The top story in all the UK news outlets I've checked has, for the past two days, been the death of Dr David Kelly, a microbiologist attached to the Ministry of Defence who had done work related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (back when they existed). Dr Kelly appears to have committed suicide Thursday, slitting his wrist after leaving for a walk. Kelly was caught up in the polymorphous scandal hounding Tony Blair's government over the war with Iraq, which has evolved into an ongoing row with the BBC. On 29 May, the BBC's Andrew Gilligan reported on the Today programme that, according to an intelligence source, the Government's dossier on Iraq's weapons had been 'sexed up', a phrase which appears religiously in press coverage. The government denied it. Alastair Campbell, Blair's chief spin doctor, demanded an apology. The BBC stuck by its guns, from Gilligan up to Greg Dyke and the board of governors. The Ministry of Defence demanded the BBC reveal Gilligan's source. The BBC, quite rightly, refused. David Kelly had come forward to MoD officials and told them he had met with Gilligan, and in the MoD's attempts to get the BBC to spill, Kelly's name became public. He was questioned by the MoD, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and the Intelligence and Security Committee, who at the time concluded he could not be Gilligan's primary source; yet Downing Street still harped on the possibility, hoping the BBC would relent. He was bombarded by the media. The experience left him feeling that, in the words of his friend Tom Mangold, 'this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in.' Now Dr Kelly is dead.
The coverage of this story has been extensive. The Observer has a lengthy article with biographical details. The Guardian has kept up with events as they've developed; I first read that Kelly's cause of death had been ascertained there. The Telegraph is now reporting that MoD officials have admitted to leaking Kelly's name to the press, directly contradicting earlier claims by Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon. The Independent touches on Downing Street's and the BBC's denials of responsibility. The Times follows suit. The BBC News Online site, freakishly, appears to be offline at the moment (11.58pm Pacific).
It seems the press is more or less united across the ideological spectrum in its hostility towards the Blair Government. The papers are describing this as the biggest political crisis Blair has ever faced, and reported copiously the calls for his resignation already being hurled. The Government has behaved disgracefully. Whether or not one specific claim is true or false, that Campbell had personally ordered the assertion that Iraq could have chemical or biological weapons ready to fire with 45 minutes' notice added to the Government's dossier, which is what Campbell has tried to focus all the attention on, the fact remains that all the claims Blair and his team made about Iraqi weapons, based supposedly on intelligence reports, have proven false. Certainly intelligence was distorted on this side of the Atlantic; I think it overwhelmingly likely the same was done on the other. Not, perhaps, in terms of outright falsification, but certainly in terms of emphasis and qualified doubts. Downing Street simply has and had no fact whatsoever to use in its defence. Its claims about Iraq, for whatever reasons they were made, have been shown to be false. So it attempted to sidetrack the media by making the dispute with the BBC something personal, a vendetta against Campbell personally. Dr Kelly was brought forward to draw fire, and to help discredit this specific '45 minutes' claim in the hopes that that single claim would help smokescreen all of the other entirely false things Downing Street had claimed. Kelly's public interrogation before the parliamentary committee was a circus, mired in political manoevuring, badgering, leading questions, and personal agendas. How else would you describe a session full of questions like 'I reckon you're chaff. You've been thrown up to divert our probing. Have you ever felt like a fall guy?' Kelly's privacy, dignity, and, to even their shock, life were sacrificed by Blair's people in an attempt to whitewash their own image. Blair's culture of spin has destroyed a man's life.
The Government is being painted as the, or at least a, villain in the media on both the right and the left, and I believe this is entirely justified. I think the reputations of Campbell, Blair, and Hoon at the very least have been permanently destroyed. This wasn't a tragedy off in some foreign land, a war on someone else's soil, something distant and divorced from ordinary life. This was an intensely personal and human event, with a very British face, and so Orwellian; this ordinary and to all appearances well-liked and decent man, who played cribbage at his local, was abused by those in power, hounded and harassed until he took his own life. People aren't going to forget.
It is time Tony Blair resigned. He is not an evil man; he is not George Bush. He appears to act out of principle, not opportunism; he seems to believe the war with Iraq was the right and moral thing to do. But his good intentions cannot save him from reprehensible deeds and conduct. He has broken faith with the British people. He has behaved in a heavy-handed and undemocratic way. No amount of spin now can hide the consequences. The only way the government can regain the trust and clear mandate of the people is for Blair to step aside, and a new Prime Minister (Gordon Brown, alas) to make a stab at a fresh start.
Of course, that's no guarantee that Blair will resign. He could well hang on a good long while, his position growing steadily more uncomfortable and the Labour Party growing steadily more uneasy. Iain Duncan Smith is useless, so I don't think there's a serious danger of the Tories dislodging him in the next election. But sooner or later Blair will decide he's had enough, or Labour will decide it has had enough of him; Blair can leave now, and cite his conscience; or fight it out a few more years, and end tired and broken; or be forced out, and end in bitterness. If he stays, it will be all downhill for him.
Dr Kelly was used, callously and opportunistically. The parties involved must take responsibility, or these sad events will taint the political world indiscriminately.
(Note: I'm an American and I live in Seattle, so when I talk about anything to do with the UK, I reserve the right to get it completely wrong and talk out of my proverbial butt. You have been warned.)
UPDATE: The Toronto Star follows the lead of the UK press; the article's worth inspecting for the photograph of the front pages of dead-tree UK newspapers. The Mirror and the Daily Mail are particularly heavy-handed: 'Spun to Death' and 'Proud of Yourselves?' respectively, with Blair, Hoon and Campbell (I think) below the second.
Blair will not be effective or popular for the rest of his tenure, however long he decides to stay. The media will undermine him at every turn.
Posted by aloysius at July 20, 2003 01:40 AM | TrackBack |