David Kelly said Iraq was immediate threat

BBC ^ | January 21, 2004

[Shermy]

The late weapons expert Dr David Kelly said it would take Iraq "days or weeks" to deploy weapons of mass destruction.

His view, at odds with the claim Iraq could launch weapons in 45 minutes, is in a previously unbroadcast interview shown in a BBC Panorama special.

Panorama disputes a BBC report that No 10 ordered intelligence chiefs to add things to the Iraq weapons dossier.

It also hears from an ex-intelligence boss who fears his successors were part of Tony Blair's "magic circle".

Dr Kelly apparently committed suicide after being named as the suspected source for a BBC story on claims Downing Street "sexed up" the government's Iraq weapons dossier.

Lord Hutton's report following his inquiry into Dr Kelly's death will be published next week.

'Immediate threat'

The interview with Dr Kelly was recorded for Panorama in October 2002, a month after the prime minister presented the dossier to Parliament, but never broadcast.

In the interview Dr Kelly was asked whether there was an "immediate threat" from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

He replied: "Yes there is. Even if they're not actually filled and deployed today, the capability exists to get them filled and deployed within a matter of days and weeks. So yes, there is a threat."

He also said Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programme posed a "real threat" to neighbouring countries.

Dr Kelly was publicly generally supportive of the Blair government's tough stance on Iraq in the interview, which was submitted to the Hutton inquiry.

But he says Saddam Hussein would probably be reluctant to use weapons of mass destruction unless attacked first.

BBC Today programme defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan reported his source as saying No 10 had known the 45-minute claim was questionable when it was put in the dossier.

But at the inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, he apologised for saying his source had told him it was known it was "probably wrong".

The Panorama programme said Mr Gilligan was "on to something" but it "was wrong to say anyone in No 10 ordered the intelligence services to put anything into the dossier" and far less any material it knew was probably wrong.

It also said BBC executives who stood by the reporter without checking his original notes "bet the farm on a shaky foundation".

Intelligence failings?

BBC correspondent Nicholas Witchell said the programme made "very uncomfortable" viewing for the BBC.

"What the BBC will be hoping is that the best way to demonstrate the strength, and it would say the integrity, of its journalism, is to be seen to be reporting very robustly, very fully and very candidly, on a story which does in some respects reflect badly on it," he told BBC News at 10.

Former Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chairman Sir Rodric Braithwaite told the programme it looked like the current committee had become involved in rallying the public around the pre-war stance against Iraq.

He said the JIC's job was to analyse material.

"You have to avoid getting into the magic circle which surrounds any prime minister," he said.

Sir Rodric said it was difficult to resist such dangers "and from time to time it fails, you get people who should be dispassionate becoming passionately involved in things".

Ahead of Wednesday evening's broadcast, Mr Blair was challenged about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction by Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy in prime minister's questions.

"There can be no doubt at all that these weapons existed...," he told MPs.

The Iraq Survey Group was continuing its search for the weapons, the programmes behind them and how they were hidden, he added.

Send us your comments on the programme using the form below.

[Shermy]

Ping.

[Dog]

This is game set and match..

[okie01]

In the total scheme of things, what is the difference between "45 minutes" and "days or weeks"?

It makes a lot of difference -- but only tactically. From a strategic point of view, though, they are the exact same thing. The threat is, indeed, "immediate" and must be taken out. Sooner, rather than later.

Doubtless, this is too fine a distinction for the liberals (and BBC) to understand...

[Shermy]

The same game was played with Bush's "16 words."

Anyway, just what is "deploying" WMD? Chem? Bio? Put them together? Are there different ways of "deploying" different weapons? Does it really take an hour, but Blair "lied" and said 45 minutes? Doother "experts" disagree with Kelly?

Are they in Syria? In the ground? Never existed, but Saddam was bluffing? Or were his minions bluffing him? Are they afraid of dying, so they shut up? Afraid of war crimes charges? Did they experiment on humans? Afraid of losing their French hush money?

Who knows?

