16 September 2003
Dow Jones International News
The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly enters a new phase Tuesday, with witnesses being cross-examined for the first time, the BBC reports on its Web site.
One of the first witnesses to face potentially hostile questioning will be the deputy chief of defense intelligence at the Ministry of Defence, Martin Howard.
Howard has already told the inquiry about his involvement in the arrangements for dealing with Kelly after he admitted talking to a British Broadcasting Corp. (U.BBC) journalist - and his role in the government's Iraq dossier.
Monday BBC boss Greg Dyke and the U.K.'s top spy chief, MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove, both appeared at the inquiry.
Dyke admitted the BBC had made some errors in its response to a story about the government's handling of intelligence about Iraq.
And in an unprecedented "public" appearance via audiolink, Dearlove admitted the claim in a government dossier that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes had been "misinterpreted".
Howard will be examined by lawyers for the inquiry itself, and by barristers for Kelly's family, for the BBC and by his own lawyer.
He is expected to be pressed over the Ministry of Defence's "naming strategy" for Kelly, after the scientist had come forward as a possible source for a controversial BBC report on the dossier. Kelly apparently committed suicide after being named in public as the suspected source.
MoD press officer Kate Wilson will also be cross-examined Tuesday as she gives evidence for the first time.
But the inquiry will first hear from one of three witnesses who were unable to appear in the first stage of the inquiry and who won't be cross-examined.
Detective Constable Graham Coe, from Thames Valley Police, was the first policeman to see Kelly's body after the scientist's apparent suicide. He told how the search team led him to the body, which was slumped against a tree with a knife lying near Kelly's left wrist.
Other new witnesses Tuesday who won't facing cross-examination are pathologist Nicholas Hunt, and Dr Andy Shuttleworth, of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.
Dyke said the BBC had made a mistake in trying to reply too promptly to complaints from former Downing Street press chief Alastair Campbell about the dossier story. He said that, in hindsight, Campbell's letter should have been passed to the BBC's complaints unit for a full investigation, rather than being dealt with at speed by management.
But Dyke said news bosses had felt they had to react after Campbell staged an "unprecedented" attack, accusing the BBC of bias over its entire coverage of the Iraq war.
Dyke also criticized Today program correspondent Andrew Gilligan for sending an e-mail, to a lawmaker sitting on a Commons committee investigating broadcasts about the Iraq dossier, which revealed Kelly as the source of a colleague's story.
The BBC chief also admitted defending the report without being aware of the wording of one of the broadcasts, nor of an e-mail from Today editor Kevin Marsh, which described it as "flawed".
Dearlove said the 45-minute claim - reportedly criticized by Kelly - had been a "piece of well-sourced intelligence" from an established, reliable source.
He conceded the claim may have been misinterpreted by the readers of the dossier, but said he hadn't been aware of any unhappiness about it from members of his staff.
He agreed that, in hindsight, it could be argued it had been given undue prominence in the dossier. "But I am confident that the intelligence was accurate and that the use made of it was entirely consistent with the original report," he said.
Dearlove said the original intelligence report had referred to battlefield weapons, but the claim in the dossier had been interpreted by readers as referring to long-range weapons. He also criticized Kelly for things he said in his conversation with BBC Newsnight journalist Susan Watts, saying it was a "serious breach of discipline".
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