The lightning conductor
Kamal Ahmed and Martin Bright
Sunday August 17, 2003
The Observer
The Coral Reef Club has a simple address: St James's Beach, Barbados. Last Sunday afternoon a private speedboat arrived at the jetty in front of the five-star resort. Out stepped Tony and Cherie Blair.
They sunbathed and chatted to some British tourists. Two security personnel maintained a discreet but constant presence. After a day on the beach, the Blairs were whisked away in a stretch-limo.
A week earlier, the Blairs, Tony in denim shirt and chinos, Cherie in a black cotton dress, dined at Daphne's Restaurant, also at St James. The Blairs had barracuda and sat at wooden tables overlooking the sea. They passed the time of day happily with those who walked over to say hello.
Court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice doesn't have room service. Or champagne. Or miles of beautiful sand. It is a drab venue for one of the most remarkable political stories ever to unravel before the public's gaze. Relaxing on holiday, Blair returns home next Monday to face his own grilling before the steady and spin-free gaze of Lord Hutton. The Prime Minister knows it could make him. Or break him.
This is a story about a government scientist called Dr David Kelly. It is a story about the Government and the case for war against Iraq. It is a story about the media and accuracy. It is a story about sexing-up and spin and denials and half-truths and leaks. Most of all, it is a story about power. About how those who have it use it. And what those without it think about it.
Kelly killed himself in a wood, cutting his left wrist after taking an overdose. Hutton has to find out why. The inquiry was told that he was worried about his salary. That a mix-up over visas to Kuwait by the Ministry of Defence had irritated him. That he was concerned about joining the Iraq Survey Group, charged with finding Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, because he wasn't sure he would get on with everyone.
But these are minor irritants. Something else happened to Kelly. No one will ever know for sure why he killed himself. He left no note, or none that has been published.
So Hutton has to gather as much evidence as possible and make a considered judgment. From what has been seen in the first four days of testimony, one thing is clear. Kelly became a lightning conductor for a lot of other issues, and a focus for a number of very powerful people.
There had already been stories: that some in the intelligence community were worried about the use of their evidence to make the case for war; that perhaps Saddam did not pose such an imminent threat. But Andrew Gilligan and the Today programme went further. They quoted one 'senior and credible' source saying that Number 10, in particular Alastair Campbell, the Director of Communications and Strategy, had inserted evidence into the Government's September dossier on Iraq's WMD that it knew was probably wrong.
Kelly eventually admitted that he may have been the source. But he insisted that Gilligan had misused his words. It was enough. Suddenly here was someone to bite on, a conduit for all the frustrations that the swirling mess over the case for war had created. Here was a civil servant briefing against the Government, or at least someone who could refute that most central of allegations. Either Kelly had said what Gilligan had claimed or he could prove that Gilligan was wrong. Whatever happened, Kelly was in the Government's sights.
This week, Jonathan Powell, Blair's Chief of Staff, Sir David Manning, Blair's Foreign Policy Adviser, Sir Kevin Tebbit, Permanent Secretary at the MoD and Campbell will come blinking into the light of the inquiry. All will give evidence. John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), will also be called over the next few weeks.
Each will give an insight into how this Government works. Whatever they say will be pored over and analysed. If Hutton finds any of them wanting, careers will be thrown into question.
When Andrew Gilligan strolled to the Charing Cross Hotel in London on the afternoon of 22 May, he had little idea of the importance of the story he was about to be told. His guest was waiting for him. His name was Dr David Kelly. Even the BBC reporter's bar bill from the Strand Terrace Restaurant had an air of innocence - a Coke and a fizzy apple juice.
Gilligan appeared at the meeting ill-prepared for a big scoop. It was a casual, almost social affair. Gilligan began tak ing notes on his electronic organiser only when the conversation took an unexpected turn. Gilligan insists that Kelly told him about worries about 'sexing up' the Government dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and that the '45 minute claim' on their deployability was inserted by Number 10.
After the meeting, Gilligan hurried back to the BBC and set about trying to back up what he had been told. He wrote a full manuscript account of the meeting, fleshing out his notes. He approached contacts, but no one could confirm the story.
