The Beginning of the End of D.C. Kelly

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government



Two lies were pivotal to the invasion of Iraq: one was that the mobile laboratories found in Iraq were evidence of WMD, and the other was that WMD could be launched from Iraq at British bases in Cyprus within 45 minutes. Kelly demolished them both. It was he who had leaked to the Observer that the mobile laboratories were not for WMD, and it was he who had expressed deep unhappiness with the claim that WMD could be launched from Iraq in 45 minutes. Kelly was one of the most senior and highly-respected weapons inspectors. His return to Iraq on 26 July 2003, a date that was confirmed by the MoD the day before he disappeared, would have risked his being able to demonstrate conclusively that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.



In one particular Kelly was definitively at odds with what both George Bush and Blair were claiming about post-war discoveries of Iraqi weapons. Both had insisted that Coalition Forces had found and identified two alleged mobile germ warfare laboratories. But Kelly had a totally different opinion, telling The Observer that he had examined the alleged labs in person and had no doubts about what they were intended for - the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons. 'Exactly as the Iraqis described them,' he would tell this paper



Neither man, however, could foresee the profound implications that meeting would have; how both would be hounded by Ministers and government officials over who said what to whom. In particular, neither could foresee the consequences of allegations - denied by Kelly - that he had told Gilligan how Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's Director of Communications, had improperly 'sexed up' the Government's September dossier, which presented the pressing evidence of Iraq's weapons programmes.



One claim in particular infuriated Campbell and the Government when it appeared in an article by Gilligan - that a senior intelligence source had told him the communications chief had insisted on including a contested claim that Iraq could 'deploy' its weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.

Dr. David Christopher Kelly, born on the 14th of May 1944, was born in Rhondda,Wales. He eventually became one of the world's leading experts on biological warfare, as we know, joining the Ministry of Defense (MOD) in 1984. And during the 90’s he even served as one of the top United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. On the 17th of July, 2003, however everything changed as Kelly was dead through means we've never been able to fully establish and by the next morning on the 18th, he was found a mere couple of miles away from his home in Oxfordshire. He was found by two volunteer searchers on Harringdown hill, a popular spot he visited often for his walks in fact. His wife had reported him missing around midnight the previous day and he was found the following morning a short while after 9am.The verdict was that Kelly had committed suicide by cutting his left wrist with a garden knife and he's also said to have ingested a maximum amount of 29 painkillers and co-proxamol drugs as well, of which he obtained through unclear means. The slit wrist was the official cause of death. But the question remains - Why would he kill himself? What was the reasoning, the motive and so on? He was after all an unlikely candidate for such an act, having no previously known interest or record of this kind of thing according to friends, as well as psychiatric treatment.Well, a possible motive, one accepted by the official version of events, points towards the fact that Kelly had been recently thrown firmly into the public spotlight and in his eyes in a very negative way indeed, something he just could not handle and so he took his own life - A very plausible explanation on the face of it as far as I’m concerned at least. But, there is far, far more to the story than that and to truly come to a conclusion we must go to the very beginning...The British government wanted a war in Iraq, that we all know. They wanted it and they sure as hell got it, and then some. But in order to justify their actions, they in particular released what we know as the 'September Dossier' , also known as ''. With-in the dossier were claims that Iraq had continued Its nuclear program, had achieved production and was in possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD's), including chemical weapons and biological weapons, and most importantly and of course controversially, they could launch a nuclear weapon with-in 45 minutes, the now infamous 45 minute claim , something the newspapers over here in the UK had a field day with. Kelly proved these claims wrong:On the 22nd of May, a journalist by the name of Andrew Gilligan (pictured below) sought out the attention of David Kelly – Not particularly odd really as he was well known to journalists at that point, even briefing them as part of his job. Kelly had received the highest level of security while working for the MOD, he was privy to all kinds of information high up on the national security food chain.Anyway, they met via an unauthorized meeting - in the sense that Kelly’s superiors didn’t know it was taking place - at a hotel at Gilligans request, the Victorian Charing Cross hotel, in order to discuss the current situation in Iraq which was coming under more and more scrutiny with each passing day due to the failure of coalition forces to find the promised Iraqi's weapons of mass destruction. Kelly being the perfect man for him to seek out – He was after all the former head of biological inspections in Iraq for the UN mission, Unscom, former deputy head of Porton Down and the Ministry of Defence's senior adviser on biological defense.Despite speaking on what's known as an "Unattributable Basis", which translates to allowing the interviewer, in this case Gilligan on behalf of the BBC, to report what was said but not allowing the identity of the source, Kelly, to be revealed, this interview would become the beginning of the end for Kelly, sparking a series of events ultimately leading to his own death via suicide or quite possibly murder at the hands of those who wanted to quite literally shut this particular scientist up.On the 29th of that very same month, Andrew Gilligan, whilst appearing on the today show here in the UK, revealed that he had a source whom revealed to him that the 45 claim in particular was false and the government, in particular Director of Communications and Strategy Alistair Campbell, , who would later resign during the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Kelly, placed it in the September Dossier knowing full well that it was false, and in turn "sexed-up" the dossier to make it more attractive to the public in an effort to gain extra support for the on-going war in Iraq. Despite these claims, Kelly, knowing full well that he had a meeting with this individual a short while before, denied he could be the source, believing that, if indeed he was, his words were taken out of context.The leak had inadvertently created a massive political storm between the BBC, whom Gilligan worked for of course, and the current Labor government, with Kelly still unknown and right in the middle of it all. Despite believing he was not the source, as he claimed what was revealed to Gilligan was not what he was actually reporting in public, he still took the difficult decision to contact his superior at the Ministry of Defense and reveal the details of his unauthorized meeting that had taken place.

