1 Boring Old Man

UK Conservatives may reopen probe into Iraq war whistleblower’s death
raw story
By Daniel Tencer
April 5th, 2010

The death of a whistle-blower who said the UK government had "sexed up" a dossier on Saddam Hussein’s military capabilities in order to sell the Iraq war has been one of the most intriguing and confusing elements of the war’s history. Now the UK’s Conservative Party is signaling that it plans to reopen the inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly if it wins the next election. The move could potentially harm the ruling Labour Party, which championed the Iraq war effort and is now trailing in the polls for this spring’s election.

On Sunday, Dominic Grieve, the Conservative Party’s "shadow" justice minister, said members of the public "have not been reassured" that Kelly’s death was a suicide, and if his government wins the election, he would want to reopen the case, reports the UK’s Daily Mail.

Kelly, a weapons expert with Britain’s Ministry of Defence, was found dead in a forest near his home in Oxfordshire in 2003, shortly after he gave an interview to the BBC in which he said that the British government was lying about its claim that Saddam Hussein could launch biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of giving the order. Kelly’s death sparked suspicions that he may have been killed for undermining the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair as the British leader stood with US President George W. Bush in pushing for an invasion of Iraq.

A former British ambassador quoted Kelly as having said “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded. Hours before his death, Kelly reportedly e-mailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller, warning her of "many dark actors playing games," according to the BBC…

I guess everyone has a "pet story" of one kind or another. I first got onto this one in the summer of 2005 after Bush’s second inauguration. When Judith Miller was jailed, I started reading about her and was horrified by all the signs of bad juju going down. At some point, I read about her email from Dr. Kelly the day he died, and got into his story. Each time it comes up, which it does over and over, I read more about it. I have no reason to say this, but I’m sure he was killed. I don’t know by whom, but in spite of the inconclusive evidence, I just feel like "I know" that it was a murder dolled up to look like a suicide.

He was a U.N. Weapons Inspector in Iraq. At the end of May, he met with a reporter [Andrew Gilligan] who reported that "a source" had accused the government of "sexing up" the prewar Iraq intelligence. At the end of June, he told his superiors that he might have been the source for Gilligan. The British government "outed him" and he appeared before committee of the House of Commons on July 15 and 16. On the 17th, he was found dead in the woods [Harrowdown Hill] near his home with a cut on his wrist. The concordance of dates with Joseph Wilson’s allegations in his July 6, 2003 NYT op-ed is remarkable, but probably unconnected.