He went back to the dossier and undertook what he described as a 'close textual analysis'. He had met Kelly in April 2002, when the scientist had told him that the early drafts of the dossier were dull and unlikely to contain any new revelations about Iraqi WMD.
Gilligan read the dossier again and again. He started seeing internal inconsistencies. On page 18 of the dossier, the JIC is shown to assess that the Iraqi weapons programme was limited to research and development. But a page later it says that 'Iraq has continued to produce chemical agents'. Was someone applying outside interference?
It has now been revealed that the language in the dossier had indeed been strengthened. Drafts given to Hutton show that, on 5 September, it did not make mention of the '45-minute claim'. By 10 September, after a meeting of the JIC chaired by Scarlett, and the Iraqi Communications Group chaired by Campbell, the intelligence appeared. The Government says that this was simply because it did not become available until that time. Others suspect baser motives.
On 28 May, Gilligan spoke about his meeting with Kelly to Miranda Holt, a Today editor. He did not tell her who he had spoken to, but made it clear it was someone senior and credible. He showed her notes of the quotes from Kelly that he expected to use. Kevin Marsh, the editor of the programme, was brought in to agree to run the story. The night before, the story was mentioned to an MoD press officer. No approach was made to Number 10.
Overnight, Gilligan produced a script for his main appearance on Today at 7.30am and sent it to his editors for approval. He also sent a script for news bulletins at six, seven and eight o'clock.
But he did not produce a script for his first appearance on the show, at 6.07am, speaking live and off-the-cuff from his bedroom in Greenwich, south-east London. 'What we've been told by one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up that dossier was the Government probably knew that that 45-minute figure was wrong, even before it decided to put it in,' Gilligan said. In the later, scripted versions, Gilligan merely said that the 45-minute claim was thought to be 'questionable'.
Rarely has so much rested on one word. In a later email, Marsh said Gilligan had been guilty of 'the loose use of language'. Gilligan, in a moment of uncharacteristic understatement, admitted that it was 'not wrong, but not perfect, either'.
James Dingemans QC, senior counsel to the Hutton inquiry, put it more legalistically: 'The lawyers have a distinction between mistakes and fraud, and this was effectively a charge of fraud, was it not?' It was a neat point and demonstrated precisely why the Government - and Campbell in particular - reacted with such anger. The report clearly carried the meaning that the Government had made the case for war in bad faith.
Within the BBC, the initial reaction to story was one of uncontained delight. It had caused a sensation and been picked up all over the world. An email from Marsh to Gilligan 24 hours after the report said: 'Great week, great stories well handled and well told.'
And then the complaints started. Page after page of letters, mostly from Campbell, but from Ministers and Labour MPs, all saying that the BBC should apologise for the central claim and withdraw it. All intelligence contained in the dossier, Campbell argued, had been agreed by the JIC, the central gathering point for intelligence, which is in overall charge of the dossier.
The BBC thought it had a secret weapon: Susan Watts, the science editor of BBC2's Newsnight , had also spoken to Kelly, at least three times during May alone. A transcript of her discussions with him showed that he had spoken about Campbell and had suggested that the dossier was beefed up to make a case.
Campbell had been involved, Kelly said, because the 45-minute claim 'sounded good'. In Watts's reports, she said there was disquiet in the intelligence services. Gavin Hewitt, in a report for the 10 O'Clock News based on another conversation with Kelly, said that officials thought that Number 10 spin 'had come into play'. It was clear that Kelly was briefing against the government line. Officials decided to hunt the mole. And deal with him accordingly.
For senior officials across Whitehall, Gilligan's source had broken with their code. Some civil servants, including Kelly, were given discretionary powers to talk to the media, but only insofar as their discussions reflected government thinking, not contradicted it.
For Richard Hatfield, the director of personnel at the MoD, the issue was simple. 'The MoD discipline code makes quite clear that our guidance on contact with media is linked to the need to preserve that degree of trust with Ministers of whatever administration is in power,' he told the inquiry. Gilligan's source, as far as Hatfield was concerned, had broken that code. A search was begun to flush him out.
