Death deals devastating blow to Iraq arms
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Sun Jun 19, 2005 18:05
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Death deals devastating blow to Iraq arms hunt
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/dkelly.htm
Martin Bright
Sunday July 20, 2003
The Observer
David Kelly was about to lead the British hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and had contacted former UN inspectors as recently as two weeks ago to sound them out about a new mission.
He was acting as the senior British scientific adviser to the Iraq Survey Group, the body set up by the US Government at the end of May to replace the United Nations weapons inspection regime.
One former UN inspector, who worked with Kelly on two missions to Iraq in the Nineties, said he had received an email from the scientist two weeks ago asking him join the survey group mission. Kelly was working directly under Brigadier John Deverell, the British second in command of the survey group.
The unit was set up in May and is led by Major-General Keith Dayton, director of operations for the US Defence Intelligence Agency. With offices in Iraq, near Baghdad airport, and a logistics base in Qatar, the survey group has a staff of around 1,400 people drawn from the US, Britain and Australia.
Former inspectors said the death of the British Government's most senior chemical and biological weapons scientist would be a devastating blow to the survey group.
'Everybody very much deferred to him. Other experts turned to him, he was a leader and people always listened when he spoke,' one former inspector who had worked with Kelly said.
The news that Kelly was to play a central role in the coalition's search for WMD will provoke further questions about the Ministry of Defence's decision to identify him and place him at the centre of a row between Downing Street and the BBC.
His prominence also contradicts briefings from the MoD that the man they believed to be the source of BBC reports that the Government had 'sexed up' its claims about Saddam Hussein's arsenal was a junior figure.
The survey group has already seized thousands of documents, computer records and reports that are believed to have informed the Government's view that some evidence of WMD programmes would be found, if not the weapons themselves.
His death was described as a devastating blow to the search for WMDs by colleagues who had worked with him in Iraq. 'All his knowledge died with him,' a former soldier who worked with him in Iraq said.
A UN nuclear inspector said Kelly was present when he was debriefed by the intelligence services on his return from Iraq. 'He was the boffin who used to sit in the background and ask questions. He was very senior on the weapons team in the Nineties and was very trusted by the MoD.'
Colleagues said they were appalled that such a senior and respected scientist has been treated so disrespectfully by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. 'I found that particularly unpleasant,' one said.
'It was nasty and unprofessional. The people who were doing the interrogation were not fit to sharpen his pencils.'
The work of hunting for weapons of mass destruction after the war was originally carried out by the 75th Exploitation Task Force of the US army.
Despite international demands for the job to be passed to the UN the allies set up the survey group with the aim of combining the work of US, British and Australian intelligence under one roof.
Although the US Government refused to allow the post-war inspections to be run under UN auspices, most of the senior staff are former UN weapons inspectors with many years of experience searching for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
MORE:>>
Doctor who exposed Blair found murdered
The Death of Dr. David Kelly
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/dkelly.htm
Mole casts doubt on MoD claims
Ciar Byrne
Tuesday July 15, 2003
Kelly: 'The account is not one that I recognise'
David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence mole who has admitted talking to BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan, has told MPs he may not have been the main source for the contentious claims that Downing Street "sexed up" a dossier about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Kelly told the foreign afffairs select committee that he met Gilligan in September 2002, in February before he went to Iraq, and again on May 22 at the Charing Cross hotel in central London.
But asked by MPs whether he thought he was the main source for Gilligan's report, Dr Kelly said: "No."
"From the conversations I had with him, I don't know how he could have had the authority to make the statements he is making," Dr Kelly said.
"It's not a factual record of my interaction with him. The account is not one that I recognise from my conversations with him," he added.
However, he said that there were some elements of Gilligan's report that did seem to have stemmed from their conversation, and he admitted that Alastair Campbell's name did crop up in their conversation in May.
Gilligan's source alleged that Mr Campbell had put pressure on the intelligence chiefs preparing the dossier last September to include the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy WMDs within 45 minutes.
"The Campbell word did come up from the conversation about Iraq, its weapons and the failure for them to be used," Dr Kelly said.
