Revelations at the Heart of Kelly Affair Paul Waugh

Opinion, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Revelations at the Heart of Kelly Affair

Paul Waugh

• The Independent

LONDON, 27 August 2003 — After 40 hours of testimony and thousands of pages of evidence, the Hutton inquiry will enter what could be its most important phase this week as questions about the death of David Kelly finally reach the very top of the government.

Tony Blair will take the stand tomorrow; Geoff Hoon, the Defense Secretary, who is the politician considered most vulnerable in the affair, will appear today.

Just as importantly, John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which drafted the dossiers on the Iraqi threat, emerged from the shadows and gave evidence yesterday.

But after just two weeks, the inquiry has already gathered invaluable information which allows us to answer the questions at the heart of Lord Hutton’s investigation.

Did the government “sex up” or exaggerate its intelligence case to persuade the British public to back an unprecedented “pre-emptive” war?

The prime minister and Scarlett will no doubt insist that while the Downing Street press office had a legitimate role in getting the dossier ready for publication, at no point was intelligence “bent” to make the case for war.

In a briefing note, Alastair Campbell has claimed that No. 10’s involvement was merely in drafting Blair’s foreword to the dossier, printing briefing materials and preparing answers for questions from the media. “In other words, the normal stuff of presentation.”

But over the weekend, as 900 new documents were posted on the Hutton inquiry website, fresh pieces of the jigsaw puzzle suggested that not only Campbell but also Blair requested substantive changes to the now infamous dossier.

A central issue for Blair is why he insisted on stating that Saddam Hussein posed a “current and serious threat” just weeks after Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, said the dossier should not be used to allege that there was an “imminent threat.”

Critics will also claim that the sheer volume and noise of e-mail traffic within No. 10 in the run-up to the publication of the dossier shows that Campbell and his army of Downing Street officials overstepped the mark from “presentation” to interference.

Did No. 10 amend the dossier to make Saddam more of a nuclear threat?

A confidential memo from Campbell to Scarlett on Sept. 17 states: “The prime minister was worried about the way you have expressed the nuclear issue ... can we not go back, on timings, to ‘radiological device’ in months”.

Although Scarlett rejected Blair’s request because “no intelligence” supported the claim, it suggests that at the very least the prime minister led the pressure for the dossier to be hardened up.

Evidence submitted to the inquiry shows that Campbell was very keen to amend the “unconvincing” section on Iraq’s nuclear programs.

In an e-mail to Scarlett, he suggests the wording for a paragraph on “nuclear timelines”, the length of time it would take the regime to acquire a nuclear bomb. The wording, which was accepted, states that “they could provide nuclear weapons in between one and two years”.

Similarly, later drafts cut out a section of Blair’s foreword which admitted that “the case I make is not that Saddam could launch a nuclear attack on London or another part of the UK (he could not).”

Why did Britain claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger for its nuclear weapons program when even the Americans found the allegation was false?

Blair’s obvious desire to raise the specter of a nuclear threat from Iraq perhaps explains the lengths to which the September dossier goes to link Saddam with Niger.

Fresh documents to the Hutton inquiry shed light on this issue, with an early draft of the dossier actually stating as fact the claim that uranium “has been purchased from Africa”.

After reading the draft, the CIA complained that such intelligence was not “credible” and the final dossier watered it down to read that Iraq had “sought” to buy the nuclear material. The Niger claim has subsequently been dismissed by the UN’s atomic weapons inspectors.

Along with the nuclear threat, the image of Saddam launching chemical and biological weapons could persuade a doubting public that urgent action was needed.

Did No. 10 have a role in the claim that Saddam was able to deploy chemical and biological weapons in just 45 minutes?

It is increasingly clear that there is no evidence to back the allegation, made by the BBC’s Andrew Gilligan, that Campbell inserted this terrifying claim into the dossier. However, Campbell claimed last week that he had no “input, output, influence on that whatsoever at any stage in the process” on the allegation.

New documents have shown that he did indeed suggest the word “may” should be replaced with the stronger “are” in a sentence about Iraq being able to deploy banned weapons within 45 minutes of an order. “ ‘May’ is weaker than in the summary,” he wrote to Scarlett, who accepted his advice. Campbell also managed to strengthen another “may” reference with the word “could”. At the very least, he had “input” and “influence” on the claim.

Crucially, it has emerged that two Defense Intelligence Staff officials had “concerns” about the claim. One officer, described as the most senior intelligence official working on WMD, even formally complained on Sept. 19, five days before the dossier was produced. That same day, Kelly attended a long meeting of DIS experts which aired their concerns.

In a tape-recording by the BBC reporter Susan Watts, Kelly stated that the “No. 10 press office” had been involved in the use of the 45-minute claim.

Did the government or the BBC contribute in any way to the death of Kelly?

This is ostensibly the main task of the Hutton inquiry and a picture can already be built of the role of ministers and Whitehall officials in the decision to reveal Kelly’s identity once he admitted he had talked to Gilligan. We now know that Hoon went against the advice of Sir Kevin Tebbit, the MOD’s permanent secretary, in forcing Kelly to appear before MPs in public. Hoon, however, tried to prevent Kelly from answering questions about the dossier itself.

We also know that Blair was instrumental in the scientist being subjected to a second “security-style interview” by MOD bosses. Hoon looks very vulnerable, but Blair faces the charge that he allowed a vendetta by his chief spin doctor to spiral out of control.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).