BBC 12 0024to0025

CHIDGEY, David
From: Greg Simpson [G.Simpson@libdems arg .uk]

Sent: 14 July 2003 15:22
To: 'chidgeyd@parliament uk'
Subject: FW : David Kelly - pls onpass to David Chidgey
-----Original Message-----
From : Andrew Gilligan-INTERNET [mailto :andrew .gilligan@bbc .co .uk]
Sent : 14 July 2003 14 :25
To : Greg Simpson
Subject : David Kelly - pls onpass to David Chidgey
Gr eg,
have been doing some research on David Kelly . Aside from the red herring of a
0urce-hunt, he is an extremely interesting witness in his own right - probably, if he
answers fully, the best you'll have had .
He is described in one of the standard reference works (Tom '4angold and Jeff
Goldberg, Plague Wars) as ,"the senior adviser on biological warfare to the MoD . . . the
West's leading biological warfare inspector" with "world-recognised expertise in every
aspect of biological warfare [whose) knowledge cannot be overtrumped ."
- As has been reported, he was the chief field inspector of UVSCOM, the predecessor to
UNMOVIC . He led the first and last Bid inspections in Iraq carried out by UNSCOM .
- He was one of three officials who accompanied Jack Straw when Straw gave evidence to
the FAC about Iraq's WMD programmes on September 25 2002, one day after publzcatzon oi
the Blair dossier . He said hardly anything, however ; Straw did all the talking .
- We believe he is currently the chief British inspector on the Iraq Survey Group (the
No .2 Brit in the Group under Brigadier John Deverell, the British contingent
commander .) '
Questions for Kelly
What is the current state of the Iraq Survey Group's knowledge about Iraq's BW
programme? Have you found anything?
r)id you believe in September 2002 that Iraq was an immediate danger? Was everyone
.iappy about the inclusion of the 45 minute point in the dossier in the light of wha7:'s
been discovered since? Did you know the 45-minute point was single-source?
6fere there any arguments between the intelligence services and No 10 over the dossier?
Above all, he should De asked to say what kind of a threat Iraq was in September 2002
in his opinion . If he -s able to answer frankly iz should be devastating . Obviously he
works for the Government and who pays the piper calls the tune . But if you could put
some of these quotes (particularly the
Watts) to him I think it would have some impact .
He is on record as saying that Iraq was NOT the greatest WMD threat . Leakage from the
Russian programmes, he believed, was a greater threat .
For instance, CBC (Canadian TV), 23 October 2002 : "Leakage from Russia is the greatest
threat, because Russia had a dedicated programme and a great understanding of how you
use smallpox as a volatile weapon ."
On 19 Oct 20G1, at the height of the US anthrax scare, Kelly told The Independent that
if suspicion fell on any country as the source of the US anthrax "the obvious ore is
Russia, it's a league ahead of Iraq ." He also said that Iraq had "too much at stake"
to take part in any action against the West .
He also told my colleague Susan Watts, science editor of Newsnight (who described him
as "a senior official intimately involved with the process of pullin together the
gC f2 166 24:=
-dossier") :
"In the run-up to the dossier, the Government was obsessed with finding intelligence
to justify an immediate Iraqi threat . While we were agreed on the potential Iraq
threat in the future, there was less agreement about the threat the Iraqis posed at
that moment .
"That was the real concern - not so much what they had now, but what they would have
in the future . But that unfortunately was not expressed strongly in the dossier,
because that takes the case away for war to a certain extent . . . .
"[The 45 minutes point] was a statement that was made and it got out of all
proportion . They were desperate for information . They were pushing hard for
information that could be released . That was one that popped up and it was seized on,
and .it's unfortunate that it was . That is why there is the argument between the
intelligence services and No 10, because they picked up on it and once they'd picked
up on it you can't pull it back from them . . . So many people were saying 'well, we're
not sure about that' . . .because the word-smithing is actually quite important ."
Does he still agree with this?
Is Kelly our source?

~e are not ruling anyone in or out as the source . I had many conversations with people
nside and outside the intelligence community about the issue of Iraqi P.'MD and the
_dossier . We suspect the MoD of playing games to try to eliminate names .
However : if, as the MoD has said, Kelly's involvement in the dossier was only
tangential, he cannot be~our source . Two of my source's claims which have proved _o he
true - that the 45-minute point derived from a single informant, and that ii~ came in
late - have been shown to be true . Such facts could only have been known to someone
closely involved in compiling the dossier until a late stage .
Andrew
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CHIDGEY, David

From: Greg Simpson [G.Simpson@libdems arg .uk]

Questions for Kelly

Does he still agree with this?

Is Kelly our source?

BBCi at http ://w-ww .bbc .co .uk/

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