[meenie]

It seems like there is quite a contest to see how many were confused over Iraq. This is one instance where ignorance is considered a blessing. There is still an unanswered question why the Blair government outed him and why or if he took his own life.

[optimistically_conservative]

DIANE SAWYER: But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still —

PRESIDENT BUSH: So what's the difference?

DIANE SAWYER: Well —

PRESIDENT BUSH: The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be de — dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger. And so we got rid of him and there's no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of Saddam being gone.

DIANE SAWYER: But, but, again, some, some of the critics have said this combined with the failure to establish proof of, of elaborate terrorism contacts, has indicated that there's just not precision, at best, and misleading, at worst.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah. Look — what — what we based our evidence on was a very sound National Intelligence Estimate. ...

DIANE SAWYER: Nothing should have been more precise?

PRESIDENT BUSH: What — I, I — I made my decision based upon enough intelligence to tell me that this country was threatened with Saddam Hussein in power.

DIANE SAWYER: What would it take to convince you he didn't have weapons of mass destruction?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Saddam Hussein was a threat and the fact that he is gone means America is a safer country.

DIANE SAWYER: And if he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction [inaudible] —

PRESIDENT BUSH: Diane, you can keep asking the question. I'm telling you — I made the right decision for America —

DIANE SAWYER: But-

PRESIDENT BUSH: — because Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction, invaded Kuwait. ... But the fact that he is not there is, means America's a more secure country.

[Monti Cello]

Exactly...hopefully this will help Blair.

[Shermy]

There was an agenda to prove Blair and Bush to be liars with minute examinations of every word they said.

Blair was "proved" to be a liar because one expert said it couldn't take just "45 minutes" to "deploy" WMD. The BBC didn't have Kelly say how long it would take because the inference that it was a matter of different opinions between "experts" and lose the inference that Saddam had none at all.

As for Bush's "16 words" he said British Intelligence learned Saddam sought to purchase uranium in Africa. The media "proved" this a lie because one country in Africa, Niger, promised Joe Wilson Saddam didn't actually purchase any uranium from them.

The word game will fly back in their faces.

[Mr. Buzzcut]

In the total scheme of things, what is the difference between "45 minutes" and "days or weeks"?

Right. Either way, you're dead.

[doug from upland]

Why isn't this a huge story around the world? Come on, Rove, get this stuff out there and stick it to the RATS.

[Shermy]

The Hoon report will come out in a few days, that's when it will get play.

Seems to me the BBC did this just before the report to take out some of the sting.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

There was an agenda to prove Blair and Bush to be liars with minute examinations of every word they said.

Right on!!!!

Did you guys see this one:

Washington Post's David Von Drehle gets SOTU speech wrong

Seems to be part of the agenda to discredit the President anyway possible!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Earlier thread :

Dead UK expert believed Iraq WMD posed threat

[Sacajaweau]

Still have trouble believing this guy committed suicide. He was due back in Iraq in a couple of weeks.

I believe he would think that returning to Iraq as his top priority rather than some "image" they are trying to portray as "suicidal".

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It certainly seemed strange, for him to do himself in!

[Grampa Dave]

Good find.

We are going to find those WMDS in Syria and Iran.

When the last load was shipped out of Iraq, $oddomite signaled his buddies, the liberal politicians/mediots in the UK, America and Canada that "There are No WMDs in Iraq!"

They immediately started the outcry of no WMDs in Iraq. That outcry was the only thing that they were accurate about re Iraq in 2003.

There could be only way that they knew that there were no WMDs in Iraq after two decades of the $oddomite buying, building, using and storing WMDs. They were told by $oddomite when the last WMD crossed Iraqi borders into Syria and Iran.

Their delays at the UN enabled this transfer to start and to be successful.

When the last truck load of WMDs entered into Syria and Iran, the left wing politicians/mediots in America, Canada, and the UK went on the air and in the print with their screaming Mantras of no WMDs in Iraq. They knew when the last one left Iraq. This has been the only thing that the left wing mediots of the world have been correct about Iraq last year.