By Gideon Long
LONGWORTH, England (Reuters) - A mild-mannered British scientist was
found dead in the woods Friday after being unwittingly dragged into a
fierce political dispute about intelligence used to justify war on
Iraq.
British police said they had found a body matching that of soft-spoken
defense ministry biologist David Kelly, a former U.N. weapons inspector,
who had been grilled in parliament over allegations the government hyped
intelligence to justify war.
The political fallout was immediate. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who
learned about the discovery of the body while flying from Washington to
Tokyo, promised an independent judicial inquiry into the death if the body
was confirmed to be Kelly's.
But opponents called for Blair to return and face a broader probe into
the case he made for war. The shock even sent Britain's pound tumbling
half a percent on currency markets as traders weighed the severity of the
crisis for Blair.
Kelly's family reported him missing overnight after he went for a walk
in the Oxfordshire countryside Thursday with no coat and stayed out
despite a rainstorm.
He had denied being the source for BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, who
said in May a senior intelligence source had told him the government had
"sexed up" intelligence on Iraq.
That report sparked parliamentary hearings into how the government made
the case for war, forced Blair onto the defensive and pitted government
officials against the BBC.
News of Kelly's death completely overshadowed Blair's rapturous
reception by the U.S. Congress Thursday, although there was no indication
the prime minister would turn back from a scheduled week-long trip to
Asia.
"The prime minister is obviously very distressed for the family of Dr
Kelly," a spokesman said aboard the flight.
Opposition Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith said Blair
should return from abroad and any inquiry should cover the entire issue of
intelligence used to justify the war.
"If I was the prime minister, I would cut short this visit and return
home. There are very many questions that will need to be asked over the
coming days," he said.
RELUCTANT WITNESS
Kelly had clearly been reluctant to enter the public debate over Iraq
intelligence.
Speaking so softly he could barely be heard, he admitted to
parliament's foreign affairs committee he had met Gilligan, but denied
telling him that Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell had
ordered intelligence to be hyped.
Kelly appeared shell-shocked when parliamentarians at the hearing
described him as "chaff" and a government "fall guy" put forward to shield
top officials from blame.
Kelly's wife Jane described Kelly as deeply upset, family friend Tom
Mangold, a television journalist, told ITV News.
"She told me he had been under considerable stress, that he was very,
very angry about what had happened at the committee, that he wasn't well,"
Mangold said.
The government said that if Kelly was Gilligan's source, their
differing accounts proved the BBC story was wrong. Gilligan, who never
named his source, was questioned at a closed-door hearing around the time
Kelly vanished Thursday.
(Additional reporting by Peter Graff and Dominic Evans in London, and
Katherine Baldwin in Tokyo)
