Panicking bosses hounded Kelly
Paper trail shows how ministries and Downing Street piled pressure on weapons expert as inquiry into leak gathered pace
Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday August 15, 2003
The Guardian
Suspicions that David Kelly might have shared deep unease in the intelligence community about the government's case for war against Iraq with journalists threw Whitehall into a near panic, which led to him being hounded until the day he died.
Testimony given to the Hutton inquiry yesterday, backed up by a damaging paper trail, showed how senior officials at the Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office, and Foreign Office, sweated, agonised, and then piled on the pressure in their pursuit of the weapons expert.
The search for the source who had spoken to the BBC reporters Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts, and then the discovery of Dr Kelly's involvement, preoccupied not only top officials but the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, and the prime minister himself.
A flurry of memos were sent and copied to Downing Street figures such as Tony Blair's communications chief, Alastair Campbell; his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell; and his foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, as well as to John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee; Sir David Omand, the government's security coordinator; and even the MI5 head Eliza Manningham-Buller.
The inquiry heard how Dr Kelly was grilled by the MoD's personnel director, Richard Hatfield. Mr Hatfield asked the world-renowned scientist, Britain's top expert on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programme "who gave him authority to exercise his own judgment?" Dr Kelly's decision to talk to a BBC journalist, he said, was "particularly ill-judged".
Mr Hatfield warned that if it was discovered that Dr Kelly had not told the full truth about his meetings with journalists, he risked serious disciplinary action.
Dr Kelly was handed a warning letter on the eve of his appearance before the Commons foreign affairs committee - a time when Dr Kelly was already "clearly very nervous", according to Patrick Lamb, a senior FO colleague.
Yet asked how Dr Kelly responded to "this version of the Riot Act read out to him?", his line manager at the MoD, Bryan Wells, said the scientist had been "composed throughout".
Mr Wells admitted he had had no idea of the scientist's unhappiness about a number of issues, including his salary and pension, until after his death.
The inquiry also heard that Mr Scarlett believed that Dr Kelly needed a full-scale "security-style interview" after it became clear he was the BBC source.
Yesterday's evidence threw up the classical Whitehall euphemisms, contradictions, and dissembling. Mr Lamb described Dr Kelly as a friend as well as a colleague, yet it was revealed that he had mentioned to Martin Howard, the deputy head of defence intelligence, that he was a possible source for Gilligan during a reception at MI5 headquarters.
Mr Howard warned Dr Kelly at a briefing before he gave evidence to the Commons committee about getting into "tricky areas" such as his thoughts on "the government's case for war".
He was reported to have "strongly recommended" that Dr Kelly was "not drawn on his assessment of the dossier", adding that the weapons expert "does not appear to be handling it well". Yet asked by the inquiry if Dr Kelly was given a "certain steer", Mr Howard replied: "Certainly not".
The senior civil servants questioned yesterday gave no clear answers to why Dr Kelly was outed by the MoD apart from saying that the situation was "not normal". Asked by James Dingemans QC, the inquiry counsel, whether he agreed that the public naming of Dr Kelly was hardly likely to encourage others to volunteer to talk to the press, Mr Howard replied: "I couldn't argue with that."
Bryan Wells was asked why it was necessary to make a public statement about the scientist - a decision opposed by Sir Kevin Tebbit, a top civil servant at the MoD who was one of the few who came out of yesterday's evidence with credit. Mr Wells replied simply that he "did not take a view one way or the other".
Mr Wells, the inquiry heard, was pursuing Dr Kelly until the end, calling his mobile phone for details of all journalists he had met or spoken to by telephone. Mr Wells needed the details to answer questions from a Labour MP on the foreign affairs committee, Andrew Mackinlay.
When the scientist's mobile failed to respond, Mr Wells phoned his home. His widow, Janice, said he had gone out for what turned out to be his last walk
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