Prime Minister deeply involved in outing of Kelly
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Documents reveal Blair role in strategy
Ewen MacAskill
Monday August 25, 2003
The Guardian
guardian.co.uk
Tony Blair was heavily involved in the strategy that resulted in the outing of David Kelly, the weapons inspector who subsequently committed suicide.
The extent of Mr Blair's participation is revealed in hundreds of normally secret documents made public by the Lord Hutton inquiry at the weekend. A three-page document is headed: "Meetings in the prime minister's study."
Mr Blair will be pressed when he appears before the inquiry on Thursday to provide further details of these meetings and the part he played devising the strategy that led to Dr Kelly's name being leaked to the press.
Although Downing Street has admitted Mr Blair had been kept informed, the documents show that he took part in an extraordinary series of high-level meetings over the weekend and the early part of the following week to discuss what to do about Dr Kelly.
Mr Blair overrode the advice of his aides to insist Dr Kelly give evidence to both the foreign affairs and intelligence committees.
The documents reveal an obsessiveness at the heart of government over the affair, with hundreds of emails and ad hoc meetings devoted to the details on handling Dr Kelly.
The BBC-Number 10 feud began when the reporter Andrew Gilligan reported a source - Dr Kelly - claiming that Alastair Campbell had "sexed up" a September dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
After Dr Kelly came forward to say he might be Gilligan's source, the permanent secretary at the MoD, Sir Kevin Tebbit, informed Downing Street on Friday July 4. Sir David Omand, head of security at the Cabinet Office, in a reply to Sir Kevin, said the prime minister had seen the letter and agreed that no action be taken "until we were sure of our ground".
Sir David said: "The prime minister asked for a deeper analysis." Countering the impression put out by Downing Street that Mr Blair was little more than a by-stander, Sir David told Sir Kevin: "Your follow-up letter on Saturday has also been seen by the prime minister, who was grateful for the further information in it. He discussed the options with me on Sunday morning."
With the war over, there was pressure on Mr Blair to get domestic issues back on the agenda. But at 9.15am on Monday, July 7, Mr Blair called senior staff to his study for a further meeting. Among those present were the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, the Downing director of communications, Alastair Campbell, and the Number 10 chief of staff, Jonathan Powell.
According to a memo, written by Sir David Omand, Mr Blair ended the discussion by saying the MoD "should continue to handle the case prop erly and should follow whatever internal procedures were normal in such cases".
On Tuesday, they met again, three times. Sir David said all agreed that the proper place for the investigation of Dr Kelly was the intelligence committee because that was in private. "But the prime minister made clear that if, as he suspected, the foreign affairs committee insisted on calling Dr Kelly to give evidence, then we could not in conscience order him not to appear." The FAC was held in public.
Normally, the anonymity of civil servants is guarded but Downing Street saw an advantage in getting Dr Kelly's name made public.
John Scarlett, head of the joint intelligence committee, who drew up the Iraq dossier, said there was a discussion about the consequences of making Dr Kelly's name public.
A press release issued that evening by the MoD revealed a source had come forward but not naming him. It contained the first of many details that helped journalists identify Dr Kelly. The MoD statement was drawn up in Downing Street with the help of Number 10 advisers and press officers. |
