News Search Search this site or the web powered by FreeFind Site search Web search Story archive		16-8-2003 Scotsman As the casualty list mounts, the stage is set for the 'dark actors' By Gethin Chamberlain Defence Correspondent DAVID Kelly's last e-mail spoke of "many dark actors playing games". The Hutton Inquiry has begun to shed light on the identity of those actors and the games they played. After just four days of evidence, the cast already includes the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary and one of Britain's most senior intelligence figures. Alastair Campbell would not have written this script. Documents which would normally have remained secret for decades have become public property just weeks after they were written, and have helped to nail the lie that Dr Kelly was dealt with like any other government employee in similar circumstances. The lengths to which the government was prepared to go to ensure that its message, and its message alone, was the one the public received, has been exposed as never before. Yet this week, the agenda was out of its control. The government machine and its cogs have been forced to stand helplessly by and watch as Lord Hutton, the man it hoped would clear its name, began to dismantle its very fabric. As a religious man, Tony Blair should be well aware of the adage: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If he wasn't thinking about it at the start of the inquiry, he would do well to consider it now. Maybe now Mr Blair has some idea how Dr Kelly felt in those last desperate days before he took leave of his wife, walked out of the family home, took painkillers, put a razor blade to his wrist and bled slowly to death on a woodland path. The Hutton Inquiry has painted a picture of Dr Kelly as a man at the end of his tether. Managers at the Ministry of Defence pursued him relentlessly, warned him, threatened him and threw him to the wolves. Behind the scenes, the intelligence services and Downing Street - not just the spinners, but Mr Blair himself - were pulling the strings. Unable to turn to friends in the Ministry of Defence for help, Dr Kelly began to crack under the pressure. Every time he thought his ordeal was at an end, he was forced to jump another hurdle. So exactly what was it that drove Britain's foremost expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to kill himself just as he was about to return to the job which he loved most - looking for those weapons? At the end of the first week, the answer is beginning to take shape. On the evidence so far, it seems likely Dr Kelly was Andrew Gilligan's source for his infamous "dodgy dossier" story, and a very credible source at that. Downing Street later dismissed him as a Walter Mitty figure, a man of little consequence. That view was blown away this week. Martin Howard, the Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, admitted Dr Kelly knew and spoke to a lot of people in the intelligence community. He had offices in a number of Whitehall departments. Members of the government's Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) sought out his advice. He was regarded as "the expert of choice" on Iraq issues for the media. He was a "superb scientist", according to a former colleague, and his work in uncovering Iraq's biological weapons programme had been rewarded by the government with the award of the Cross of St Michael and St George. Patrick Lamb, deputy head of the counter-proliferation department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, admitted Dr Kelly was shown drafts of the September dossier because of his expertise on the subject. He often ran things past Dr Kelly, said Mr Lamb. Would he have known enough about the dossier, however, to have been in a position to tell Mr Gilligan the government inserted the 45-minute claim knowing it to be untrue? Yes he would, the evidence suggested, but he probably did not, certainly not in so many words. Even Mr Gilligan told the inquiry he overstated his case: "I think, on reflection, I didn't use exactly the right language. It wasn't wrong, but it wasn't perfect either." But Dr Kelly had certainly been unconvinced by the 45 minutes claim, and he was unconvinced because he knew where it had come from - a single, uncorroborated source. He knew, because he had spoken to friends in the DIS. Two of those people were so concerned about the inclusion of this piece of evidence that they put their complaints in writing, arguing that the language used overstated the case. At least one was told that his concerns had been passed to Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, but when the dossier was published, those concerns had been ignored. One, who had talked to Dr Kelly, wrote about "lots of spin" in relation to another disputed claim on missing biological agents. In the witness box, Mr Gilligan stuck to his story. When he asked who inserted the 45-minute claim, he said Dr Kelly told him "Campbell". When he asked whether the dossier had been "sexed up", Dr Kelly told him: "Yes, sexed up." Dr Kelly, however, had not told him that the claim was made up by Downing Street. It was real information, Dr Kelly had said. And Dr Kelly had talked to other journalists. He told Newsnight's Susan Watts that when George Bush and Jack Straw talked of Iraq's capabilities, it was "spin". When she asked him about who inserted the 45-minute claim, he was reluctant to name names. But her tape of his reply suggested the hand of Downing Street. "All I can say is the Number 10 press office," he told her. "I've never met Alastair Campbell so I can't (say it was him), but I think Alastair Campbell is synonymous with that press office because he's responsible for it." Ms Watts did not believe that was conclusive, certainly not conclusive enough to include in her story: "In fact, in my mind he specifically denies that Alastair Campbell was involved personally." Dr Kelly had also talked to the BBC's Ten O'Clock News reporter