Will History Forgive?

History, he said on Thursday, will forgive us if we were wrong about weapons of mass destruction – and Washington lapped it up.

As Tony Blair walked through the adulation, another man went for a walk in England. Dr. David Kelly was one of Britain's foremost experts on Saddam Hussein's weaponry. He had searched for WMD, served 37 missions in Iraq and was due back there. He killed himself as the applause was still ringing in Tony Blair's ears.

Dr Kelly wasn't a traitor. The worst he did, if worst is the right word, was agreeing to talk to a BBC journalist about the British Government's pre-war dossier – the one that claimed Saddam Hussein could deploy WMD in 45 minutes. Dr Kelly didn't think it was likely, and said so. The story broke.

The main allegation - that our Government exaggerated the danger -- 'sexed up' the dossier. The clear implication - they'd done it to convince us war was absolutely necessary. Dr Kelly didn't think he'd gone far. But Tony Blair's Government went apoplectic - trying to discredit the BBC journalist concerned, trying to locate his source.

Strictly speaking, British civil servants aren't allowed to talk to journalists. But Dr Kelly never made a secret of it. He'd been interviewed, quite openly, on TV in Iraq after the first Gulf War. It didn't take his employers long to find him. Did they threaten him with prosecution? Did they warn him his career was in ruins? In public the British Government played down his importance – said he was a relatively minor official. But did they leak his name? Certainly his name emerged, mysteriously, and before the poor scientist knew where he was, a British Parliamentary Inquiry was giving him the third degree about what he knew and to whom he had talked. All this was televised.

Dr. Kelly looked like a hunted man. Two days later he went for a walk, swallowed pain-killers and slashed his wrist. History will forgive us if we are wrong, said Tony Blair. But for his Government, for the BBC which stuck by its story, for the Parliamentary Inquiry which gave Dr Kelly such a hard time ... and for truth itself... history is not looking quite so forgiving this morning.

By Ed Boyle