Justification to Wage War on Iraq based on “Fake Intelligence”. Whistleblower Dr. David Kelly: Who Ordered his Assassination?

Our thoughts today are with the people of Iraq, whose country was invaded twenty years on March 20, 2003. The destruction and loss of life are beyond description.

The architects of this illegal invasion are “war criminals”. Amply documented the war on Iraq was justified using fake intelligence. Prime Minister Tony Blair played a key role in claiming that Iraq had Weapon’s of Mass Destruction (WMD).

The article first published in February 2007 focusses on the assassination of Whistleblower Dr. David Kelly, who had worked in Iraq as weapon’s inspector under the auspices of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). “It was Dr Kelly who exposed claims by President George Bush, Tony Blair and Colin Powell that mobile biological warfare units had been found in Iraq as false.” (Independent, 25 July 2003)

David Kelly “was renowned for his expertise in his field; over the course of his career, he developed an intricate understanding of Iraq’s weapons programmes. Thus, the [UK] government and secret services regularly sought his advice.”According to  Yassmeen Radif, Matt Roberts and Harry Zacharias in a comprehensive report:

“The basis for this war had been laid out in two dossiers (Section 3), published in the preceding months, to which Kelly had contributed. However, when he began to raise concerns about the integrity of these documents, he would find himself caught in a political storm. Four months later, Kelly was dead. The official verdict was suicide; a decision that many believe is flawed. 

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his February 5 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council referred to the U.K. intelligence dossier entitled “Iraq Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation”, published on January 30, 2003. This document pointed without evidence to Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

This report had been read by Dr. David Kelly who expressed his doubts prior to its release.

Following its release on February 5 2003, it was reviewed by Cambridge lecturer Dr. Glen Rangwala who confirmed that it was not a bona fide intelligence document prepared by British Intelligence. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff.

Dr. Rangwala’s report was aired on Channel IV, it was then submitted to the House of Commons which released it on June 30, 2003, more than 3 months after the invasion. It was not an object of parliamentary debate.

Michel Chossudovsky, March 18, 2023

***

The British media has become embroiled in yet another set of distortions regarding the death of British government weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly in July 2003. Kelly died in mysterious circumstances in the woods near his home in Oxfordshire.

Kelly was Britain’s foremost expert on biological weapons, with direct access to WMD intelligence on Iraq. In the months leading up to his death, he had become increasingly skeptical regarding Iraq’s alleged WMDs.

According to the Hutton inquiry report:

“Dr Kelly took his own life… [T]he principal cause of death was bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist which Dr Kelly had inflicted on himself with the knife found beside his body”. (emphasis added)

Suicide was seemingly assumed from the outset by Lord Hutton, and the Hutton Inquiry descended into establishing who, between the BBC and the Government, was to blame for the suicide (rather than the murder) of Dr Kelly.

The inquiry led by Lord Hutton pointed to “suicide” as the cause of death, in contradiction with the results of the autopsy. “Suicide was never proved, either by the Coroner or Lord Hutton, as required by law”. (See Dr. Stephen Frost, et al, Global Research, 28 November 2006)

The inquiry purported to obviate the need for an inquest as well as exonerate the Government of Tony Blair and the Secret Service “of all significant charges”. It was an obvious camouflage. (See the analysis of Rowena Thursby, Global Research, Oct 2006,  see also dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com)

On November 3, 2006, The London Times published a letter by Lord Hutton, in which he attempted to defend his report on Dr. David Kelly’s death. In the letter, Lord Hutton dwells on the issue of the allegedly “sexed up” intelligence, ignoring the arguably much larger issue of his failure to establish exactly how Dr. David Kelly died.

A response to Lord Hutton’s letter to The Times was submitted by three distinguished doctors ( Drs. C. Stephen Frost, David Halpin and Searle Sennett)  The Times, refused to publish the response, which  was subsequently published as an article by Global Research. Drs. Frost et al contributed to breaking the mainstream media silence on the possibility that Dr David Kelly did not commit suicide. 

What was dismissed by the mainstream British media was that Lord Hutton, who seemingly assumed suicide from the outset, had undermined due process, and therefore laid himself open to charges of cover-up, by himself “sexing up” his own findings on the cause of Dr David Kelly’s death. But, a cover-up of what? (See Drs. C. Stephen Frost, et al, op cit).

New British Media consensus

In its “Conspiracy Files” documentary (25 February 2007), the BBC questioned the official version that Kelly had committed suicide, as outlined in the Hutton inquiry report. In this BBC programme, the findings of the Hutton inquiry are refuted through carefully documented research and analysis. It was not suicide, it was murder.

