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- The top official at the Ministry of Defence approved
a briefing note that led to David Kelly being publicly identified, it emerged
yesterday.
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- Sir Kevin Tebbit, the MoD permanent secretary, sanctioned
a policy which enabled journalists to identify quickly the government's
scientific adviser on biological and chemical warfare.
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- Despite denials by the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon,
that he played any role in outing Dr Kelly, it seemed the MoD wanted him
to be named.
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- The first hint leading to his identification was a passage
in its statement on July 8 describing him as someone "whose contribution
to the dossier of September 2002 was... drafts of historical accounts of
UN inspections". With other hints by both the MoD and Downing Street,
and his identification as a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, it was
only hours before his name was uncovered by journalists at the Guardian,
Financial Times, and Times newspapers.
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- MoD officials say the briefing note for journalists was
approved at the "highest level". This, they say, was a reference
to Sir Kevin. Others, including the anti-war former defence minister Doug
Henderson, say Mr Hoon was likely to have been informed. There is little
doubt that Number 10 was aware of the briefing note.
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- The Hutton inquiry is also likely to focus on the pressure
the MoD placed on Dr Kelly before and after he volunteered he had met the
BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan.
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- MoD officials insisted yesterday he was never threatened
with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act or with withdrawal of his
pension rights. "He was reminded that he had broken the rules and
that was the end of the matter," an MoD source said.
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- However, once he confessed privately he could have been
Gilligan's source, the MoD appeared to treat him as an outcast. Alastair
Hay, an environmental toxologist at Leeds University and friend of Dr Kelly,
described yesterday how he tried to get in touch on the day before he gave
evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee. "For 40 minutes
I tried to get through, it was like Kafka's Castle," Prof Hay said.
"Nobody took messages for him." Prof Hay eventually contacted
him via email.
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- Tom Mangold, a former BBC correspondent and friend of
Dr Kelly, told a Sunday paper that the scientist's daughter, Ellen Wilson,
said her father believed he had been badly treated by the MoD. "He
felt there was a total lack of support," he quoted her as saying.
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- There are unanswered questions on his treatment, why
he was kept in a "safe house" when he wanted to go home, and
why he was accompanied by MoD police - accountable to Mr Hoon - when he
gave evidence to the committee.
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- Also unknown are the terms of any deal the MoD may have
forced out of Dr Kelly. Ministry officials were clearly surprised when
he told the committee he could not have been Mr Gilligan's "main source"
on the basis of the reporter's story.
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- The MoD was even more furious when the committee concluded
Dr Kelly was not the main source. After his death, the BBC confirmed that
he was its source all along.
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- The ministry last night said it had been discussing with
Dr Kelly dates when he could return to Baghdad, where he was an adviser
to the Iraqi Survey Group, which the government desperately hopes will
find evidence of banned weapons.
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- Dr Kelly was deeply sceptical of the 45-minute claim
- saying it was inserted into the September dossier for "impact",
and of the existence of weapons before the war. However, he was said to
have been confident evidence of material for Iraq's banned weapons programme
would be found.
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1003383,00.html
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