David Kelly

Dr. David Christopher Kelly CMG (May 17, 1944 – July 17, 2003) was an employee of the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), an expert in biological warfare, and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. His talk with a journalist about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inadvertently caused a major political scandal, and he was found dead days after appearing before a Parliamentary committee investigating it. The Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into his death, found that he had committed suicide.

Contact with Andrew Gilligan

On May 22, 2003, at the Charing Cross hotel in London, Kelly met with Andrew Gilligan, a BBC journalist who had spent the war in Baghdad. Kelly was anxious to learn what had happened in Iraq, while Gilligan, who had discussed a very early draft of the dossier with Kelly, wished to ask him about it in light of the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction. They agreed to talk on an unattributable basis, which allowed the BBC to report what was said, but not to identify the source. Kelly told Gilligan of his concerns over the 45-minute claim and ascribed its inclusion in the dossier to Alastair Campbell, the director of communications for Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Related Topics:
May 22 - 2003 - Andrew Gilligan - BBC - Baghdad - Unattributable - Alastair Campbell - Prime Minister - Tony Blair

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Gilligan broadcast his report on May 29, in which he said that the 45-minute claim had been placed in the dossier by the government, even though it knew the claim was dubious. In a subsequent article in the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Gilligan directly identified Alastair Campbell as the person responsible. The story caused a political storm, with the government denying any involvement in the intelligence content of the dossier. The government pressed the BBC to reveal the name of the source because it knew that any source who was not a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee would not have known who had a role in the preparation of the dossier.

Related Topics:
May 29 - Mail on Sunday

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As the political fight ensued, Kelly knew he had talked to the journalist involved but felt that he had not said exactly what was reported. He also told his friend and work colleague Olivia Bosch that his meeting with Andrew Gilligan had been 'unauthorised' and therefore outside his terms of employment. On June 30, he wrote to his line manager at the Ministry of Defence to report his contact with Gilligan, though he added "I am convinced that I am not his primary source of information".

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Kelly was interviewed twice by his employers, who concluded that they could not be sure he was Gilligan's only source. Eventually they took the decision to publicise the fact that someone had come forward who might be the source. The announcement contained sufficient clues for alert journalists to guess Kelly's identity and the Ministry of Defence confirmed the name when it was put to them. This was not a normal procedure (it normally refuses to comment on such matters), and it has been suggested that the Ministry of Defence was implementing a government decision to reveal Kelly's name as part of a strategy to discredit Gilligan.

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Kelly was extremely disturbed by the publicity and arranged with a family friend to leave his home and visit Cornwall with his wife. He was asked to appear as a witness before two committees of the House of Commons that were investigating the situation in Iraq, and was further upset by the news that one of the appearances would be in public. He had been given a formal warning by the Ministry of Defence for an unauthorised meeting with a journalist, and had been given to understand that they might take more action if it turned out he had been lying to them.

Related Topics:
Cornwall - House of Commons

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