BBC says Kelly was its key source: Blair declines summoning parliament
LONDON, July 20: Britain’s state broadcaster said on Sunday a defence expert who committed suicide three days ago was the source for the BBC claim that the government exaggerated intelligence about Iraqi weapons to justify war.
“Having now informed Dr Kelly’s family, we can confirm that Dr Kelly was the principal source,” BBC head of news Richard Sambrook said in a statement read to television cameras.
“The BBC believes we accurately interpreted and reported the factual information obtained by us during interviews with Dr Kelly,” he said.
Kelly, 59, a former UN weapons inspector, slit his wrist in woodland near his Oxfordshire home on Thursday.
The BBC allegation that the government exaggerated intelligence to indicate Saddam Hussein could mobilise weapons of mass destruction in 45
minutes is at the centre of claims Prime Minister Tony Blair misled the British public and parliament over the case for war.
The BBC statement backed the precision of its journalist Andrew Gilligan’s report of his conversation with Kelly despite the scientist’s own comments to a parliamentary committee that he did not provide the crucial 45-minute allegation.
Blair’s director of communications Alastair Campbell has been embroiled in a furious row with the BBC, saying their story was completely untrue.
Government officials say Kelly, a defence ministry biologist, did not match the BBC’s description of a well-placed, credible source for the story.
“We continue to believe we were right to place Dr Kelly’s views in the public domain,” Sambrook added.
“However, the BBC is profoundly sorry that his involvement as our source has ended so tragically.”
Sambrook also said that normally the BBC would feel an obligation to protect its source, but felt it had to release the information following Kelly’s death.
BLAIR:In Seoul, British Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected suggestions he should recall parliament to debate the suicide of a government employee embroiled in a dispute over the Iraq war.
Blair, whose government has been rocked by the death of David Kelly said the judicial inquiry his government has set up into the death should be allowed to run its course.
“I think...recalling parliament would generate more heat than light,” he said in an interview with Sky News recorded in Japan. “I don’t think it would be appropriate.”
The prime minister said that Kelly’s family should be allowed to grieve.
Police confirmed on Saturday that Kelly, whose body was found near his Oxfordshire home on Friday, had slit his wrist, leaving little doubt he had taken his own life.—Reuters