In Whitehall, the rumour mill was already in overdrive. John Williams, the Foreign Secretary's press secretary, had heard Kelly's name mentioned as 'office rumour' in the middle of the month. On 15 June, an article in The Observer said that a senior UK official did not believe that supposed mobile weapons laboratories found in Iraq were actually for that purpose. The report said that the UK official had seen the laboratories in Iraq.
For Bryan Wells, director of counter-proliferation and arms control at the MoD and Kelly's line manager, it was if a ray of sunshine had suddenly fallen into a dark room. Kelly was one of only four UK officials who had seen the laboratories. He had told Wells himself that he did not think that they were for munitions, but were for producing hydrogen. An article in The Observer reported the official saying the same thing.
The day after the report appeared, Martin Howard, Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence at the MoD, rang Wells just after 10am. Howard asked if Wells had seen The Observer. He had. Howard had come to the same conclusion. Kelly was the source.
At the Foreign Office, they had travelled one step further. From behind his desk, Patrick Lamb, the deputy head of counter-proliferation, who had also worked closely with Kelly, began to think seriously about what Kelly may have been up to. He had also read The Observer. 'At that point, it began to gel in my mind that he [Kelly] might therefore also be the source of the Gilligan and Watts pieces,' he told the inquiry. 'And that is the time when the two, if you like, came together.' Two days later, at a drinks reception, Lamb bumped into Howard. He told him of his suspicions.
Kelly knew the net was tightening. He spoke to friends in the Foreign Office. The police had also launched an investigation into another Gilligan story. The Today programme had been passed a top secret document, stamped 'UK eyes only', which revealed that the intelligence services believed that there were no links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Gilligan ran the story in February. Kelly later admitted that he met Gilligan at around the same time. Kelly had become part of the police inquiry. He was later cleared of any involvement.
On 30 June, with officials starting to circle round him, Kelly sat down and wrote a letter of admission to Wells. In one line, Kelly typed the words: 'Andrew Gilligan is a journalist that I have known and met.' He said his meeting had been 'private'. He also said that he mentioned that the 45-minute claim was 'probably for impact' and that any mention of Campbell was 'an aside'.
'I most certainly have never attempted to undermine government policy in any way,' he wrote. Kelly rang Wells to tell him about the letter. It was the first formal confirmation that the government scientist had spoken to Gilligan. Wells received it the next day. He sent it to Howard.
This was a serious matter. Wells organised a meeting between himself, Kelly and Howard. Howard called in Hatfield to undertake the interview. As far as many in the MoD were concerned, they had found their man.
Urbane, cultured and with a civil servant's instinct for choosing his words with care, Sir Kevin Tebbit had risen through the ranks of Whitehall to become Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence.
He was being 'kept in the loop' by his officials over the gathering Kelly storm. From him, the information was sent to the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon. On the evening of 2 July - the first known contact between the MoD and Number 10 - Hoon, aware that Kelly was becoming a significant issue, called Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff.
Slowly the information on Kelly was being 'briefed up the chain'. First, Kelly spoke to colleagues. Then to Wells, who passed it on to Howard, who passed it on to Hatfield, who passed it on to Tebbit, who passed it on to Hoon, who passed it Number 10.
It is likely that this is the first time that the Prime Minister became aware of Kelly's name. He told Powell that he wanted to get to the bottom of it. An interview was arranged for 4 July. Kelly would be grilled.
At 11.15am in his Holborn office, Hatfield turned to Kelly, sitting on the other side of the table, and demanded some answers. With him was Wells, who took notes. Hatfield told Kelly that his letter had 'serious implications'. He had breached the normal codes of behaviour. There was a discussion about the possibility of formal disciplinary action. Hatfield described Kelly as 'extraordinarily naive'.
'Journalists are not seeking information out of academic interest, but to construct stories,' he said. The mood was cold.
Hatfield was already of the opinion that Kelly would have to appear before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which was undertaking its own inquiry in the Gilligan affair and the case for war against Iraq. From what he had seen from Kelly's letter, the scientist's appearance would seriously undermine Gilligan's evidence. That, to many in the Government, would be very useful.
