Looking back over the Niger forgery days and Judith Miller’s place in the piece, I had actually thought of David Kelly before Dawn mentioned him, though in a different context. His story is not so well known on this side of the Atlantic. But what a story it is! Here’s the New Yorker version from 2003. Dr. Kelly was a biological weapons expert and an inspector in Iraq. While there are many twists and turns in the story, the heart of the matter is that he doubted Tony Blair’s case for war with Iraq and talked to a reporter about it. When the article came out, he admitted that he was the source. He was then outed by the government [Tony Blair] and publicly investigated by a Committee of Parliament, a humiliating experience. Shortly thereafter he was found dead in the woods near his home. An investigation, the Hutton Commission, ruled his death a suicide. Since then, there have been repeated inquiries – his computer was seized, his wounds were hardly explanatory, he’d just had lunch with his wife., he was writing an expose`. It’s one of those British mysteries, but this time, it’s a for-real murder mystery. Dawn passed on this very interesting article [Did MI5 kill Dr David Kelly?] of yet another inquiry. The speculation is that he was murdered because of his questioning the British Intelligence estimates, but there’s plenty more. He’s the British version of Joseph Wilson, though his fate was decidedly worse.
I thought of him when I was looking back over Judith Miller’s story the other day. Miller had consulted with him for her book – Germs – and they became friends. His last email was to her, following the inquiry:
Answering her comment, he responded: "I will wait until the end of the week before judging – many dark actors playing games." But that week never ended for Dr. David Kelly. Within a few hours, of sending the email, he was found dead. For many of us, Kelly’s phrase, dark actors, became a mantra for all that happened in those crazy days. And I am convinced that Kelly was murdered by one of them.
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