missing WMD expert is found dead!

Until yesterday, most Brits squarely laid the blame for Dr. Kelly's death with Blair and, especially, Alistair Campbell.

According to a Daily Telegraph poll, 65% thought Campbell should resign. And "almost as many voters believe Mr Blair should resign (39 per cent) as think he should stay on as Prime Minister (41 per cent)". "[T]hree times as many people said they trusted the BBC as trusted the Government" in the matter. (Voters pile blame on Blair and The nation loses its trust ...).

Then again, the parliamentary (cross-party) commission that grilled Dr Kelly in what was dubbed a "witch hunt" and the BBC itself don't look too good either. Dr Kelly's brother-in-law said he believed it was the "bullying way by the foreign affairs select committee" that "directly led to his suicide", whereas the Conservative MP for Dr Kelly's constituency is calling for the resignation of BBC chairman Davies.

As the Telegraph poll has it, "findings suggest that not only the Government but the entire governing class - the whole "Westminster village" and possibly, after yesterday, including the BBC - has suffered a grievous loss of moral credit." As the statement of Dr Kelly's family had it, "Events over recent weeks made David's life intolerable and all of those involved should reflect long and hard on this fact." (Family statement)

And today, the Murdoch papers (The Times, The Sun) are targeting all their fire at the BBC in what seems like one of Murdoch's political media campaigns.

The BBC isnt helped, however, by its own admission that "Dr Kelly was the principal source for [..] Andrew Gilligan's report". After all, Kelly had denied to MP's that he told Gilligan the things he reported. As The Mirror summarises, "that means either Dr Kelly lied to MPs when he said he was not the main source or Mr Gilligan exaggerated his own report". The BBC's and Gilligan's continued defence of the story thus offered an easy opportunity for The Sun to headline "You Rat - BBC Man Sinks to New Low by Calling Dead Doc a Liar".

Gilligan wrote that the government had "sexed up" intelligence reports - now he's under fire for having "sexed up" his own reports. The BBC can easily deflect some of the attacks, however, by pointing out that Dr Kelly also was the source for a Newsnight report and the Ten o'Clock News, in both of which he was quoted saying similar things to two further journalists. However, Gilligan's claims were unusually detailed (on the 45-minutes lie, for example), so the "sexed up" allegation remains, especially since he also misrepresented Dr Kelly's status in his report (Corporation in Deep Water).

Nor is the BBC helped by news of how it rejected government feelers about 'peace talks' last week, insisting instead on all-out defiance. It probably thought this was a good opportunity to demonstrate the BBC's independence (or as good as any), but "there are signs that BBC executives feel the pugnacious strategy was ill-judged, with hindsight at least. One well-placed source said last night: "The question that is being looked at [..] is whether it was right to mount an all-out defence, or whether it required more moderation: an admission perhaps that there were some aspects of the story that we cannot be entirely sure about." (BBC said no to truce).

As The Times summarises, "It has completely changed. The Government had about two days in the dock and now the BBC is under fire. [..] I think that the BBC will eventually have to admit that the report that caused all this trouble was actually not well based. Then it will have to explain why this was not made clear earlier. BBC executives will also be under pressure to explain why - once Dr Kelly's name was made public - they didn't confirm or deny whether he was the source. There is a view that his life would have been made easier if they had." (Q&A)

Yet, the key line there is "once Dr Kelly's name was made public". Thats when life got hard for Kelly. And who did leak his name, when the BBC itself refused to provide it, and thus focused all the media and political attention on the guy in the first place? Government press officers did.

The story here is that, when MoD inquiries about who had been Gilligan's source started, Dr Kelly came forward and told his superiors that he'd spoken with Gilligan, but "believed that [..] he could not be the source because he had not told the journalist anything about the document being 'sexed up'". The week after, "Senior government figures clearly wanted to end the row with the BBC as soon as possible - and thought it best to bring Dr Kelly out into the media spotlight to shoot down Mr Gilligan's version of events. [..] Dr Kelly said, in an interview with the Sunday Times shortly before he died: "I am shocked. I was told the whole thing would be confidential."' Will Hoon pay the price?

Reports on the way the MoD and No 10 spin doctors treated / used Dr Kelly in the process might target criticism right back at the government again. The Scotsman notes: "Dr Kelly was "put through the wringer" by defence officials. This process, and what it involved, will be at the heart of the inquiry. The phrase is Dr Kelly's own assessment of the way he was treated. He was shocked, frightened and mentally battered by the pressure brought to bear by the government. [..]