He continued to cast further doubt on whether he was the main source of Gilligan's report for BBC Radio 4's Today programme on May 29, which lead to a damaging row that has raged for weeks.
The BBC has always said that Gilligan had known the "senior intelligence source" whom he relied on in his report for several years.
When Dr Kelly first came forward and admitted he had briefed Gilligan, the MoD initially stated that he had known Gilligan for a few months, later changing this to years.
Today, Dr Kelly told MPs that he met Gilligan for the first time less than a year ago in September 2002, and then on two subsequent occasions.
"The approach by Mr Gilligan was to consult with me before he visited Iraq. The outcome of our meeting in February was that he would provide me with feedback of his visit to Iraq."
Of their subsequent meeting in May, he said: "It was an occasion when I expected to get information about Iraq, about some of the personalities he's encountered, his experiences during the war and with Iraqi minders before the war."
"My conversation with him was primarily about Iraq, his experiences in Iraq and the consequences of the war, the failure to use WMDs during the war and the failure to find - by May 22 - WMDs."
Dr Kelly said he could not be sure that he had not alluded to Campbell in his conversation with Gilligan, but said that it "didn't sound" like something he would say. "I find it very difficult to recall a conversation that happened six weeks ago. I couldn't say for certain that such a statement was made."
He added that it was not his decision to come forward publicly - "I don't know who made that decision, I certainly did not make it myself" - but said he "accepted" the process that had followed his decision to tell his superiors about the meeting with Gilligan.
Dr Kelly also confirmed that he had met Susan Watts, the Newsnight reporter who said she had talked to "a senior official intimately involved with the process of pulling together the September dossier".
Watts's source claimed the intelligence services came under heavy political pressure over the evidence that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could be ready for use within 45 minutes.
The BBC has refused to confirm or deny whether Dr Kelly was the main source of Gilligan's story.
When he gave evidence to the committee, Gilligan said he had met with a number of contacts to discuss Iraq's weapons.
Dr Kelly, the former head of microbiology at MoD research centre Porton Down, has advised the ministry on Iraq, WMDs and weapons inspections for the last decade.
ยท To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/dkelly.htm
Martin Bright
Sunday July 20, 2003
The Observer
David Kelly was about to lead the British hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and had contacted former UN inspectors as recently as two weeks ago to sound them out about a new mission.
He was acting as the senior British scientific adviser to the Iraq Survey Group, the body set up by the US Government at the end of May to replace the United Nations weapons inspection regime.
One former UN inspector, who worked with Kelly on two missions to Iraq in the Nineties, said he had received an email from the scientist two weeks ago asking him join the survey group mission. Kelly was working directly under Brigadier John Deverell, the British second in command of the survey group.
The unit was set up in May and is led by Major-General Keith Dayton, director of operations for the US Defence Intelligence Agency. With offices in Iraq, near Baghdad airport, and a logistics base in Qatar, the survey group has a staff of around 1,400 people drawn from the US, Britain and Australia.
Former inspectors said the death of the British Government's most senior chemical and biological weapons scientist would be a devastating blow to the survey group.
'Everybody very much deferred to him. Other experts turned to him, he was a leader and people always listened when he spoke,' one former inspector who had worked with Kelly said.
The news that Kelly was to play a central role in the coalition's search for WMD will provoke further questions about the Ministry of Defence's decision to identify him and place him at the centre of a row between Downing Street and the BBC.
His prominence also contradicts briefings from the MoD that the man they believed to be the source of BBC reports that the Government had 'sexed up' its claims about Saddam Hussein's arsenal was a junior figure.
The survey group has already seized thousands of documents, computer records and reports that are believed to have informed the Government's view that some evidence of WMD programmes would be found, if not the weapons themselves.
His death was described as a devastating blow to the search for WMDs by colleagues who had worked with him in Iraq. 'All his knowledge died with him,' a former soldier who worked with him in Iraq said.
A UN nuclear inspector said Kelly was present when he was debriefed by the intelligence services on his return from Iraq. 'He was the boffin who used to sit in the background and ask questions. He was very senior on the weapons team in the Nineties and was very trusted by the MoD.'
