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Pastimes : Rarely is the question asked: "is our children learning" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Sladek who wrote (1862)	1/23/2004 5:25:47 PM
From: John Sladek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2171

23Jan04-Peter Fray-Coroner suggests new Kelly probe Coroner suggests new Kelly probe By Peter Fray Europe Correspondent London January 23, 2004 A memorial of army boots, a pair for each US soldier who has died so far in the Iraq war has been assembled on the Federal Building Plaza in Chicago. Photo: Getty Images/AFP A British coroner is prepared to open a new inquest into the death of David Kelly, the weapons expert at the centre of claims the Blair Government "sexed up" intelligence on Iraq. A judicial inquiry, headed by senior judge Lord Hutton, is set to report potentially explosive findings on Dr Kelly's death next Wednesday but Nicholas Gardiner, the Oxfordshire Coroner, believes the inquiry was unable to examine all the evidence, The Times reported yesterday. At least five witnesses refused to release their statements to the Hutton inquiry and police handed Lord Hutton only 70 of the 300 witness statements they took during their inquiries, the newspaper said. "What their motives might be for not handing over their statements I have no idea but I think I ought to see them," Mr Gardiner told The Times. Mr Gardiner - whose inquest into Dr Kelly's death in July last year was adjourned under a law that allows a public inquiry conducted by a judge to fulfil the function of an inquest - intends to meet senior police officers this week to demand access to documents unseen by Lord Hutton, The Times said. advertisement advertisement Dr Kelly's body was found near his Oxfordshire home days after he was exposed as the source of a BBC report alleging Britain had "sexed up" intelligence on Iraq and its reported weapons of mass destruction. The Hutton inquiry into his death is expected to severely criticise the BBC and the British Government, which claimed in its September 2002 dossier that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction could be ready to use within 45 minutes. According to the BBC's Panorama program shown on Wednesday night in Britain, Dr Kelly believed Saddam Hussein's arsenal posed an immediate threat to Western interests but could not have been deployed within minutes, as the British Government claimed. In an interview with the BBC nine months before he died, Dr Kelly said that Saddam's chemical weapons could be "filled and deployed within a matter of days and weeks". The Hutton inquiry into Dr Kelly's death is expected to severely criticise the BBC and the British Government. Dr Kelly's previously unseen interview was made in the month after the controversial dossier's publication. Its broadcast by the BBC, a week before the Hutton report, raised questions about why it had not been shown before to defuse the increasingly heated stand-off last year between No. 10 Downing Street and the BBC over Iraq's weapons. In the interview, Dr Kelly was asked if Saddam's weapons posed an immediate threat. He replied: "Yes they are. Even if they're not actually filled and deployed today, the capability exists to have them deployed within a matter of days and weeks." The program also strongly criticised BBC bosses for "betting the farm" on the "shaky" story by BBC radio reporter Andrew Gilligan, which was later found to be flawed. Mr Gilligan's story cited claims by an unnamed senior intelligence source, later identified as Dr Kelly, that No.10 had "sexed up" the Iraq dossier. - US Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts said there was some concern that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had gone to Syria and vowed the US would continue searching for such arms in Iraq. "I think that there is some concern that shipments of WMD went to Syria," Senator Roberts, a leading member of President George Bush's Republican Party, said on Wednesday. He did not elaborate. - with AFP theage.com.au