If officials working for him are found to have bullied and intimidated a government scientist to such an extent that it drove him to suicide, that will be enough to topple [Minister Hoon]. If it emerges that the bullying was done for political purposes, to get the government off the hook in a battle with the BBC, then it will become even more serious".

On a last point, conspiracy theories about "murder", meanwhile, seem mostly a lunatic fringe thing.

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Nice job, NIMH, and much appreciated. I'd disagree with dismissing the possibility of foul play as "a lunatic fringe thing." We need to remember we're paying the price for some major lunacy and even those who voted for it are having serious second thoughts.

Too often those dismissed as lunatics turn out to have been right...

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Might be of some interest as well to read the German papers on this

from dw-world (Deutsche Welle [English])

Quote:

The apparent suicide death of British weapons inspector David Kelly dominated the editorial pages of most German newspapers on Monday. Police found the body of the former UN weapons inspector and advisor to the Ministry of Defense in a wooded area on Friday. The BBC confirmed over the weekend that Kelly was the main source behind a story alleging the British government had "sexed up" a report used to justify going to war that claimed Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

The editors of Cologne's Stadt-Anzeiger [left-center] newspaper wrote that Kelly's death was a "tragedy." "The tragic end of David Kelly, the victim of the controversy between the government and the BBC, increases the ruinous deterioration in confidence in Tony Blair," the editors wrote, adding that the suicide also detracted from Blair's argument that the war in Iraq was justified even if no weapons of mass destruction were discovered. "To the citizens of Britain, the government looks more like a dubious used car dealer trying to jack up the price. Thanks to his war propaganda, the once so popular and self-confident premier is no longer." The paper concluded that Blair must stick to his promise to submit to an independent investigation, and added that the scientist's death may be the catalyst needed to bring a final close to what it termed "this dark chapter of the Blair era."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [conservative] also took on the issue of using questionable intelligence information to justify the war. "Not only the attempt, but the ways and means that Blair's government employed in its effort to set up weapons expert Kelly as a scapegoat go beyond the usual tricks of political spin," the paper wrote. "In recent years, Blair has repeatedly lost advisors who were unprepared to stand behind his somewhat unscrupulous positions and lies. Now it is frantically being asked whether the breakdown is the result of the failure of a few individuals, or of the so-called 'Blair System.' The Prime Minister, who assumed a high moral tone in the Iraq Affair, now may find himself on the pillory," the editors opined.

The Berlin-based Die Welt [very conservative] concluded that the latest scandal could destroy any of Blair's remaining credibility. The paper's editors wrote that Kelly's death belonged to what the paper called "a tableau of crisis and unfulfilled or ill-advised promises that have long overshadowed the Blair project." The paper went on to point out that "these weapons, which have not yet surfaced, may lead to the destruction of whatever credibility Tony Blair still maintains after six years in office." The paper also pointed out that the failure to verify the accusations detracted from what it called the "legitimate reason for intervention: namely, Saddam's failure to meet the 1991 UN resolutions.

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I'm glad you said that, Tartarin. I was feeling a little stung by that comment. (I don't mean to say that Nimh made it personally.)

Once made though, suspicions connected with anything other than politically expedient acceptable thought can just be laughed off. Calling something part of "the Lunatic Fringe" is a powerful tool. We have police authority and the media broadly assuming a suspicious death as suicide before forensics makes their pronouncements.

I don't think it is surprising to have a hard time buying that a man would commit suicide because he's lost the confidence of his superiors and was grilled publically. Neither does the government; they've initiated a big investigation. If Kelly had somehow caused the war in Iraq, he might be feeling guilty, that might be worthy of suicide, but he didn't. Anyway, look at Bush and Blair. They don't feel guilty. If Kelly had been threatened with losing his job... well, the UK still has laws. He could have kept his pension, surely, and maybe he would have LIKED to retire. Anyway, he could probably have gotten a job as a BBC consultant.

I think it is really strange that a BaHai would commit suicide. It just is awfully convenient, since dead men can't talk. Had he been more threatened than we've been told? To blame this on a civil servant seems too pat. There's a cover-up of some kind and I wonder if we'll ever know just what it is about.

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Tartarin wrote:

We need to remember we're paying the price for some major lunacy and even those who voted for it are having serious second thoughts.

