The Hindu : A question of credibility

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 15, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

A question of credibility

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Tony Blair, facing the worst political crisis of his six years in office, must draw no cheer from a parliamentary committee report that has cleared his Labour Government of the serious charge that it "sexed up" an intelligence dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons capability. His credibility deeply eroded by the manner in which the United Kingdom joined the war of aggression and occupation against Iraq, Mr. Blair finds the report of the committee doing nothing to shore up his fallen stock. Of much greater import will be the findings of Lord Hutton who is enquiring into the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of a weapons scientist of stature and integrity, Dr. David Kelly. This extraordinarily transparent public enquiry has heard all the players involved and has been told by the widow of the scientist that he felt let down and betrayed by his employer, the Ministry of Defence. He was extremely angry, she told Lord Hutton, that his name was made public as the source of a contentious report in the British Broadcasting Corporation, which accused the Government of exaggerating intelligence and "sexing up" its dossier on the threat posed by Iraq during the run-up to the summer's war. Dr. Kelly reacted in sheer horror when his name was put in the public domain after being assured, apparently by his superiors in the Defence Ministry, that his voluntary disclosure of a briefing to a BBC reporter would be kept confidential. He felt he was treated "like a fly", she revealed.

It is quite possible that Lord Hutton will be unable to provide an answer to the main question: how did it become public knowledge that Dr. Kelly was the source of the BBC report? Mr. Blair agreed to testify before the enquiry in a characteristic show of political correctness. He strongly defended all aspects of his Government's use of available intelligence during the months leading to the war and the vigorous efforts of his officials to counter the BBC's charge on the weapons issue. But Ms. Kelly has contradicted some of his assertions on the Government's role in the Kelly affair. Her testimony has some devastating revelations on the disturbed state of mind of a cruelly hounded Dr. Kelly days before his suicide. The question before the enquiry is: did the Blair Government's all-out effort to refute the BBC include the decision to leak the name of Dr. Kelly through the public statement and through broad enough hints? Did these efforts, more covert than overt, lead to the scientist's breakdown and decision to end his life?

If Mr. Blair and his crisis managers had hoped to achieve some damage control by agreeing to the Hutton enquiry, they had miscalculated. Neither the unprecedented drama at the enquiry nor Alastair Campbell's pre-emptive resignation as Mr. Blair's communications director has helped the Prime Minister regain the trust and confidence of the general public. The widespread belief that the Blair Government deliberately misled the country by exaggerating the "threat" posed by the Saddam Hussein regime will only be confirmed by the circumstances surrounding the Kelly suicide and the testimony of his wife. The larger questions remain. These relate to the misuse of the intelligence machinery by Mr. Blair in support of a war-mongering Republican administration across the Atlantic and his inexplicable ardour for that illegitimate war, which is going so badly for the occupying powers. The findings of the Hutton enquiry have the potential to destabilise the Labour Government and destroy the remnants of Mr. Blair's credibility.

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