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Price of Iraqy Freedom. [EMAIL PROTECTED] /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ British Arms Expert at Center of Dispute on Iraq Data Is Found Dead, His Wife Says July 19, 2003 By WARREN HOGE with JUDITH MILLER LONDON, July 18 - The arms expert at the center of a dispute about whether the British government doctored its intelligence reports on Iraq's weapons programs to gain public support for going to war was found dead this morning near his home in Oxfordshire, his wife said today. The weapons specialist, Dr. David Kelly, left his home on Thursday afternoon saying he was going for a walk and never returned, his wife, Jan Kelly, said in a telephone interview today. Mrs. Kelly said the police had confirmed that the body was her husband's, and that the cause of death was suicide. She declined to say what led the police to that conclusion, saying they had asked her not to discuss details of his death. Dr. Kelly, 59, an Oxford-educated former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq with a specialty in biological weapons, faced tough questioning on Tuesday from the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs about whether he had been the source of an accusation broadcast by the BBC that the British government had doctored intelligence findings in its campaign to gain public support for going to war in Iraq. The body was discovered on a woodland footpath five miles from the Kelly residence. The acting superintendent of the Thames Valley police, Dave Purnell, said a formal identification would be made on Saturday, but that the description of the body matched that of Dr. Kelly. Calling the case an "unexplained death," Mr. Purnell declined to discuss possible causes. Mrs. Kelly said her husband had worked on Thursday morning on a report he said he owed the Foreign Office and had sent some e-mail messages to friends. "After lunch, he went out for a walk to stretch his legs as he usually does," she said. She had no indication that her husband was contemplating suicide, she said. "But he had been under enormous stress, as we all had been," she said. Dr. Kelly, whose title was senior adviser on weapons of mass destruction, might have unwittingly become caught up in a painfully public political storm for which his experience as a respected expert on bioterrorism and his personal life as an intensely private family man had not prepared him. A soft-spoken civil servant in the Ministry of Defense accustomed to working behind the scenes, Dr. Kelly was pressed repeatedly by committee members about his role in the bitter dispute that has pitted the government against the BBC and been front-page news in Britain during the last week. Prime Minister Tony Blair's powerful communications and security director, Alastair Campbell, has conducted a wide-ranging campaign against the BBC, the world's largest public service broadcaster, alleging that it has let its vaunted standards of impartiality lapse in the pursuit of what he has called "an agenda against the war." In an e-mail message to a reporter sent hours before he left for his walk, Dr. Kelly gave no indication that he was depressed. He said he was waiting "until the end of the week" before judging how his appearance before the committee had gone, and referred to "many dark actors playing games." Based on earlier conversations with Dr. Kelly, the words seemed to refer to people within the Ministry of Defense and Britain's intelligence agencies with whom he had often sparred over interpretations of intelligence reports. Another associate who also received an e-mail message sent by Dr. Kelly shortly before he left the house said the message was combative and expressed a determination to overcome the scandal encircling him and an enthusiasm about returning to Iraq. Mr. Blair was told about the discovery of the body during a flight to Tokyo from Washington today, and upon his arrival, his spokesman said, "The prime minister is obviously very distressed for the family." Mr. Blair is on the second leg of a weeklong journey that began Thursday and included meetings with President Bush and an address to a joint meeting of Congress. Tom Mangold, a journalist for the British news network ITV and a friend of Dr. Kelly's, said he had spoken this morning to Mrs. Kelly, who said her husband had been "very, very angry about what had happened at the committee" on Tuesday. "She didn't use the word `depressed,' " Mr. Mangold said, "but she said he was very, very stressed and unhappy about what had happened and this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in." The case that put Dr. Kelly in the public eye arose from a report broadcast on May 29 asserting that a high-ranking Downing Street official had "sexed up" a government intelligence dossier by inserting a claim that Mr. Hussein had chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed in 45 minutes. The BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, who covers military affairs, said the insertion had been made against the wishes of intelligence agencies. The weapons claim was the highlight of the report published by the government to persuade a dubious British public that military action was needed in Iraq. Mr. Gilligan attributed his account to a senior weapons scientist he had met at a downtown London hotel. He did not identify the high-ranking Downing Street official on the air, but subsequently wrote in a newspaper article that it was Mr. Campbell. Mr. Campbell reacted with fury and challenged Mr. Gilligan to produce his source. Mr. Campbell collected denials from the intelligence agencies involved, demanded an apology from the BBC and testified before the committee that later was to hear from Dr. Kelly. When Dr. Kelly originally volunteered to Defense Ministry managers in early July that he had met with Mr. Gilligan at a downtown hotel on May 22, Mr. Campbell seized the opportunity to challenge the BBC to say whether he was Mr. Gilligan's source for the report. The BBC refused, citing its practice of not identifying people who provide information on condition of anonymity. Mr. Campbell retorted that Dr. Kelly himself had withdrawn the request. The foreign affairs committee then invited Dr. Kelly to testify, and he appeared on Tuesday, saying that he did not believe that he was the "main source" for the story. As a witness, Dr. Kelly sat hunched over the desk in front of him, looking troubled and uncomfortable under the pointed questioning of members of the parliamentary panel. On several occasions, lawmakers asked him to raise his voice so they could hear his responses. "I reckon you're the chaff thrown up to divert our probing," Andrew Mackinlay, a Labor Party member, said as Dr. Kelly squirmed in the witness chair. "Have you ever felt like the fall guy? I mean, you've been set up, haven't you?" Dr. Kelly said quietly that he was in no position to answer the question. Sir John Stanley, a Conservative, said, "You were being exploited to rubbish Gilligan and his source, quite clearly." Dr. Kelly replied, "I've just found myself in this position out of my own honesty of acknowledging that fact that I had interacted with him." Donald Anderson, chairman of the committee, said today that he did not believe the questioning was overly aggressive, but said, "It was wholly outside his normal experience, therefore must have certainly been an ordeal for him." Richard Ottaway, another committee Conservative, said: "There are games going on here, there are people trying to make points, trying to shut down avenues of inquiry, trying to open up things. But putting up Dr. Kelly was just part of the distraction, and it's had the most ghastly result, and I am deeply critical of those involved." On Thursday, Mr. Gilligan, the BBC reporter, appeared before the committee again and afterward Mr. Anderson read a statement calling him an "unsatisfactory witness" and accusing him of changing his story from his first appearance. Mr. Gilligan denied the charge and called the committee a "hanging jury." The Ministry of Defense said it would hold an independent judicial inquiry into the circumstances of Dr. Kelly's death, but the government showed no signs tonight of bowing to the growing demands from members of Parliament for a full-scale independent judicial look into the whole issue of weapons intelligence. A ministry spokesman said Dr. Kelly had at no point been threatened with suspension or dismissal as a result of his admission that he had spoken to Mr. Gilligan, a technical violation of civil service rules. The ministry said he had been given five days to consider the consequences of going public before the disclosure was announced and that he had been told he might end up being called to testify before Parliament. Robert Jackson, the Conservative member of Parliament from Dr. Kelly's Oxfordshire district, said that if the scientist had committed suicide, the responsibility lay not with the government but with the BBC. The BBC limited its comment to an expression of condolences to the Kelly family. "Whilst Dr. Kelly's family await the formal identification, it would not be appropriate for us to make any further statement," the BBC said. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/19/international/worldspecial/19BRIT.html?ex=1059632234&ei=1&en=7365bb5ef17ee41c --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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