The Hutton Inquiry is shedding far more light on the death of David Kelly than the government, the BBC or the media had bargained for, reports Alistair Alexander from London While the death of Dr David Kelly is inextricably linked to the government's case for war on Iraq, Lord Hutton's inquiry is narrowly focussed. And with a plot as thick as this, it needs to be. The convoluted trail of events that led to Dr Kelly's suicide began with a BBC report by Andrew Gilligan on 29 May. Gilligan claimed to have spoken to a "senior source" closely involved in producing the government's September dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. The source said the government had "sexed-up" the dossier, against the advice of its intelligence staff, by inserting a claim that Iraq could deploy chemical weapons in 45 minutes. The report caused a maelstrom of controversy. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of communications, furiously denounced the allegation as a "lie", dragging the BBC's integrity into the same questionable grounds as the government's. As speculation mounted over who the source might be, the government announced it had found the source and fed Kelly's name to the press. He was then hauled up in front of a committee of MPs to answer the allegations. During his televised grilling from MPs, Kelly looked distinctly uncomfortable, but convinced them he was not the source in question. "You've been set up, haven't you," one MP stated to him. "You were thrown to the wolves, not only to the media but also to this committee," another sneered. With hindsight, it seems that Kelly probably agreed. On 18 July, three days after he appeared before MPs, his body was discovered near his home with a slit wrist. After his death, the BBC revealed that Kelly was the source of Gilligan's report after all. In his inquiry, Lord Hutton, a high court judge, has to unravel a densely tangled web of machinations. Firstly, he has to assess the accuracy of Gilligan's report and whether the BBC were right to stand by their journalist against relentless pressure from the government. He also has to ascertain if Kelly was in a position to speak with authority on the processes that led to the publication of the dossier. And Lord Hutton then has to determine if Kelly's assessment, that the government had exaggerated the case for war, was correct. Furthermore, the inquiry will need to examine the Ministry of Defence's treatment of Kelly when he admitted to them that he had spoken to Gilligan. Linked to that, Lord Hutton will investigate how and why the Ministry of Defence released Kelly's name to the media and then allowed him to be interrogated in public -- an unprecedented and humiliating ordeal for a senior intelligence official to endure. As Lord Hutton intends his inquiry to investigate events in chronological order, much of the first two weeks hearings have focussed on the BBC and the Ministry of Defence, where Kelly worked. The BBC had hoped the inquiry would exonerate it from blame. And certainly, Andrew Gilligan's report has been corroborated convincingly by other BBC journalists who received strikingly similar briefings from Kelly. A recording of one such conversation was played to the inquiry. But the inquiry revealed that even Gilligan's editor on the BBC's Today programme admitted in a private e-mail that Gilligan's report was let down by "loose use of language". And Susan Watts, the BBC journalist who had recorded Kelly, attacked her senior managers for trying to "mould" her evidence to support Gilligan. But as the inquiry begins hearing from Blair's inner circle, it is clearly Downing Street that has most to fear from Lord Hutton's steely gaze. Tony Blair's closest allies have been desperately trying to distance themselves from the "outing" of Kelly and his subsequent appearance before MPs. Already, documents passed to the inquiry reveal that Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon overruled his most senior civil servant in ordering Kelly to appear before MPs. Hoon argued that it would be "presentationally difficult" for the government if Dr Kelly did not appear. Hoon is widely expected to fall on his sword. Or, failing that, to be dropped on it. But the government will be lucky if the resignations end there. Other documents relating to Kelly, and shown by the inquiry, have Downing Street fingerprints all over them. On Monday alone, the inquiry revealed more about Blair's innermost circle than the press has unearthed in the past six years. One private e-mail from Jonathan Powell, Blair's trusted chief of staff, admitted that the dossier did "nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam". Another e-mail to Powell from Tom Kelly, one of Blair's two official spokesmen was equally jaw- dropping: "This is now a game of chicken with the Beeb [the BBC]. The only way they will shift is if they see the screw tightening." This disclosure of opinion led James Dingemans, the inquiry's lead counsel, to pointedly ask Powell, "Was Dr Kelly's role in this game of chicken a player or being played with?" As hearings continue, opinion polls predictably show that public trust in the government -- already a scarce commodity -- has dropped through the floor. According to one, only six per cent trust the government to tell the truth more than the BBC. The same poll found that only 24 per cent of the public believe the dossier was not "sexed--up". The proceedings of the Hutton Inquiry are simply confirming the public's worst suspicions. Not that many are paying attention. The press might be providing wall-to-wall coverage and drooling over every detail, but most Britons have neither the time nor the inclination to follow every twist and turn of this nasty episode. A huge number of British people actually believe that Kelly was killed. He was not, of course. After all, he is causing the government far more damage dead than he ever could alive. But somehow, the press has forgotten to explain that. And so for the public, it is not just the government that is in the dock at the Hutton Inquiry, but Britain's jaundiced political culture and the media that nurtures it. So far, Lord Hutton appears determined to get to the truth behind the death of Kelly. But if he does succeed, the consequences could well shake the British state to its foundations.