Colleagues said they were appalled that such a senior and respected scientist has been treated so disrespectfully by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. 'I found that particularly unpleasant,' one said.
'It was nasty and unprofessional. The people who were doing the interrogation were not fit to sharpen his pencils.'
The work of hunting for weapons of mass destruction after the war was originally carried out by the 75th Exploitation Task Force of the US army.
Despite international demands for the job to be passed to the UN the allies set up the survey group with the aim of combining the work of US, British and Australian intelligence under one roof.
Although the US Government refused to allow the post-war inspections to be run under UN auspices, most of the senior staff are former UN weapons inspectors with many years of experience searching for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
MORE:>>
Doctor who exposed Blair found murdered
The Death of Dr. David Kelly
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/dkelly.htm
Mole casts doubt on MoD claims
Ciar Byrne
Tuesday July 15, 2003
Kelly: 'The account is not one that I recognise'
David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence mole who has admitted talking to BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan, has told MPs he may not have been the main source for the contentious claims that Downing Street "sexed up" a dossier about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Kelly told the foreign afffairs select committee that he met Gilligan in September 2002, in February before he went to Iraq, and again on May 22 at the Charing Cross hotel in central London.
But asked by MPs whether he thought he was the main source for Gilligan's report, Dr Kelly said: "No."
"From the conversations I had with him, I don't know how he could have had the authority to make the statements he is making," Dr Kelly said.
"It's not a factual record of my interaction with him. The account is not one that I recognise from my conversations with him," he added.
However, he said that there were some elements of Gilligan's report that did seem to have stemmed from their conversation, and he admitted that Alastair Campbell's name did crop up in their conversation in May.
Gilligan's source alleged that Mr Campbell had put pressure on the intelligence chiefs preparing the dossier last September to include the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy WMDs within 45 minutes.
"The Campbell word did come up from the conversation about Iraq, its weapons and the failure for them to be used," Dr Kelly said.
He continued to cast further doubt on whether he was the main source of Gilligan's report for BBC Radio 4's Today programme on May 29, which lead to a damaging row that has raged for weeks.
The BBC has always said that Gilligan had known the "senior intelligence source" whom he relied on in his report for several years.
When Dr Kelly first came forward and admitted he had briefed Gilligan, the MoD initially stated that he had known Gilligan for a few months, later changing this to years.
Today, Dr Kelly told MPs that he met Gilligan for the first time less than a year ago in September 2002, and then on two subsequent occasions.
"The approach by Mr Gilligan was to consult with me before he visited Iraq. The outcome of our meeting in February was that he would provide me with feedback of his visit to Iraq."
Of their subsequent meeting in May, he said: "It was an occasion when I expected to get information about Iraq, about some of the personalities he's encountered, his experiences during the war and with Iraqi minders before the war."
"My conversation with him was primarily about Iraq, his experiences in Iraq and the consequences of the war, the failure to use WMDs during the war and the failure to find - by May 22 - WMDs."
Dr Kelly said he could not be sure that he had not alluded to Campbell in his conversation with Gilligan, but said that it "didn't sound" like something he would say. "I find it very difficult to recall a conversation that happened six weeks ago. I couldn't say for certain that such a statement was made."
He added that it was not his decision to come forward publicly - "I don't know who made that decision, I certainly did not make it myself" - but said he "accepted" the process that had followed his decision to tell his superiors about the meeting with Gilligan.
Dr Kelly also confirmed that he had met Susan Watts, the Newsnight reporter who said she had talked to "a senior official intimately involved with the process of pulling together the September dossier".
Watts's source claimed the intelligence services came under heavy political pressure over the evidence that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could be ready for use within 45 minutes.
The BBC has refused to confirm or deny whether Dr Kelly was the main source of Gilligan's story.
When he gave evidence to the committee, Gilligan said he had met with a number of contacts to discuss Iraq's weapons.
Dr Kelly, the former head of microbiology at MoD research centre Porton Down, has advised the ministry on Iraq, WMDs and weapons inspections for the last decade.
ยท To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857
