David Kay in the US and David Kelly in the UK have adversely affected the credibility of both Bush and Blair. Mohamed Sid-Ahmed asks: Will this improve John Kerry's chances of becoming America's next president in November? US Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired chief US weapons inspector in Iraq David Kay have conceded that the regime of former leader Saddam Hussein may not have possessed the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction Washington claimed as justification for invading Iraq last year. Powell said: "The open question is how many stocks they had, if any. And if they had any, where did they go? And if they did not have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand?" Powell's remarks follow the 23 January resignation of Kay as head of US and British weapons inspectors in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG). As he stepped down, Kay said he does not think there are any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. On this issue, Kay concluded, we've damaged our national credibility. Kay cannot be accused of wanting to discredit the Bush administration in any manner. On the contrary, he was keen to stress, in his letter of resignation, that he did not think intelligence experts were pressurised by the Bush administration into making reports that conformed to the agenda of a White House that was already determined to invade Iraq. On 2 October, 2003, he issued a long statement on the activities of the ISG before the House Committee on Intelligence and Appropriations, the Subcommittee of Defense and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in which he underlined the relentless efforts ISG had furnished to unearth Iraq's WMDs. The only rationale for going to war -- according to Colin Powell who spoke for the administration -- was the certainty that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. That was the licence Bush was given by the US Senate. Although at the time he did complain that the Iraqis "had not complied completely", chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix requested more time to conduct further inspections. But his words fell on deaf ears. President Bush cut off the process, declaring that the time for diplomacy was over and fixing the date to start the war. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a Democratic presidential candidate, said Kay's comments reinforced his belief that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat Iraq posed. "It confirms what I have said for a long period of time, that we were misled -- misled not only in the intelligence, but misled in the way that the president took us to war. I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception." British government weapons expert David Kelly was the centre of speculation over who was the source behind BBC reports which looked at the government's reasons for going to war. The row was over whether Downing Street officials had "sexed up" the government's September 2002 intelligence dossier on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Reporter Andrew Gilligan said on BBC Radio Four's Today programme that a source had told him Downing Street asked for certain intelligence to be given undue prominence in the dossier. The government denied the claim and demanded an apology from the BBC, which was rejected. Tony Blair said the claims undermined his integrity. Someone -- not the BBC -- leaked the name of Gilligan's source, weapons expert and ministry of defence employee David Kelly. Three days after Dr Kelly was questioned by MPs about whether he had been the source of Gilligan's report, his body was found near his Oxfordshire home. The Blair government came under heavy criticism for its handling of the affair, especially that Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell was fingered as the source of the leak. Faced with what was arguably the worst political crisis of his career, Tony Blair ordered a full inquiry into Dr Kelly's apparent suicide and appointed retired judge Lord Hutton to conduct the inquiry. His 328-page report, which took two months to complete, completely exonerates the government and comes down hard on the BBC, which is now facing what is perhaps the worst crisis in its history. Following Lord Hutton's surprisingly one-sided verdict, the chairman of the BBC Gavyn Davies and its director general Greg Dyke both resigned. The report largely cleared Blair, Alastair Campbell and Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon of wrongdoing. Most of Lord Hutton's criticism was aimed at the BBC and its reporter Andrew Gilligan. There was also criticism that Dr Kelly himself had broken rules of his employment by talking to Gilligan. Lord Hutton concluded that Kelly's "meeting with Mr Gilligan was unauthorised and, in discussing intelligence matters with him, Dr Kelly was acting in breach of the Civil Service code of procedure". Lord Hutton's narrow interpretation of his brief disappointed many people. Declaring that the arguments for and against the war lay outside the scope of his remit and that it was not his job, nor was it within his capacity to rule on such big picture questions as whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or whether the intelligence that the government relied on, in part, for its decision to go to war, was reliable, he focussed his inquiry on Gilligan's claim that the government had "sexed up" intelligence reports. His verdict was that the BBC's allegation was "unfounded" and that "there was no dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous strategy by the government covertly to leak Dr Kelly's name to the media." In what many referred to as a whitewash, Lord Hutton's findings gave Tony Blair, whose credibility and authority were under fire, a new lease of life. But for how long? The Hutton report left many questions unanswered, although what the wiser public is really interested in is whether there existed sufficient evidence about Iraq's WMD which justified defying the Security Council and going -- without its agreement -- to war against Iraq. Lord Hutton's report does not help find an appropriate answer to that central problem. On the contrary, because it exonerates Blair of any wrongdoing, it seems to espouse the latter's viewpoint on the key issue of having gone to war without Security Council approval. The day before the Hutton report was published, Blair narrowly escaped a vote of no confidence by rebellious Labour MPs opposed to his proposed bill to increase student tuition fees. The Hutton report provided him with a second victory at the very time Bush suffered a setback from the Kay resignation. Condoleezza Rice was forced to concede that there may have been no WMD in the first place. Now, which of the two leaders, Bush or Blair, is more likely to influence the future course of events? Much will depend on how the Democratic candidate fares in the US presidential elections on 2 November. According to the polls, John Kerry is the most likely to get the nomination. Having overcome his internal problems with great difficulty, Blair will be expected to call for moderation in Iraq, to accelerate the inclusion of Iraqis in the management of their country. For Bush, Iraqi resistance by violent means is crucial in determining how he is expected to react. What should he do? Undertake an investigation similar to the one Blair has now promised to conduct? Resort to counter-violence before the US presidential elections, or after? Harden his positions or modify them? These are open questions depending on too many imponderables and it is still too early to answer them now.
