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★阿修羅♪
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ワシントンポスト：イラク情報論争の渦中の英武器専門家が死体で発見さる。
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11542-2003Jul18.html?nav=hptop_tb
washingtonpost.com
British Weapons Expert Found Dead
Expert Was At Center of Iraq Intelligence Controversy
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 18, 2003; 2:42 PM
LONDON, July 18 -- The weapons expert at the heart of a bitter controversy over whether Prime Minister Tony Blair's office exaggerated claims that Iraq had ready access to weapons of mass destruction was found dead near his home today, raising new questions about those claims.
Police confirmed that the body of David Kelly, a government adviser, had been found five miles from his home near Oxford, but did not disclose the cause of death. Kelly had returned home briefly after being kept in seclusion by the Ministry of Defense for several days after testifying before a parliamentary committee investigating the claims.
The circumstances set off speculation that Kelly had committed suicide, or had died of sudden heart failure or stroke brought on by the stress of being the focus of a dispute between Blair's office at 10 Downing Street and the BBC.
Kelly told the committee earlier this week that he had met with BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan in May to discuss the intelligence dossier Blair's office issued last fall that claimed Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order from deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. But he denied he was the source of Gilligan's report that one of Blair's aides had "sexed up" the dossier by ordering that the 45-minute claim be included.
Downing Street has accused Gilligan and the BBC of inaccurate reporting and demanded a retraction and that the reporter disclose his source. The BBC has continued to say it stands by its story and has accused the government of waging a vendetta against Gilligan and the corporation, which is funded by public license fees and is overseen by a state-appointed board of governors.
After Gilligan's report, which cited a single, unnamed "senior intelligence source," officials launched an intense campaign to discredit the story. Downing Street and Ministry of Defense officials insisted today that Kelly had stepped forward voluntarily to reveal he had met with Gilligan.
His appearance before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee was a dramatic event, with lawmakers repeatedly asking him which reporters he had met with and what he had told them. One committee member told Kelly he had been set up by the government as a scapegoat to divert attention from the deeper issue of whether the 45-minute claim was accurate.
"I reckon you are chaff thrown up to divert our probing," committee member Andrew Mackinlay told him. "Have you ever felt like a fall-guy? You have been set up, have you not?"
"That is not a question I can answer," replied Kelly, who lowered his head and spoke in a voice so soft it could scarcely be heard in the committee room.
Kelly, who was 58, had worked as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq and served as an adviser to both the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Office. "This was an expert with a solid reputation who was highly regarded internationally," said Garth Whitty of the Royal United Services Institute, who also served as a weapons inspector in Iraq and had met Kelly there. "He clearly was not used to the stresses and strains of being in the limelight in what was a very serious issue. He may have felt very isolated. It is a very tragic outcome."
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