Well, that'd be the lunatic mainstream. <grins>

Tartarin wrote:

I'd disagree with dismissing the possibility of foul play as "a lunatic fringe thing." [..] Too often those dismissed as lunatics turn out to have been right...

Well, I dont know. I first went digging through the UK papers to find out what exactly had happened, and only then came to A2K. And I was kinda shocked to find that discussion on the matter here had so very quickly and - yeh, almost as amatter of course, instinctually - descended into wholesale speculation about foul play and conspiracy theory.

Thats kinda a certificate of incompetence to me, the first slide into obscurantism. If you're gonna come up (not you, Tartarin, but you, people) with sinister conspiracy theories you'd better have some good cause or lead for it in the actual current event. Whereas here the associative jump to "it stinks" just kinda seemed to have taken the place of just informing oneself (all the good posts w/links notwithstanding). Any automatic, "WMD source + dead must = government conspiracy" equation is just lazy, and thats my first objection to it.

The second is that dabbling in conspiracy theories tends to take the place of sobre analysis, and usually takes a disucssion firmly into the talk radio gossip politics fringe. Its been the scourge of Serbian politics, for example. I mean, everything is possible, and in the case of Serbia some of the conspiracy theories turned out to be true - but all the other ones have meanwhile made a reasoned, rational political discourse, that doesnt turn on fear and distrust, impossible for over a decade, with all the consequences that has for political culture and the ability to take responsibility for things. I kinda feel strongly about it.

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Not to want to belabour the point (and still not meaning to get personal about it - <smiles> - but,

Piffka wrote:

We have police authority and the media broadly assuming a suspicious death as suicide before forensics makes their pronouncements.

Somebody cut his wrists - taking drugs that serve both as painkillers and to thin the blood - after having expressed intense stress and hurt at a witchhunt he'd suddenly become the object of. The family makes an official statement about the suicide, and blames all involved for it. What's so suspicious about media taking this at face value?

Piffka wrote:

I don't think it is surprising to have a hard time buying that a man would commit suicide because he's lost the confidence of his superiors and was grilled publically. Neither does the government; they've initiated a big investigation.

The investigation isnt about whether the death was suicide or something else. Its about what combination of events and misdeeds led to a situation in which he would commit suicide. (One could say its about apportioning blame, though they'll say its about making sure it wont happen again).

Piffka wrote:

If Kelly had been threatened with losing his job... well, the UK still has laws. He could have kept his pension, surely, and maybe he would have LIKED to retire. [..] It just is awfully convenient, since dead men can't talk. [..] There's a cover-up of some kind and I wonder if we'll ever know just what it is about.

He was one year away from his pension after a glorious career, and someone from his ministry openly speculated about how, if Dr Kelly turned out to be the source of the story, that would be the end to his career (see one of the links above).

This is a guy who's used to work brilliantly, but ever discreetly - who's used to government pressure on his job, but never experienced the media spotlight, and who was now suddenly thrown into the frenzy of a national media hysteria. Thats the image I took away from it, anyways. I dont have such a hard time "buying the story" that his suicide was the consequence.

I dont know - not to get too philosophical on a political thread, but sometimes, awful things happen, and when we cant accept the day-to-day lunacy of how little men can get caught up in the clashes of big things, and go under in the process, we make up conspiracy theories that would give it all more sense. See example of Serbia. Conspiracy theories, no matter how intricate, promise us the simplicity of a whodunnit, after all.

But sometimes, things are just what they are, in all their messy, inconsistent, multi-caused ugly complexity. It can still be worth trying to untangle all the elements and triggers, of course, but in the end that's still what we'll have to accept, in life.

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Taking issue with one of Walter's newspaper links--

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [conservative] also took on the issue of using questionable intelligence information to justify the war. "Not only the attempt, but the ways and means that Blair's government employed in its effort to set up weapons expert Kelly as a scapegoat go beyond the usual tricks of political spin,"
--------------
I think this is highly irresponsible journalism. Kelly made serious accusations against the Blair govt. You can't say in the safety of a darkened room--They lied to start a war--and think you won't have to stand behind your accusation.

Blair and Campbell had a right to hear the accusation from Kelly--and they AND the country deserved to question Kelly, as to what evidence he had to make such an allegation. Suppose Kelly was telling the truth? If he could produce evidence--shouldn't it be heard?

Possibly, a Blair lie or a Campbell 'sex up' job was Kelly's closely held opinion, based on nothing but a strong hunch. Perhaps the BBC went too strong with it, and painted Kelly into a corner. Then, Kelly finds himself strung out between the interviewer (BBC) and the British govt.

