LONDON, 25 August 2003 — Prime Minister Tony Blair was bracing yesterday for the toughest week of his political life, as the spotlight turned on his role in the death of an arms expert at the center of claims Britain went to war in Iraq under false pretences. On Thursday, Blair will testify to a judicial inquiry into the apparent suicide of government scientist David Kelly, an appearance which could potentially make or break his government.
With polls saying two-thirds of Britons believe he misled the country over the reasons for going to war, a mass of official documents newly released by the inquiry have placed Blair’s role in the affair under increasing scrutiny.
Among 9,000 pages published late Saturday were notes of government meetings suggesting the prime minister was intimately involved in deciding whether Kelly should be named as the source of a controversial BBC report into the case for war. Also deeply embarrassing for Blair is a letter showing the deep anger of Kelly’s family after government officials smeared the dead scientist’s reputation after his death.
Kelly’s body was found with a slit wrist in woodland near his home on July 18, shortly after he was identified as the informant for a BBC story alleging the government had exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq’s illegal weaponry.
The probe into Kelly’s death, led by senior judge Brian Hutton, will hear from Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon on Wednesday, with Blair called to the witness box at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London a day later.
Among the new documents — many of which would have normally been kept under wraps for 30 years — were notes of meetings Blair had with key officials over whether Kelly should be named.
A memo from top intelligence official John Scarlett contains details of a series of discussions with Blair about the issue.
“Agreement that the issue would eventually become public,” reads a note from July 8, ending: “Not much time left.”
Also released was an angry letter from Kelly’s widow and daughters demanding to know why government officials had likened Kelly to fictional fantasist Walter Mitty, a slur for which Blair’s spokesman apologized last month.
“If information of this nature is being disseminated, either formally or informally, I should like to know on whose authority this is being done,” the family’s solicitor said.
The Hutton inquiry has sat for two weeks, and has already heard a mass of sometimes impenetrable and often contradictory evidence.
However according to a poll released yesterday, the claim at the very center of the controversy — that Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq — is proving difficult for him to shake off.
According to an ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, 67 percent of respondents felt they had been deceived by Blair over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
A third said the prime minister should quit. Blair staked a huge amount of his credibility in persuading a skeptical public that Britain must support the US-led invasion of Iraq, and his government has bitterly rejected the BBC’s allegations of dishonesty.
Thus far, British newspapers say, neither side has proved their case. Nevertheless, they stressed yesterday, Blair still has a lot of explaining to do. It would be “ludicrous” to blame Blair for Kelly’s death, or to assume the scientist’s ambiguous comments to reporters undermined the case for the Iraq conflict, said the Sunday Telegraph.
“So, one has to ask: what was the prime minister so worried about?” it asked.
The Independent yesterday stressed that although Blair might not be personally at fault, he must “take responsibility for the behavior of his own people”.
“Even for a politician as skilled at answering, or perhaps more accurately avoid answering, awkward questions as Tony Blair, this coming week is likely to be a difficult one,” it predicted.