Gavin Hewitt, and there was that word "spin" again. "Number 10 spin came into play," Dr Kelly told him. But although he thought the dossier had been presented in rather a black and white way, the information on the 45-minute claim was real intelligence and, asked whether the 45-minute claim was inserted into the dossier against the advice of the intelligence services, Dr Kelly replied: 'Well, I cannot really and entirely go along with that' or 'I am not sure I would go that far'." Mr Gilligan knew he had gone too far, and told the inquiry so: "I really did not intend to give the impression, and I have corrected it, that the 45-minute claim was invented, fabricated and the work of the intelligence services." His bosses knew too. A copy of a BBC memo from Kevin Marsh, the editor of the Today programme, damned Mr Gilligan: "This story was a good piece of investigative journalism marred by flawed reporting. Our biggest millstone has been his loose use of language and lack of judgment in some of his phraseology." Maybe the government should been content to prove Mr Gilligan had overstepped the mark. But the battle with the BBC had gone too far and the machine decided to move in for the kill. It was a terrible mistake, although no-one could then have realised just how terrible. From the very top came the order to find out who had spoken to Mr Gilligan. The source clearly had enough knowledge about the subject to have given the story credibility. He had to be found. It was not long before Dr Kelly found himself in the frame. Martin Howard set the ball rolling, suggesting Dr Kelly might be the source of a story about mobile weapons laboratories. Soon, he was being blamed for leaking a top-secret document about links between Iraq and al-Qaeda to Mr Gilligan. It was not true, but the die was cast. Dr Kelly's boss, Bryan Wells, had watched Mr Gilligan's evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee and wanted to know more about Dr Kelly's relationship with the BBC reporter. They had spoken, Dr Kelly told him, but he was a loyal employee, had never tried to leak information and "most certainly have never attempted to undermine the government in any way". Mr Wells decided to speak to Dr Kelly, but others smelled blood. Geoff Hoon had contacted Jonathan Powell, the chief of staff at Downing Street, the night before the meeting. More details are expected to emerge during the inquiry about the call, but whatever was said, there was a change of plan. Sir Kevin Tebbit, permanent secretary at the MoD, contacted Mr Howard and told him an interview with Dr Kelly should be conducted by Richard Hatfield, the MoD's personnel director. The meeting, on Friday 4 July, did not go well for Dr Kelly. He was told the meeting could turn out to be very important in relation to the public dispute between the government and the BBC. He might be named. His contacts with Mr Gilligan had been "particularly ill-judged". Mr Hatfield wrote to him to record his displeasure: "I warned Dr Kelly that the possibility of disciplinary action could of course be reopened if further facts came to light that called his account into question." In the letter, he told Dr Kelly: "Your discussion with him (Gilligan) in May has also had awkward consequences for both yourself and the department." It went on: "Further breaches would almost certainly result in disciplinary action with potentially serious consequences." Downing Street, however, was not content with this. Phone calls were exchanged over the weekend of 5 and 6 July, and in a memo, Sir Kevin told Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office intelligence and security coordinator, of Mr Blair's involvement. The memo indicated Mr Blair was well-briefed on the matter. It was, Sir Kevin wrote, "the Prime Minister's view that before we decided on what next step should be taken, it would be sensible to try and go into a bit more detail into the differences between what Dr Kelly said and what Mr Gilligan had claimed". John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, wrote to Sir David Omand suggesting they take the gloves off: "I suggest a proper, security-style interview in which all these inconsistencies are thrashed out." That, observed James Dingemans QC, the counsel for the inquiry, did not sound very nice. And it would get worse for Dr Kelly. His name was given to journalists by the MoD, which argued it would have come out anyway because he was due to appear before a public hearing of the foreign affairs committee. It was only later that it emerged the only reason Dr Kelly had to appear in public was because Geoff Hoon decided it would look bad for the government if it became known he had been seen only in private. Mr Hoon ignored a memo from Sir Kevin, which argued a private hearing was more appropriate. Dr Kelly was their man, after all. Surely, he suggested, they should have "some regard for the man himself". Dr Kelly had come forward voluntarily, he said: "He is not on trial." No, said Mr Hoon, that would not do. A memo from his private office made clear the reasoning: "Presentationally, it would be difficult to defend a position in which the government had objected to Dr Kelly appearing before a committee of the House which takes evidence in public in favour of an appointed committee which meets in private." So Dr Kelly was named and appeared before the committee and was, inevitably, pursued by the media. He was under intense pressure, and the MoD knew it. A memo from Colin Smith in the MoD's counter-proliferation department noted: "Kelly is apparently feeling the pressure and does not appear to be handing it well." But still they pursued him. Even after the FAC hearing, he was being asked for more details about his meetings with journalists. On the day he died, he received a phone call from Mr Wells to clarify the position. He did not get it. He had already left his home for the last time, the inquiry heard.
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