Didn't Kelly say at one point--I couldn't be the main source for that article. Because, perhaps, he was shocked that what he'd told the BBC could've been squewed into a damning accusation against Blair and Campbell?

Maybe the culprit was an overzealous BBC, wanting a hot headline.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

To the citizens of Britain, the government looks more like a dubious used car dealer trying to jack up the price.

In a poll earlier this month, 54% of respondents said that they "wouldn't trust [Blair] further than I could throw him" ... <grins>

Last month, polls showed that Blair, with a personal rating turned newly negative again (-13%), actually "is dragging his party down" (Tories regain ground ..) - a rather unusual state of affairs after so many years of the opposite.

Still, he need not necessarily worry too much, yet: his Tory opponent, Ian Duncan Smith, does even worse, with a negative of -20%. Only LibDem, leader Charles Kennedy has overwhelmingly positive rates, and any seats the LibDems are going to win in the next election are foremost going to be current Tory seats (Turning into a brick wall).

A new Guardian/ICM opinion poll that just came online (Iraq rows slash Labour's poll lead) shows the same trend: Labour is losing ground, but the Conservatives aren't winning. Labour support has gone further down from 38% to 36% this month (was 41% two months ago); the Tories are stable at 34%. The LibDems are up to 22% (parallelling their best scores since 1993), "others" (nationalists, greens) are up to 9%.

Compared with the last general election, Labour is down six points; the Tories are up one point. The Liberal Democrats are up three and the others up two, but in Britain's first-past-the-post system, the LibDems aren't going to win more than a small minority of seats, and the others hardly any at all.

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One of the many problems of our getting so much news so soon after the fact is that we tend to sit around and play "what if" and "well, maybe..." It's annoying for people on all sides of the issue because they "see" the answer or the probable answer before the facts are in and are forced to base their arguments on the media which are, much of the time, playing "let's suppose" themselves. I think it's fair to imagine scenarios, of course. But it's all a debate about how many angels on the head of a pin, ain't it, until the facts are in, or until someone arranges the "facts" the way some entity wants them to appear.

Didn't someone just post a poll showing that the BBC is more respected than Blair? Likely true. But then, we all know what we think about polls...

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Nimh, I didn't make up my suspicions out of whole cloth... I read every website linked including the reader opinions that expressed doubt. It made me wonder out loud. But today, the media pieces start by calling it a suspected suicide and then drop the word "suspected." Since it was so obvious, apparently there is a question about the need for any forensic testing.

Did anyone read the text of David Kelly's obituary in the London Times? Whoever wrote it went to great pains to discuss how cool Dr. Kelly was under pressure when dealing with the Iraqis and how frequently he was in intense meetings with people who were trying to hide things from him, how he thrived on it and was very good at his job. The obit even mentioned that he frequently made one Iraqi scientist cry before admitting what Kelly knew to be true. How could someone with that background be likely to kill himself after a day or two of intense grilling by MPs?

If he were so systematic as they say, wouldn't he have left a note?

He was considered a good man with a strong ethic, yet he leaves his wife and family alone to face even more intense media pressure?

Who were the dark characters that he alluded to in an email? Why wouldn't he have explained further to his friend... unless he expected to tell him more, later.

Why take the meds and stab yourself? The meds alone should have been enough.

As a civil servant in the United States, even if you lost your job under a cloud, you wouldn't lose your pension. Is that different in the more socialized UK? I doubt it.

I don't really know if he killed himself or not, but it seems it is in the best interests of the governments of the UK and USA plus the BBC & his own MoD if it is quickly declared that he did kill himself, case closed. It even makes his expertise and therefore his criticisms seem less profound. It might even be in the best interests of his family, at this point, to not delve too deeply into who might have wanted him dead, and why.

To see that he wanted himself dead... that is more difficult for me to understand. I hope the death is carefully investigated but it seems that is not going to happen. Everybody knows he committed suicide now. And that's the news as reported.

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Nimh, very good analysis.

nimh wrote:

On a last point, conspiracy theories about "murder", meanwhile, seem mostly a lunatic fringe thing.

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Sofia

Some of points really may be of high value to the US-journalism and the way, government handles journalists, media and the freedom of the press.
This is seen somewhat different in Europe - although gouverbnments always try to fund out journalist's sources.