What Kelly was unlikely to realise was how high this was going. On the same day of Kelly's first interview, Tebbit wrote to Sir David Omand, chief intelligence co-ordinator in the Cabinet Office and one of the most senior civil servants in Whitehall. 'Dear David,' the letter said. 'An official in the MoD has volunteered that he had a discussion with Andrew Gilligan on 22 May, one week before Gilligan's allegation about the interference in the production of the September dossier and the "45-minute story".
'My immediate reaction was that this must be the "single source" to whom Gilligan referred to in his testimony [before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee].'
At this stage, Tebbit argued in his letter, there was not enough evidence that Kelly was the single source, but that the MoD must be ready with 'defensive lines' should the story leak. If Kelly had been Gilligan's man, Tebbit suggested that his name should be published to 'put the record straight' and refute Gilligan. Within four days, the MoD became convinced that Kelly was the single source. Their realisation came after a second, tougher interview with Kelly.
Tebbit's letter was copied to Sir David Manning, Blair's foreign policy adviser and a man often described as the 'real Foreign Secretary', and Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary and the man who answers directly to the Prime Minister.
At the end of the 'copy' list is a name that is to play a central role in Hutton's inquiry - John Scarlett, the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, who is ultimately responsible for intelligence reports surrounding Iraq and the drawing-up of the September dossier.
In one of the most remarkable documents to be published by Hutton, Scarlett's reply makes chilling reading. 'I agree with Kevin Tebbit's letter that the finger points strongly at David Kelly as Gilligan's source,' he wrote. 'Gilligan has only talked to one person about the September dossier. If he could have referred to any corroborating information, he would have done so. If this is true, Kelly is not telling the whole story.
'Gilligan must have got the 45-minute single intelligence report from somewhere, presumably Kelly. Conclusion: Kelly needs a proper, security-style interview in which these inconsistencies are thrashed out. Until we have the full story, we cannot decide what action to take. I think this is rather urgent.'
Kelly was on the verge of full disciplinary action. Someone of the seniority of Scarlett had bordered on accusing him of lying. Howard was also convinced that Kelly was the source. That weekend, Kelly arrived at RAF Honnington in East Anglia for a training session in preparation for a return to Iraq. Wells was with him to give a short introductory 'pep talk' for the inspectors who were about to return to a country struggling against lawlessness. Kelly was supposed to be there for two days. He never completed the course.
As Wells drove back towards London, his mobile telephone rang. It was Hatfield. Kelly would have to get back to Whitehall immediately. He would have to face another interview. The Prime Minister, it appeared, had let it be known that he wanted more details on whether Kelly was the source. Campbell now also knew about Kelly. Scarlett was demanding more answers. As was Tebbit. Wells called Kelly and Kelly began checking the train times to London.
On the afternoon of 7 July, at the hastily convened meeting, Hatfield demanded that Kelly go though his exact involvement with the September dossier. Kelly replied that he had first heard about in April last year, had drafted his contributions in May and June, and then went on annual leave. It was only when he returned in September that the Defence Intelligence Services asked him to look at the passages on biological weapons to see if anything else could be added. Kelly was told that a press statement was likely to be put out about the fact that he had come forward.
MoD officials who gave evidence last week insisted that Kelly was relaxed about the possibility of being named. His family said after his death that he was being put under 'intolerable pressure'. After his second interview, in which Kelly steadfastly stuck to the evidence in his original letter that Gilligan had misrepresented him, he was allowed to go back to RAF Honnington. His naming was now inevitable.
The next morning, at 8.30am, Kelly's mobile telephone rang. It was Hatfield. 'Carry on with your training and complete it,' Hatfield said. Plane tickets for his journey to Iraq were bought.
In the afternoon, Hatfield rang again. He went through with Kelly the press statement that the MoD was about to publish via Number 10. Kelly agreed.
The Government knew that, as soon as it was suggested that a source had come forward, there would be media demands for a name. A media strategy was put in place. Only when asked certain questions would press officers confirm details, carefully laid out on a briefing note sent to each official.
