Posted on 08/11/2003 6:41:20 PM PDT by Pikamax
A brilliant scientist showered with praise, but not pay
Kelly was trapped in 'black hole' of Whitehall machine
Richard Norton-Taylor Tuesday August 12, 2003 The Guardian
A picture emerged yesterday of one of the world's most respected experts on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programme poorly treated by a Whitehall machine which came to regard him as a threat it could not control. The Hutton inquiry's first day of evidence showed, through internal documents and witnesses, how David Kelly's valuable advice was widely sought by a Whitehall which had little concern for his personal wellbeing.
Terry Taylor, a fellow UN weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s who described Dr Kelly as his "scientific and technological mentor", praised the scientist for his "remarkably successful and meticulous" work.
The Ministry of Defence told the Foreign Office how Dr Kelly had provided it with "excellent, authoritative, and timely, advice", on Iraq's banned weapons programme. Patrick Lamb, a senior FO official who helped to compile the government's disputed September dossier, said at the end of his questioning by the inquiry counsel, James Dingemans QC, that he wanted to add something.
Mr Lamb described how well he and Dr Kelly had worked together in what he called a "labour of love" in a "very happy atmosphere". The FO, the inquiry heard, in 1996 appointed Dr Kelly CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George), for his work carried out with good humour and whose consequences were of "international significance".
He worked for Britain's defence intelligence staff, for MI6, the CIA and the UN, advising them on the threat posed by chemical and biological weapons in general, and in Iraq in particular.
While this world-renowned scientist was being honoured and praised in public, privately he was becoming increasingly angry about his treatment by his employers. He suggested he was missing out on pay rises because he was in a "black hole" - working for the MoD and FO and the UN, but directly employed by MoD research establishments which operated at arm's length from the ministry in Whitehall.
"The poor chap hasn't had a pay rise for three years," recorded his personnel boss in 2001. Dr Kelly expressed concern about the failure of his employers to "monitor my career", as he put it. His status and salary, he reminded his employers, affected his pension. His salary, when he died at the age of 59, was just over £61,000 and was about to be increased to £62,496.
Lord Hutton has made it clear he is deeply concerned about the treatment of Dr Kelly by Whitehall, and by the MoD in particular. One issue he faced was the way the MoD downgraded his status. Another was its response to his volunteering that he might have been a source quoted by the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan.
The inquiry heard yesterday how Dr Kelly had provided "informed contributions to the international media" and was a human archive" on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programme. Mr Lamb described him as an "obvious press target" and an "accomplished media performer".
Over the past two years, his role in talking to journalists had "led to no embarrassments for HMG [Her Majesty's government]," said Mr Lamb.
These comments now seem hugely ironic given that a meeting between Dr Kelly and a BBC journalist sparked off a row with the government which ultimately led to the scientist's apparent suicide and the Hutton inquiry.
Yesterday it was left to the MoD's personnel director, Richard Hatfield, to give the official line. There was nothing stopping Dr Kelly talking to the media, said Mr Hatfield, so long as "stayed within the rules".
Dr Kelly could provide journalists with "technical" information but not comment on "politically controversial issues" and certainly not the September dossier. That was "quite contrary to what a civil servant should be doing", Mr Hatfield said. That was "for ministers to do", he insisted.
This issue is one at the heart of the inquiry - why a leading scientific expert objected to the dossier precisely on "technical" grounds.
Two other issues which are the centre of the inquiry were raised yesterday. Lord Hutton is worried about the way Dr Kelly was outed. Mr Hatfield said yesterday that civil servants would never be identified "gratuitously" but he had advised Dr Kelly that his name would eventually emerge.
Friends of the scientist's family have said he had been promised it would be kept confidential.
Second, Mr Dingemans, it became clear, will ask each relevant witness whether Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's communications chief, had insisted that the infamous 45-minute claim be included in the dossier, knowing it to be wrong.
Each of the witnesses asked that question yesterday responded with an emphatic negative. This is likely to remain a point in the government's favour as the Hutton inquiry echoes its battle with the BBC.
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