(Alistair Campbell)



When he appeared before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on 15 July 2003, Kelly appeared to be under severe stress, which was probably increased by the televising of the proceedings. He spoke with a voice so soft that the air-conditioning equipment had to be turned off, even though it was one of the hottest days of the year.



His evidence to the committee was that he had not said the things Gilligan had reported his source as saying, and members of the committee came to the conclusion that he had not been the source. Some of the questioning was very precise. The Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay, in particular, used a forceful tone in his cross-examination. For example, when asked to simply list the journalists that he met, Kelly declined to answer and requested that such a list be sought from the MoD, which triggered a response: "...This is the high court of Parliament and I want you to tell the Committee who you met... You are under an obligation to reply". The Chairman of the Committee (Donald Anderson) underscored the validity of MacKinlay's question telling Kelly: "It is a proper question... If you have met journalists there is nothing sinister in itself about meeting journalists, save in an unauthorised way." Mackinlay offered his opinion that Kelly had been used by Gilligan telling Kelly: "I reckon you are chaff; you have been thrown up to divert our probing. Have you ever felt like a fall-guy? You have been set up, have you not?"



Kelly was deeply upset by his treatment before the Committee and privately described MacKinlay as an 'utter bastard.' During the hearing, he was closely questioned about several quotes given to Susan Watts, another BBC journalist working on Newsnight, who had reported a similar story. It later emerged that Gilligan had himself told members of the committee that Watts' source was also Kelly. Kelly denied any knowledge of the quotes, and must have realised that he would have serious problems if the Ministry of Defence believed he had been the source of them. On the following day, (16 July 2003), Kelly gave evidence to the Intelligence and Security Committee. He told them that he liaised with Operation Rockingham within the Defence Intelligence Staff.

edit on 3-12-2012 by Rising Against because: (no reason given)



He was ultimately questioned a number of times but they could not even be sure if he was indeed the source used. Gilligan very well could’ve had someone else that they had no idea about. Eventually however, the MOD pressed ahead and publicly revealed that an employee of theirs had come forward who might be the source but in doing so they deliberately left clues for journalists to easily reveal the identity of the source, which they did so. The government handed him on a plate to the press and Kelly's name was now out, and he didn't like it one bit. He even spoke of leaving his home and travelling to Cornwall with his wife in an effort to escape the media storm now surrounding him.As well as receiving this already horrible public attention that he didn’t want one bit, as he seemed to feel as though his reputation was in pieces, he was then made to appear before two committees in the House of Commons that were investigating the situation in Iraq as well as the recent leak, one of which would be live on television, something that distressed Kelly even more.A few days later, on the 17th of July, Kelly left his home in the afternoon and went on a walk, something he did often. Prior to it however, and after his questioning, he's been confirmed to have sent various emails to friends and colleagues of his, as well as replying to a myriad of supportive emails sent to him in the first place, telling them that there is "many dark actors playing games" and approximately 3 hours before his walk telling friend Judith Miller "Many thanks for your support. Hopefully it will soon pass and I can get to Baghdad and get on with the real job."Unfortunately however, the next morning he was suddenly and rather shockingly found dead after apparently overdosing on pills and slitting his left wrist, the latter being the official cause of death due to a haemorrhage. His lifeless body was found on Harrowdown Hill. And It was there in particular where the vast majority of the official story fails to make much sense at all.