The Hindu : Kelly interview triggers call for probe into Govt. action

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 23, 2004

International

International

Kelly interview triggers call for probe into Govt. action

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, JAN. 22. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is facing fresh calls for a judicial inquiry into his Government's justification for the invasion of Iraq after the BBC telecast a previously unseen interview with the weapons expert, David Kelly, in which he questioned the British claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons capability.

In the interview, filmed in Oct 2002, shortly after the British Government published its controversial intelligence dossier on Iraq, Kelly pointedly contradicted the claim in the dossier that Iraq could deploy its WMDs within 45 minutes-a claim which was repeated by Mr. Blair in Parliament and led many hitherto sceptical MPs to be persuaded into supporting the war.

Kelly, who later committed suicide after being caught up in a row over allegations of abuse of intelligence by the Government, also questioned the suggestion in the dossier that the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was prepared to use its WMDs in the build-up to the war to ward off an attack.

"I think he would be reluctant to use them in the build-up to the war — in the transition to war — because he knows what the response would be. It would be utterly devastating to him,'' he said.

Kelly acknowledged the `threat' from Iraq but said it could take "days or weeks'' rather than 45 minutes to deploy its weapons.

Inexplicably, the interview was never telecast though the BBC claimed that it had been submitted to the Hutton inquiry into the death of Kelly. Its telecast on Wednesday night as part of a special BBC Panorama programme on the Kelly affair, a week before the Hutton inquiry report is due, revived the controversy over allegations that the Government exaggerated the threat from Iraq in order to justify an attack. The Opposition seized on Kelly's remarks and Panorama's criticism of intelligence agencies to push for an independent inquiry into the events leading up to the war.

"It is a great shame that Kelly's remarks were not presented publicly as evidence to the Hutton inquiry. His comments do place his views at odds with those presented in the government's dossier. This interview reinforces the case for full independent judicial inquiry into the run-up to the Iraq war which we have been calling for,'' the Tory shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram, said. This was echoed by the Liberal Democrat spokesman on foreign affairs, Menzies Campbell, who said nearly a year after the war the Government had not been able to justify its case.

The 90-minute Panorama programme "A Fight to the Death'', produced by the BBC's current affairs staff and apparently not seen by the corporation's top bosses in the interest of neutrality, was unusual in that it also criticised the broadcaster for its handling of the Kelly affair. It said the BBC's defence of its reporter, Andrew Gilligan, whose report alleging that the Government had "sexed up'' intelligence triggered the events leading to Kelly's death, was based on a "shaky foundation''. Despite previous concerns over Mr. Gilligan's use of `loose' language, no attempt was made to check the notes of his interview with Kelly to whom he attributed the "sexing up'' allegation, the programme said.

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Kelly interview triggers call for probe into Govt. action