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January 30, 2004, Scotsman HUTTON'S ECHOES OF NO10 DOCUMENT Gethin Chamberlain Diplomatic Correspondent A LAST-minute attempt by the government to influence the Hutton Report included an effort to smear the name of Dr David Kelly, by claiming he refused to face up to facts after he was identified as the source of Andrew Gilligan's story. In a 128-page document submitted after Lord Hutton had finished taking evidence - and which was kept secret until after the publication of the report - the government claimed Dr Kelly was not an easy man to help, that he refused to face facts, and that his employers had done all they could to help him. The discovery that the government had sent a final written submission to Lord Hutton prompted a political row earlier this month, with Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, saying that news of the document had triggered "very serious concerns", and demanding that they be made public. The government claimed it was making "points and arguments" and correcting factual errors. But yesterday, it emerged that the government's submissions on the character of Dr Kelly, in particular, were closely reflected in Lord Hutton's report. Alex Salmond, the SNP leader at Westminster, described the revelations as dynamite. He said: "It seems uncanny that the government description of Dr Kelly should be so eerily echoed by Lord Hutton. "It seems his lordship gave extraordinary weight to the last-ditch submissions, and it reinforces the growing impression that perhaps his lordship should simply have allowed the government to write the report. These matters are extremely serious." A number of points appear in both Lord Hutton's report and the government submission. They include the conclusion that Mr Gilligan's story represented an "attack on the integrity of the government", the contention that the BBC governors could have investigated the government's complaints without infringing the corporation's independence, and the claim that it was necessary to name Dr Kelly to avoid accusations of a cover-up. However, final submissions from the BBC, Gilligan and Dr Kelly's family appear to have failed to sway Lord Hutton's thinking. The government had initially refused to divulge details of its final written evidence to the inquiry. But when it was finally published on Wednesday, it appeared it had struck a chord with Lord Hutton. Most obvious were the government's submissions about Dr Kelly's character, which Labour used to defend its handling of the scientist after it had released his name to the media. The submissions suggested that any consideration of the support it gave its employee had to be weighed against the difficulties presented by his own personality. It added that attempts to speak to Dr Kelly in person had been difficult, and brief phone conversations could have been extended if Dr Kelly had wished. "All the indications are that Dr Kelly was refusing to face facts in this period," said the submission. And it noted: "Dr Kelly was never a man whom it was easy to help, particularly in this last period of his life. However, there are no grounds for criticism of the attempts which were made to help him. "Mrs Kelly herself acknowledged that her husband 'was not an easy man to support in some ways'." When Lord Hutton came to deliver his conclusions, he used virtually the same arguments to defend the behaviour of the Ministry of Defence. Explaining why there were mitigating circumstances for the MoD's failure to tell Dr Kelly his name had been released to the media, Lord Hutton's report said: "Individual officials in the MoD did try to help and support him in the ways which I have previously described and ... because of his intensely private nature, Dr Kelly was not an easy man to help or to whom to give advice." In his statement, Lord Hutton admitted he had initially considered there could be a case against the government. But something appears to have changed his mind. In its submission, the government argued that Gilligan's allegations amounted to "a serious attack on the integrity of the government" and undermined public confidence in the governmental process. Lord Hutton, commenting on the BBC's allegation that the government probably knew at the time of publication that intelligence contained in the dossier was wrong, described it as "an attack on the integrity of the government itself". Remarking on the decision to reveal that Dr Kelly had come forward as the possible source of Gilligan's story, the government argued that "to have concealed these matters from the committees would have been a grave dereliction of duty with serious implications for the relations between government and Parliament. It would have attracted strong and justified public criticism." Lord Hutton's summary said: "I consider it to be clear that if the government had not issued a statement that a civil servant had come forward and information of this leaked out later... the government would have been faced with a serious charge of a cover up." When the government lawyers argued that "once it was known that an official had come forward, his identity was likely to become known to the press, quite independently of the processes of the two committees, whatever the government did", Lord Hutton agreed. He said in his ruling: "I am satisfied that once Dr Kelly had informed the MoD that he had spoken to Mr Gilligan, the government's view that Dr Kelly's name as a source for Mr Gilligan's reports was bound to become public, whether the government issued a statement or not was well founded."
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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