What David Kelly knew
The killing of Saddam's sons won't divert attention for long from the specious reasons given for invading Iraq
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday July 24, 2003: (The Guardian) Uday and Qusay are killed and the delighted British and American governments suggest that Iraq will be a safer place. Yes, Iraqis may well feel safer. And - with the dictator's brutal sons out of the way for ever - more confident about continuing the resistance against the American occupiers.
Shortly before their deaths were announced, Richard Gephardt, Democrat presidential hopeful, delivered a blistering attack on Bush's foreign policy which was driven, he said, by "machismo" and "arrogant unilateralism". Bush, he continued, had treated US allies "like so many flies on America's windshield". He added: "Foreign policy isn't a John Wayne movie."
The attack on the villa where Saddam's sons were hiding might be seen as driving home the point. Instead, the announcement that they had been killed by US troops in a shoot-out is welcomed by Tony Blair as "great news".
Jack Straw was more circumspect. He said the death of what he called "extremely unpleasant psychopaths" would bring relief for the Iraqi people. But he added: "I am not rejoicing. I mourn the death of anybody, but it has to be said that it is a very great relief for all Iraqis."
Both the prime minister and the foreign secretary seized the opportunity to remind us about the brutality of Saddam's regime. This was something many of us pointed out more than 15 years ago. But then, Straw says, there was a Conservative government and, anyway, Iraq was at war with Iran. It was as though they were mightily relieved that attention had been diverted away from the increasingly damaging controversy over what weapons of mass destruction, if any, Iraq possessed when Bush and Blair decided to invade the country, and from the death of David Kelly in particular.
And it was another welcome opportunity to remind us of the nature of the Saddam regime. Uday and Qusay, Blair told journalists yesterday, were responsible for the torture and killing of thousands of Iraqis. That is not, of course, what we were told we were going to war for and is not the legal justification the attorney general gave for it. Never mind; let's milk the deaths of Saddam's sons as much as possible and hope the dictator soon shares their fate.
But Dr Kelly's death will continue to haunt the government. The man described by Blair after his death as a "fine public servant" was dismissed, before it, by those in Whitehall battling with the BBC as some kind of middle-ranking expert, pretty marginal in the general scheme of things.
In fact, he was a central figure in the government's continuing quest for evidence of banned weapons in Iraq. He had recently been to Iraq to advise the US-led Survey Group of scientists (including former UN inspectors damned so recently by Washington as incompetent), which Bush and Blair so desperately hopes will come up with credible evidence which could give them a post-hoc justification for war. It is a tragic irony that Kelly will not be able to continue the work. A fellow expert on biological and chemical weapons familiar with Iraq described Kelly yesterday as a "real loss - he knew the place so well, the individuals so well, he's not somebody you could easily replace".
Kelly was one of the toughest and most effective Unscom weapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s. He was convinced Saddam Hussein had possessed weapons of mass destruction. As a senior adviser to both the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office on the threat posed by chemical and biological weapons he had to have access to up-to-date intelligence to do his job.
So when he told journalists he had misgivings about the government's now largely discredited September dossier it was extremely significant. If MPs on the Commons foreign affairs committee had bothered to listen to the substance of what he told them instead of scoring points in the battle between the government and the BBC - of which Kelly was a victim - they too would have heard important evidence.
Kelly told the committee there was only a 30% chance that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons. That Iraq could deploy them within 45 minutes of an order to do so - "ready" was the word Blair used in the dossier's foreword - was "high unlikely", Kelly told the MPs. Between issuing orders and firing the weapons was a "long process", he said. He should know.
We are now told that what MI6's agent, an Iraqi brigadier-general, said when he was reactivated - conveniently, shortly before the September dossier was published - was that the Iraqis had a command, control and communications system (presumably bombed out of existence in the first days of the war, if not before) that would have enabled Saddam or his close military associates to contact commanders in the field within 45 minutes authorising the use of WMD. That does not mean deploying them, let alone having them "ready".
Kelly was a serious and senior source highly respected by his peers. These did not include the armed forces minister, Adam Ingram, who - after Kelly took the conscientious decision to admit to a senior MoD official that he had talked to the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan - told the world that "action has been taken against him accordingly". Challenging the BBC to rule out the scientist as the source, Ingram said: "Hopefully, that would allow Dr Kelly to carry on with his career in the MoD."
With such threats hanging over him, it is scarcely surprising if he was under stress before he gave evidence to the committee - even more so after he told the MPs he was not Gilligan's main source. That, too, was not what the MoD wanted him to say.
The world, let alone Iraq, would really have been a safer place had David Kelly been allowed to do his job. Some people in Downing Street and the MoD have a lot to answer for.
r.norton-taylor@guardian.co.uk |