The UK-press meanwhile spotlights on the circumstances, who (could have been Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon most likely - if any) made public Dr. Kelly's name during the dispute over Iraqi weapons which ultimately led to his death.

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Well said, Frolic!

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Okay -- here's a conspiracy-style question:

Could paracetamol mask the presence of a psychosis-producing drug?

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The BBC is back on the offensive today as the tide of indignation turns at the government again ...

First off, the BBC is coming up with materials to substantiate its case that its reports did not "spice up" what Dr. Kelly had said, both to Andrew Gilligan and to Newsnight's Susan Watts and the Ten O'Clock News' Gavin Hewitt.

BBC to produce Kelly tape in bid to exonerate reporter

Quote:

Susan Watts, science editor of Newsnight, recorded her conversations with the weapons expert, who killed himself on Thursday.

In her report she quoted a "source" - now known to be Dr Kelly - [..] saying of the [the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes]: "It was a statement that was made and it just got out of all proportion. They were desperate for information, they were pushing hard for information which could be released. That was one that popped up and it was seized on and it's unfortunate that it was. [..]"

The BBC believes the tape is the "smoking gun" that will exonerate Andrew Gilligan, the Today programme correspondent who originally reported the suggestion that No 10 included the 45-minute claim in the September dossier on the case for war "to make it sexier", against the wishes of the intelligence community. [..]

The BBC will submit the tape to the judicial inquiry led by Lord Hutton [..].

Gilligan checked quotes with Kelly

Quote:

BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan went back over his conversation with David Kelly at the end of their May 22 meeting to confirm the quotes he could use, the inquiry into the circumstances of the microbiologist's death will be told. [..]

Gilligan is said to have made contemporaneous notes about his May 22 meeting with Dr Kelly in a central London hotel on an electronic device, which has been kept under lock and key by the BBC [..]

This evidence will be used to counter accusations Gilligan over-hyped or misrepresented what Dr Kelly had told him.

Secondly, now that the working thesis is that Dr Kelly committed suicide because he could not bear what is now described as having been a political / media witchhunt, the question has turned back (kinda as predicted in my last paragraph yesterday) to who leaked his name as being the source for the BBC report - when the BBC itself refused to name it. "The provenance of Dr Kelly's name in the media has become the new focus of the ongoing blame game over Dr Kelly's apparent suicide" (Blair denies role in naming Kelly). The finger now firmly points at the Ministry of Defence, with speculations of direct No. 10 input.

First, on July 8 Minister Hoon "drop[ped] a series of enticing clues which made it much easier for journalists to track down who the "mole" was", with a No 10 press officer providing more details that allowed journalists to narrow [a list of 11 possible names] down to two or three. The day after, when "one journalist rang up with three names, [he was] told the third was correct". On July 10, three newspapers first published Dr Kelly's name (Dead civil servant entangled in a political web). "The decision to name Dr Kelly is believed to have been taken on 9 July [..] The decision was a break with normal practice and critics claim it was designed to force Dr Kelly into the open to undermine the BBC." (Defence Secretary ordered outing of Kelly).

Now, one may well say, why wouldnt the MoD insist on bringing the name out in the open? Kinda like Sofia said: if the man went to talk to BBC reporters in order to claim that the government's case for war had been flawed, why wouldnt the government defend itself by outing the name of the person making the claim, in order to argue that he didnt know all the relevant info?

But now that Dr Kelly is dead, such a defence sounds feeble. Here is a man who's portrayed as a classic civil servant, with a strong sense of pride in his work, used to work in discretion. Yes, as Piffka pointed out, he was "cool under pressure when dealing with the Iraqis" - but what was to happen next was a wholly different beast. He'd been used to the kind of pressure a good guy is supposed to face when confronting the bad guy - but now, suddenly, once his name was leaked, he was in the spotlight as some kind of bad guy, with his own superiors insinuating he had committed some kind of betrayal, and that it would be the end of his career.

If he was such a man of strong ethic, Piffka, the issue about that wouldnt be about "losing his pension" - it would be about the loss of his reputation, pride, respect - a thus far brilliant career blackened by an ignonimous end - that would be the motivation behind the suicide.

