Dr. Kelly case: Step by step, piece by piece, the ugly truth reveals its

This reads like a British "who done it" novel. I can't wait to read the next chapter!


Step by step, piece by piece, the ugly truth reveals itself

As the three estates - the law, the press and the mandarins - gathered to give evidence, a story emerged that will shake the establishment to the core. Raymond Whitaker reports on week one

17 August 2003

During the hottest week that central London can remember, photographers and cameramen are sweltering outside the Royal Courts of Justice. Passing tourists watch curiously as every now and then this assembly springs into life, mobbing a balding man with a slightly sheepish look on his face and a prim-looking woman with pudding-basin hair and schoolmarmy specs. One or two British holidaymakers might recognise the man from newspaper photographs as Andrew Gilligan of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, and the woman as Susan Watts, the science editor on BBC2's Newsnight programme.

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That immediately served to conjure up the ghost of Dr Kelly, who lingered over the first week, as he will over the entire inquiry. The first witness in the courtroom, however, brought an abrupt change of tone - one of many as the week went on. Suddenly memos, emails and official correspondence were flashing up on the screens, and a sharp-featured woman in rimless glasses became the focus of attention as she typed in the commands that would display them, peering at her own screen.

We quickly learned that Dr Kelly was not the only insider to have expressed disquiet about the Government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; so had two analysts of the Defence Intelligence Service (DIS), with which he worked closely. An email exchange said a figure in the dossier had "a lot of spin on it".

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As Mr Gilligan squirmed, constantly coming to a halt and re-starting his sentences, his garrulousness in stark contrast to the clipped replies of the previous day, his fellow journalists squirmed with him: who among us could have stood similar dissection of our working methods? But he stuck to the essence of the story - it was Dr Kelly who had first mentioned the 45 minutes, it was Dr Kelly who had first named Alastair Campbell.

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Mr Campbell was even more firmly in the frame within moments of the sweating Mr Gilligan giving way to the cool Ms Watts. It turned out that Dr Kelly had given her the same story a fortnight before he spoke to the Today reporter. It was there in her shorthand notes: "A mistake to put in, Alastair Campbell seeing something in there, single source, but not corroborated, sounded good." But she had not used it, considering it to be just a piece of gossip.


much more at

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=434478