The media consensus regarding the cause of Dr. Kelly’s death seems to have been reversed. Or has it?  While the BBC and the British media have acknowledged  that Dr. Kelly might have have been murdered, they have failed to address two crucial questions:

1. If it wasn’t suicide, who ordered the assassination of David Kelly?

2. Who ordered the cover-up of a criminal act?

Contradicting their own assessment of the evidence, the BBC is suggesting that the government of Tony Blair could not possibly have been involved.

John Morrison, former deputy chief of British defence intelligence, who was interviewed by the BBC’s “Conspiracy Files” programme, states emphatically  that there was “no British secret service plot to kill Dr Kelly.”

Morrison rejected suggestions that Dr Kelly could have been the victim of British agents licensed to kill: “It is indeed complete fantasy that there are agents that are licensed to kill”.  According to Morrisson:

“There are intelligence agencies around the world who do engage in assassinations, there’s no doubt about that. Some of them not very nice people at all….. But we [ in Britain] have never had a policy of assassination to my knowledge in the history of the UK intelligence agencies, and certainly not in the last few decades”. (Source BBC website)

If the U.K government was not involved because The British Secret Service “does not have a policy of assassination”, who then could possibly be behind the murder of David Kelly?

Criminal Investigation

If it was murder rather than suicide, one would expect a full fledged police investigation leading up to trial court proceedings.

One would also expect –as in a bona fide criminal investigation–  that one or more “suspects” would be identified, and that “methods”, “motives” and “intent” would be examined.  Moreover, one would also expect that the issue of alleged government involvement be either confirmed or dismissed in a court of law.

Will a criminal investigation –which could potentially bring down the government– be allowed to proceed?

Or will there be another cover-up, “to cover-up the cover-up”?

BBC Fake News: Saddam did It

Meanwhile, in the interest of “balanced reporting”, the BBC documentary also included an authoritative statement by Richard Spertzel, a former US weapons inspector who worked with Dr Kelly in Iraq. Spertzel believes that “the Iraqis assassinated him” implying that Kelly might have been murdered on the orders of Saddam Hussein and that the defunct Baathist regime’s intelligence apparatus was behind the assassination.

“It has always been obvious that his death was highly convenient for the UK intelligence services but one of Kelly’s former colleagues, Richard Spertzel, an American biological weapons inspector, says that the Iraqi intelligence service may have been pursuing a vendetta against him. Spertzel says both he and Kelly were known to be on an Iraqi hit list.”(emphasis added. Irish independent, 26 Feb 2007)

Contradictory statement: “Convenient for UK intelligence” but it was, according to Spertzel, more likely that the Iraqi Intelligence service was behind the murder.

Qui Buono? Who benefits? Did the murder of Dr. Kelly serve the interests of Iraq. Was it “convenient” for the defunct Baathist regime?

And why the Hutton report cover-up?

If the murder had been ordered by Iraq, why did they need to cover it up? If indeed Iraqi agents had been behind it, this would have been front page news: the reports of the Iraqi sponsored vendetta and murder of a prominent British scientist would have been plastered on Britain’s tabloids. Just imagine the headlines.

Where is the motive? What interest would the post-Saddam Iraqi resistance have in murdering the man who was revealing the lies behind the Iraqi WMD allegations, which served as the main justification for waging war on Iraq. Remember: Dr David Kelly  was the source for a BBC report claiming the government of Tony Blair had “sexed up” its dossier on Saddam’s alleged WMD arsenal. And ultimately, the “sexed up” WMD report was the casus belli, the pretext for waging war on Iraq, which was invoked by the US and its indefectible British ally.

Complicity of the State? “Set the hares running”

Liberal MP Norman Baker, who was interviewed in the BBC programme, outlines the results of his investigation. He states that it was not suicide, but murder.

“I’ve concluded in my mind, beyond reasonable doubt as it were, that it’s impossible for the suicide explanation to hold water. The medical evidence doesn’t support it in any way, the psychological evidence barely supports it either and as it wasn’t obviously natural causes or an accident, then you’re driven to the conclusion that it must have been some sort of murder.” (GMTV “The Sunday Programme”, 25 February 2007)

“Describing his approach as non-sensational and factual, he said he has tested various theories ‘to destruction’. One witness who contacted him recently claimed to “know” that Dr Kelly was murdered. Asked about “complicity of the State”, Mr Baker chose his words carefully, claiming this would ‘set the hares running’. He is pursuing a number of leads”

Norman Baker’s inquiry has reached the conclusion that Kelly was assassinated but he asserts categorically that the British government could not possibly have been involved:

“I don’t believe the Prime Minister, the politicians and the Government were responsible for what happened to David Kelly. I believe they treated him shamefully and I believe they treated him callously in that they deliberately leaked his name to the press and they were quite happy to offer him up as fodder in some sort of Soviet-style Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in order to discredit Andrew Gilligan and the BBC”.

 


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About the author:

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research. He has taught as visiting professor in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. He has served as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has acted as a consultant for several international organizations. He is the author of 13 books. He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO's war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

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