From that perspective, the MoD's behaviour seems disgraceful. The media have the full right, one can easily argue - duty, even - to protect their sources - so the BBC did good there. The move of Dr Kellys own employers to then out him themselves, sacrificing the man's well-being in order to defuse a story that embarassed them, in the light of his subsequent suicide seems of a lethal opportunism. And that's the impression that lingers today, echoing concerns that have vexed many Britons about the Blair administration, in general - as illustrated in this op-ed:

The Scotsman: Brutality of modern politics finally laid bare

Quote:

There is, however, another reason for the deep sense of disquiet provoked by Dr Kelly's death. It is to do with the sharp contrast between the scientist's behaviour and that of the other players in the saga. I don't mean just the egotistical, idiotic pride of Campbell, prepared to go to any lengths to defend what he saw as his honour. We've all experienced that kind of destructive anger, though possibly not quite on that scale.

Nor do I mean the blustering [..] of Gilligan and the BBC, who, when they realised just what they had unleashed, should have worked diligently to support their claims with other sources and better evidence. [..] Instead, they embellished the story and gave Dr Kelly's words a weight he clearly never intended them to have. We've all been guilty of exaggeration and pomposity, though rarely with such grim consequences.

No, what is really disturbing about this case is the way it exposes the brutality of modern politics. Rarely is it quite so savage and rarely do we glimpse it in all its naked barbarity, but the kind of brutality which led Dr Kelly to take his own life is a very close relative of the kind of brutality which has characterised Tony Blair's years in power.

Throughout his time in office, political opponents within Labour have been discredited. Dirty tricks have been deployed. Those not prepared to toe the party line have been bullied. Those who might compromise the government have been hung out to dry. Lies have been repeatedly told. The victims have been left badly bruised - though never before dead. The hardest ministers, such as John Reid, have thrived in this administration. The most humane, such as Estelle Morris, have languished.

Politics has always been a dirty business, but it has rarely been this filthy. [..] Charlie Whelan, the former government spin doctor, told me that he used to make intimidating phone calls to journalists in the middle of the night. He admitted to "doing-in Cabinet ministers" and talked cheerfully of "putting the boot into the bastards".

In ten days' time, Blair will become the longest-serving Labour prime minister in British history, and it could be argued that these bully-boy techniques have allowed him to stay at the top for so long. They may yet, however, be the cause of his demise.

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On a a lighter note ...

Blair is mostly known (and notorious) for being a control freak, right? Now, his wife Cherie singing a Beatles song to Chinese students today, moments after her husband discussed Dr Kelly's suicide, may have made the news solely because of how its been slammed as being inappropriate. But look at this dialogue here, between Tony and Cherie. Ooooo - doesnt he just know how to get his exact little way! While all the while sounding like he's giving everyone (in casu, his wife) a free choice!

Cheeky little manipulator ... ;-)

Quote:

As Mr Blair shook hands with academics, a student piped up: "Sing us a song".

Mr Blair replied: "Song? The Beatles? Where's my wife? Anyone who thinks this is scripted this morning, this is certainly not scripted."

As Mrs Blair joined her husband she said: "They want a Beatles song, people want us to sing, they want me to sing?"

Mr Blair replied: "Yes."

Mrs Blair said: "What do they want me to sing?"

A student shouted: "The Beatles."

Mr Blair turned to his wife and said: "You can sing anything you like - When I'm 64."

Mrs Blair then sang the first verse of the song and was greeted with warm applause by the students.

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David Kelly's death is an event waiting for a conspiracy theory, just like the assassination of President Kennedy and the Paris car crash that killed the Princess of Wales. The speculation is not confined to the clientele of Darcus Howe's local pub or to our diarist Boy George; according to our political editor's report, even some friends of Dr Kelly find it hard to believe that he really committed suicide. But though many questions will be raised about what drove to despair a man with no apparent history of mental illness - to which the answers may possibly be found in the days when he was interrogated by the Ministry of Defence or in the period when he stayed in a "safe" house, away from media communication - a murder conspiracy seems implausible. The real cover-up is a broader one.

The battle between Alastair Campbell and the BBC has buried the important issue: the way the British (and indeed, the American) people were given a false prospectus of the reasons for going to war in Iraq. Whether intelligence information was distorted or exaggerated by ministers and their henchmen is beside the point, and it is wholly contrary to British doctrines of ministerial responsibility for anybody to try to make it the point. Intelligence is always a matter of interpretation; it is by its nature dodgy. Ministers took the decision to publish and to use the information to support the case for war. Their intention was propagandist. They should bear the responsibility whether or not there was sexing up.

