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AUGUST 21, 2003 -
Testifying during the 7th day of British government’s
inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of senior Blair
weapons advisor David Kelly, UN employee David Broucher said today
that: “As Dr. Kelly was leaving, I said to him what will happen if
Iraq is invaded. And his reply was…’I will probably be found dead
in the woods.”
David Kelly was found dead in the woods
near his home on June 19, 2003, shortly after it was revealed that
he was the source behind a damning BBC story that accused Prime
Minister Blair of lying about WMD’s to justify attacking Iraq. It
has been judged an apparent suicide, but an inquiry into the
circumstances surrounding his death is being undertaken by the
British government, led by Lord Hutton.
David Broucher is a member of the UN
Diplomatic Service and a Permanent Representative to the Conference
on Disarmament in Geneva. He said today in testimony that he met
with David Kelly on February 27 of this year, “to talk about the
verification of compliance with the biological weapons convention
and I was keen to pick his brains
because I knew that he was a considerable expert on these issues in
relation to Iraq.”
Broucher said the two discussed Iraq’s
weapons programs and compliance with weapons conventions. He
testified that David Kelly had told him that Iraq’s biological
weapons were not an imminent threat.
“He felt that if the Iraqis had any
biological weapons left it would not be very much,” Broucher told
the inquiry panel. “He also said that the -- I believe it is called
the fill for the weapons would be kept separately from the munitions
and that this meant that the weapons could not be used quickly.”
When the topic of Blair’s dossier of
WMD’s came up, Broucher said, “(Kelly) said to me that there had
been a lot of pressure to make the dossier as robust as possible;
that every judgment in it had been closely fought over… I believe
that it may have been in this connection that he then went on to
explain the point about the readiness of Iraq's biological weapons,
the fact they could not use them quickly, and that this was relevant
to the point about 45 minutes.”
Then, “As Dr Kelly was leaving I said to
him: what will happen if Iraq is invaded? And his reply was, which I
took at the time to be a throw away remark -- he said: I will
probably be found dead in the woods,” said Broucher.
He said he did not report it at the time
because he considered it a throw away remark. Later, when he saw
that what Kelly had said had come to pass, he sent an e-mail to his
colleague Patrick Lamb, which read: "Kelly said that his Iraqi
contacts had pointed to out to him that revealing too much about
their state of readiness might well heighten the risk that they
would be attacked. To gain their trust he had been obliged to assure
them that if they complied with the Weapons Inspectors' demands they
would not be. The implication was that if an invasion now went
ahead, that would make him a liar and he would have betrayed his
contacts, some of whom might be killed as a direct result of his
actions. I asked what would happen then, and he replied, in a throw
away line, that he would probably be found dead in the woods. I did
not think much of this at the time, taking it to be a hint that the
Iraqis might try to take revenge against him, something that did not
seem at all fanciful then. I now see that he may have been thinking
on rather different lines."
What that different line of thinking was
he was not asked to elaborate on, and it is unclear whether he meant
that he now thinks Mr. Kelly was thinking he would be found in the
woods after he committed suicide, or that he would be found in the
woods as the result of someone taking revenge, just not the Iraqis.
Broucher had taken the comment to be one that spoke of suffering a
vendetta, not talk of suicide.
The inquiry continues. The Moderate
Independent will buck the American media trend and actually continue
following this – perhaps the biggest story of our time – for you.
See also:
Blair's Man
Spits On The Corpse Of Man Who Told BBC Blair Lied
Man Who Told
Parliament Blair Lied About WMD's Believed To Be Dead
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