The document ran as follows:
Question: Who is the official?
Answer: The official works for the MoD.
Q: How long has he been in the MoD?
A: He has been in his current position for three to four years. Before that he was a member of Unscom [the United Nation's Iraqi weapons inspectorate].'
It went on, giving small pieces of information that, to anyone connected to the world of intelligence or reporting on it, would soon suggest a name. Kelly was described as a 'middle-ranking official'.
But this was a 'defensive strategy' with an offensive purpose. Inserted beneath the first Q&A were the words: 'If the correct name is given' - the words were underlined for emphasis - 'we can confirm it and say that he is senior adviser to the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat.'
In short, the Government had agreed to name Kelly. It was just a matter of time. By the next morning, the Times was already reporting that 'the adviser is understood to work for the Proliferation and Arms Control Secretariat at the Ministry of Defence'. Kelly was a whisker away from being named. When reporters started putting pieces of the jigsaw identification into internet search engines, the Government scientist's name kept cropping up.
Who was behind the strategy? For Hutton, this will be a key issue. Tomorrow, the inquiry will hear from Pam Teare, the director of communications at the MoD. It appears that it was at a meeting between herself, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, and Sir Kevin Tebbit, the MoD Permanent Secretary, that the media plan was agreed. Tebbit will give evidence on Wednesday. Their reputations are hanging on it.
Journalists will give evidence to Hutton on Thursday. The Guardian, the Times and the Financial Times got to the name of Kelly within 24 hours of the MoD press statement saying that an official had come forward. Campbell has denied to friends that he played any part in letting the name out.
Letters pinged back and forth between Tebbit, Hoon and the Foreign Office about whether Kelly should be asked to testify in public before the FAC. The FAC had recommended that Gilligan's contacts with Whitehall 'be investigated' and had asked the Government to do so. Tebbit had written to Omand again raising his concerns. Tebbit wanted to know what would be 'Kelly's readiness to be associated with a public statement that names him and carries a clear and sustainable refutation of the core allegation on the "45-minute" intelligence'. Tebbit felt the MoD had to act.
But he was not convinced about the need for such a public appearance. '[We must] show some regard for the man himself,' Tebbit said in a letter to Hoon. 'He has come forward voluntarily, is not used to being thrust into the public eye and is not on trial.'
Hoon did not agree. In a letter from his private secretary to the Foreign Office, it is explained that the Government might find it difficult 'presentationally' to defend a position where it agreed to Kelly appearing before a private session of the ISC, which answers to the Prime Minister, and not to appearing before a public session of the FAC, which answers to Parliament. Kelly was told that the MoD had agreed to him appearing before the FAC. Officials told the inquiry that, although nervous, Kelly agreed to appear. Then there was one last turn of the screw.
Kelly was invited to a meeting the day before he went to the FAC to go through with MoD officials what he might say. Howard strongly denied that Kelly was given any coaching: it was an opportunity to go through the facts. At the end of the meeting Wells handed him a sealed envelope. In it, less than 24 hours before he faced a public grilling that the MoD itself knew made Kelly feel nervous, was the formal letter from Hatfield saying that his behaviour was 'particularly ill-judged'.
Then came the trap line: 'I should remind you that the possibility of disciplinary action could be re-opened if any facts were to come to light that appeared to call into question the account and assurances that you gave to me.' Kelly's career was hanging by a thread.
Kelly limped though the FAC, speaking quietly and trying desperately to stick precisely to what he said to the MoD in the letter. After he left to try to get away, Wells and other officials kept calling. There was now the matter of detailing Kelly's contacts with other journalists, demanded in a parliamentary question from a Labour MP. Kelly drafted an answer. It wasn't good enough. His phone rang again. The MoD needed more detail. Kelly knew that one step out of line could mean the end of his career.
He stopped answering his phone. On Thursday 17 July, Wells made one final call to try to get to the bottom of who, exactly, Kelly had met in the media. The phone rang out without an answer. Kelly had already started his walk to the woods near his home where his body was found 24 hours later
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