Iraq Dossier - the facts

The last sentence of the following extract may be significant:


Oral evidence

Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday 15 July 2003

Members present:

Donald Anderson, in the Chair
Mr David Chidgey
Mr Fabian Hamilton
Andrew Mackinlay
Mr John Maples
Mr Bill Olner
Richard Ottaway
Mr Greg Pope
Sir John Stanley
Ms Gisela Stuart

__________

Witness: DR DAVID KELLY, Special Adviser to the Director, Counter-proliferation and arms control, Ministry of Defence, examined.

Q1 Chairman: Dr Kelly, may I welcome you back to the Committee. I understand you actually gave evidence to us in our inquiry with the Foreign Secretary, you were an adviser then to the non-proliferation department.

Dr Kelly: Correct.

Q2 Chairman: You were a former Porton Down scientist, a former UNSCOM arms inspector in Iraq, you are presently acting as an adviser to the Ministry of Defence's Director of counter-proliferation and arms control. I understand the Ministry of Defence pays your salary but the Foreign Office reimburses the Department for staff costs as part of its wider support for UN inspections in Iraq and counter-proliferation policy. Is that correct?

Dr Kelly: That is absolutely right.

Q3 Chairman: Let me now turn to your involvement in the September 24 dossier. You know, I believe, the evidence that we have received from Mr Gilligan of the BBC, that essentially the story that began the fuss came from a single source. He said on the Today programme on 29 May: "I have spoken to a British official who was involved in the preparation of the dossier and he told me that until the week before it was published the draft dossier produced by the intelligence services adds little to what was already known. He said 'It was transformed the week before it was published to make it sexier'. The classic example was the statement that WMD were ready for use in 45 minutes. That information was not in the original draft. It was included in the dossier against their wishes because it wasn't reliable." He again described his source as "a civil servant in the non-secret part of the Civil Service as distinct from the secret part". Presumably that might cover you.

Dr Kelly: It might.

Q4 Chairman: And "one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier and I can tell you that he is a source of longstanding, well-known to me, closely connected with the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, easily sufficiently senior and credible to be worth reporting." Before I call on Mr Hamilton to continue, can I just ask this: can you describe your background as a civil servant and an UNSCOM inspector; and what was your position between March of last year and September of last year when the dossier was published? That is, what was your position at the relevant time?

Dr Kelly: My background is that I am a scientist, I was once head of microbiology at Porton Down, but for the last decade I have been involved in advising both the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence on Iraq, its weapons of mass destruction and the United Nations' inspection approach towards disarmament and monitoring.

Q5 Chairman: Specifically between March and September of last year?

Dr Kelly: The position had not changed as it was for the past four years. Essentially I was the senior adviser to the proliferation and arms control secretariat carrying out essentially the function I have since UNSCOM ceased to exist in 1999.

Q6 Mr Hamilton: Dr Kelly, may I ask what was your involvement in the preparation of the September dossier?

Dr Kelly: My involvement was writing an historical account of the UNSCOM inspections and providing input into Iraq's concealment and deception.

Q7 Mr Olner: Dr Kelly, could I ask you to speak up a bit, there are fans running.

Dr Kelly: I will try.

Mr Olner: I am sure members of the public at the back cannot hear you.

Q8 Mr Hamilton: May I ask when you started work on the part of the dossier that you were responsible for?

Dr Kelly: I believe I contributed in May and June.

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So just what happened between June and July?