David Kelly was one of the world's foremost experts on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. He was also the main source for a claim by Andrew Gilligan, a BBC reporter, that Blair's government had rewritten publicly-released intelligence to make it "sexier", in the hope of justifying the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Following the Gilligan claim, Kelly was identified as the source of the leak. A few days after a stressful appearance before a Parliamentary committee investigating Mr Gilligan's allegations, he was found dead in the woods near his Oxfordshire home. The official account (given in the Hutton Report) was suicide.His death is in the news again after a group of doctors wrote to the Times newspaper, claiming that the suicide verdict is unsafe and demanding a proper inquest. That is only right and proper: this was a man, after all, who felt so hounded by his employer that he seemingly resorted to taking his own life.
There were a number of problems with this:
- there were no fingerprints on the knife used to cut Dr Kelly's wrist, for instance,
- Dr Kelly apparently suffered from an allergy to medicine that might have made swallowing the pills impossible.
Blair's apologists are out in force in the papers today trying to make the Times letter appear a conspiracy theory. They are saying that no British Prime Minister would sanction such a thing in any circumstances. That may or may not be true. But what about, for example, Blair's 'Friends of Israel' cronies who have a long form-sheet for this kind of thing. Israel had a vast vested interest in Saddam being brought down at any cost. They have resorted to assassination pre- and post- the death of Dr. Kelly. An inquiry would shed light into this very murky affair. Whatever would come out, that light will not shine favourably on Blair or his warmongering friends.
However, he was forced to abandon this plan following a “coup” led by Mr Brown’s supporters. The “understanding” between Mr Bush and Mr Blair was revealed to the media by well-placed Whitehall sources. The fact that Mr Blair acted on US warnings over his likely successor will dismay many in the Labour party who were deeply unhappy about Mr Blair’s readiness to back Mr Bush at all times, particularly over the decision to wage war with Iraq in 2003. Following the meeting with Miss Rice, Mr Brown’s advisers were convinced that Mr Blair was starting to groom Mr Miliband, the then environment secretary, as his successor. They were particularly enraged when Mr Blair described Mr Miliband in an interview as “my Wayne Rooney”. However, Mr Blair also played what Brown allies now see as a “double game”, warning the then chancellor that he needed to adopt a different attitude towards senior American politicians.
