Kelly: BBC under fire

2003-07-20 08:39

London - Peter Mandelson, a former British minister and one of Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest allies, launched a bitter attack on Sunday against the BBC and its role in the war of words that led to the suicide of former UN arms inspector David Kelly.

Writing in The Observer as Blair faced the worst crisis in his political career, Mandelson hit out at the British Broadcasting Corporation's "obsession" with attacking Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell.

"It was the BBC's obsession with him (Campbell) that led more than anything else to the breakdown in relations between the Government and Britain's principal public service broadcaster, with the result we have seen," Mandelson said.

Kelly, 59, had been fingered as the unnamed intelligence official who had told BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan in May that Downing Street had "sexed up" a September 2002 dossier on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction in order to beef up the case for joining the United States in war against Saddam Hussein.

But, before a parliamentary committee last Tuesday, Kelly - an expert in biological weapons in the Ministry of Defence in London - denied he was the main source of the story.

Slashed wrist

Two days later he disappeared from his home. The next day, Friday, as Blair was en route to Tokyo from Washington where he was greeted as a hero by US senators and congressmen, Kelly was found dead in woods near his home in Oxfordshire.

Police on Saturday revealed that Kelly had apparently slashed one of his wrists.

Kelly's mourning family said he was under "intolerable pressure" in the weeks before and days after his tough grilling on Tuesday before the House of Commons' foreign affairs committee.

Gilligan's report gave rise to a bitter war of words between Downing Street and the BBC, with each side accusing the other of lying.

While admitting that "Campbell is no angel and is capable of making his own mistakes," Mandelson said the BBC "should have acknowledged the truth" that its information was false rather than choosing "to turn a resolvable disagreement into a pitched battle about its honour and independence as broadcasters, irrespective of its confidence in the story."

Gerald Kaufman, who chairs the Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee, said the BBC should be brought under the new Ofcom communications watchdog.

Probable source

"The BBC has behaved deplorably and there are serious implications for its future," he told The Observer.

The BBC's handling of the dossier row showed its governors were not capable of making the corporation accountable, he said.

The broadcaster has steadfastly refused to divulge the source of its May allegations. But the ministry of defence identified Kelly as the probable source.

The Sunday Times reported that Kelly had sent an e-mail shortly before his death to an American journalist speaking of "many dark actors playing games."

In another e-mail to a scientific colleague, he said he would "wait until the end of the week" to assess the impact of his testimony to the Commons committee.

"Hopefully it will soon pass and I will get back to Baghdad and get on with the job," The Sunday Times quoted him as saying.

In a recent interview with the weekly, Kelly said he had been put under "intolerable" pressure by his employer, the ministry of defence, when it released his identity.

"I am shocked, I was told the whole thing would be confidential," he told the paper.

- AFX