michael and St George. There was further backing for Dr Kelly from Patrick Lamb, deputy head of the counter-proliferation department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who was involved in preparing a section of the September dossier that described the historical background of Unscom weapons inspections in Iraq. He told the inquiry Dr Kelly was shown drafts because he was seen as an authority on the subject and he would also discuss Cabinet Office meetings with him: "I would often put past him, sometimes on the telephone if need be, a particular sentence or a particular phrase, especially if following the Cabinet Office meetings there was some discussion of a particular point." Of Dr Kelly's state of mind, there were conflicting claims. Terence Taylor said he spoke to Dr Kelly four days before his death and was aware of nothing out of the ordinary. "He seemed to me to be in a normal state of mind, someone I had known for 16 years. I did not detect any discernible difference," he said. But it emerged that Dr Kelly was unhappy at the way he had been passed over by his employers. In one letter produced to the inquiry, he wrote: "I am concerned my responsibilities are not being recognised in terms of status and financial reward." Although he was promoted to a level that should have launched him into the Senior Civil Service, his official status, according to Richard Hatfield, the head of personnel at the Ministry of Defence, remained "fractionally below" that level. In one letter, read out by Mr Dingemans, he complained of having fallen into a "black hole" as a result of his secondment to the proliferation and arms control secretariat, which was part of the Foreign Office. In another, he referred to his long record of experience, including the award of the Cross of St George and St Michael for his work in Iraq. "All of this appears to have passed by without recognition from DERA (defence evaluation and research agency) management," he wrote. The inquiry heard that however highly regarded he was, the Ministry of Defence had not hesitated to make his name public when it emerged he could be the source of the BBC reports. Pressed on why the government had allowed Dr Kelly's name to become public knowledge, Mr Hatfield struggled to hide his annoyance. He confirmed a decision was taken to release Dr Kelly's name if it was suggested by journalists, and said he believed it would not have been long before it became public knowledge even if withheld by the MoD. He said that while officials' names were not "gratuitously" released to the media, it was expected Dr Kelly would be giving evidence to at least one parliamentary inquiry, when his name would become public. Pressed further by Lord Hutton, he explained: "If an official was caught leaking to the media and if that individual had been established as the source of the leak we may well identify them." He added: "I'm afraid I cannot resist making this comment: I find some difficulty in squaring the press's desire to know the name of Dr Kelly with the press's criticism of us for providing it to them." One of the key issues which the inquiry will address is the claim that it was Mr Campbell who inserted into the final dossier the claim that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction would be available for use within 45 minutes. The claim, made by Mr Gilligan, was attributed to Dr Kelly. The inquiry heard from Julian Miller, the chief of the assessment staff in the Cabinet Office, that the claim was inserted into the dossier on or around 10 September last year. He denied that Dr Kelly had warned Downing Street that the claim was untrue or that Mr Campbell was responsible for inserting it. But he conceded Dr Kelly had contributed comments on the draft version of the dossier and revealed that Mr Campbell was involved in subsequent "informal discussions" on the drafting of the document before its final publication.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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