LONDON, 29 August 2003 — Tony Blair was forced to admit yesterday that he was personally responsible for David Kelly’s identity being disclosed, in direct contradiction to his denial at the time of the scientist’s death.
During his much-awaited, historic appearance before the Hutton inquiry, the prime minister conceded his central role in the process which led to Kelly’s name being confirmed to the media.
The hearing was also told that Blair was the first member of his administration to reveal outside Whitehall that an official had come forward as the source of BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan’s claim that the government had “sexed up” the Iraq weapons dossier.
He broke the news to Gavyn Davies, the BBC chairman, during a telephone call early on the morning of Sunday, July 7, more than 24 hours before the information was made public in a press statement issued by the Ministry of Defense.
During — by the prime minister’s own account — an extremely busy time for him in both domestic politics and international diplomacy, Blair found the time to “scan” the MoD press statement, after it had been passed to his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell. He also chaired a series of meetings in Downing Street solely to discuss what to do about Kelly.
What was decided at the meetings set off the chain of events which was to lead to the public exposure of Kelly to intense media spotlight, his appearance before two parliamentary committees, and his death.
Blair told the inquiry that he had been guided by senior civil servants over the affair. But he added: “The responsibility is mine, at the end of the day. I take the decision as prime minister but I wanted to be able to say that we had played it by the book.”
Just over five weeks ago, on learning of Kelly’s apparent suicide during an official flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong, the prime minister had “categorically” and “emphatically” denied he had played any part in revealing the scientist’s name.
Blair, his ministers and spokesmen had subsequently declared that the Ministry of Defense had been left to handle Kelly after he volunteered the fact that he had discussed last September’s Iraq dossier with Gilligan.
Four days after Kelly’s body was discovered in an Oxfordshire wood, the prime minister’s officials spokesman was still insisting that the MoD was the “lead department” in working out the strategy over Kelly and that this had been done under “normal MoD procedure.”
But the prime minister, under questioning, conceded that no one was even present from the MoD at a crucial meeting on July 8, chaired by him, in which the decision was made to issue a statement about a civil servant coming forward as Gilligan’s contact. He also acknowledged there was no such thing as “normal MoD procedure “in these unusual situation.”
Blair said he had been concerned that the government would have been accused of a “cover-up” if the information had been withheld from the committee, which was why he turned to senior officials for advice.
“My concern was to get that information, not concealed but out there so no one could say afterward that this was something you were trying to cover up. That was the view of the meeting,” he said.
Blair told the inquiry that he had regarded the allegations in the BBC report as so serious that he would have had to quit if they were true.
“This was an absolutely fundamental charge. This was an allegation that we had behaved in a way that, were it true, it would have merited my resignation. It was not a small allegation, it was absolutely fundamental,” he said.
“This was an attack that went not just to the heart of the office of prime minister but also the way your intelligence services operated. It went, in a sense, to the credibility, I felt, of the country,” Blair said.