From what we know now, Saddam certainly did not pose an imminent threat to British and US interests, and probably not a long-term one. The British government stated that "Iraq has a useable chemical and biological weapons capability . . . which has included recent production of chemical and biological agents"; that Iraq could deliver such agents "using an extensive range of artillery shells, free-fall bombs, sprayers and ballistic missiles"; that they could be deployed "within 45 minutes of a decision"; and that "Iraq continues to work on developing nuclear weapons . . . uranium has been sought from Africa". The case for war, even on the evidence presented, was not a strong one; if these statements were wrong (and at least two clearly were), the case was non-existent.

It is not good enough to say that everything turned out for the best, that a brutal tyrant was overthrown, that his equally nasty sons are now dead and that the Iraqi people rejoice. The armed forces are not a branch of Amnesty International; there is no international legal framework for disposing of tyrants, and the British and US governments do nothing to encourage one. The military is supposed to defend national interests; that is the basis on which parliament votes the money. If western interests are under as severe and constant a threat as US and British rulers say they are, military planning, resources and lives have been wasted on the wrong target. The chiefs of the UK defence staff constantly complain about overstretch. The US army has 33 combat brigades; 16 are now in Iraq. The war and the continuing occupation of Iraq are serious misuses of public money. Those are the grounds for inquiries and investigations, not who said what about whom on Radio 4.

Mr Campbell's attack on the BBC was an attempt to divert attention from the important questions; the belief that attack is the best form of defence, that the best PR is pre-emptive, is fundamental to the new Labour project. If he wished to deny that he personally originated false claims in the Iraq dossier, Mr Campbell could have done so without going on to demand a full apology from the BBC or to insist that the entire corporation was engaged in an anti-war campaign. When the BBC rose to his challenge and tried to defend the credibility and stature of its source - rather than just saying, as it should have done, that its journalists never discuss their sources in any way - Mr Campbell must have been overjoyed. In many ways, it was his finest hour; the whole thrust of the foreign affairs select committee inquiry was thrown off course. The cover-up went horribly wrong. Cover-ups often do. But do not be deceived: Mr Campbell is still ahead.

A judicial inquiry will now look specifically into the Kelly affair with no remit to investigate wider issues. It will probably report around the time of the TUC conference, when other political news is beginning to crowd the agenda. Possibly, it will require the resignation of the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, and even of Mr Campbell; more likely, it will report faults here and faults there, with nobody really to blame. Everybody will have forgotten about the war. The cover-up will remain intact.

The masters of memory
And you think that after, say, half a century, everybody will forget what this sexed-up business was about? Think again. In 1946, Labour's attorney general, Sir Hartley Shawcross (who died this month as Lord Shawcross, aged 101), said in the Commons: "We are the masters now." Or did he? Not according to the Times obituary: he actually said: "We are the masters at the moment and shall be for some considerable time." Wrong, says Donald Bruce, then PPS to Aneurin Bevan, now Lord Bruce of Donington, aged 90. In an "emphatic modification" to the obit, he insists Shawcross did say "we are the masters now": "I was sitting immediately behind him." Hansard has a third version ("we are the masters at the moment . . . and for a very long time to come"). Hansard can be rewritten at a speaker's request. Lord Bruce's memory cannot be rewritten, and so an ancient tribal quarrel continues beyond the grave.

Source: NS: The Cover Up

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Some media companies are to urge Lord Hutton to have his inquiry into the death of Iraq weapons expert Dr David Kelly broadcast in full.

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Nimh -- I take your point about conspiracy theories, believe me. In fact I would once have been wholly on your side.

But years (I'm ancient!) spent watching "lunacy" and "jumping to conclusions" turn out to be sanity and good instinct on the part of others -- who kept their eyes and minds open -- have changed my attitude completely. If I had my druthers, we would cut the amount of speculation down by about 90%; but if I had my druthers, we would also have a much more responsible media and reliable reporting.

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To some people Dr. Kelly would be a hero and one of the few to speak out and say what he believed to be the truth, not simply and quietly going along with his governmental propaganda line. To my mind there is no shame in that. His cohorts from the UN Inspection Teams were not looking down their noses at him for questioning his government.

When I mentioned Kelly's reported strong ethic, it seemed strange to me that he would leave his family dangling -- no note of explanation, the horror of even greater & more intimate media attention, plus the daily tragedy of living within two miles of where he reportedly slit his wrist.

It certainly is true that the real questions of why we are in Iraq have been side-stepped again.

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missing WMD expert is found dead!

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