Downing Street revisited

Another bomb has been dropped across the pond in the great debate over pre-Iraq war intelligence (seems like conspiracy central these days):

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction.

That sounds pretty alarming, as if Mr. Ross might possess some kind of smoking gun document to prove that Blair lied about WMD. But, from reading the article it seems Mr. Ross might be upset because his conventional wisdom opinion that Saddam posed absolutely no threat was ignored before the war and subsequently suppressed by the Butler Report after no weapon stockpiles were found.

Not surprisingly the late Dr. David Kelly's name has resurfaced. You might remember him as the former Iraqi weapons inspector (UNSCOM) who turned up dead right just as Bob Novak started the Valerie Plame brouhaha. The Hutton Inquiry ruled that he committed suicide.

The BBC is apparently still not convinced:

THE BBC is risking a new confrontation with Downing Street by launching an investigation into the death of David Kelly, the scientist at the centre of the storm over the “sexed up” dossier on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.

Keep in mind the Beeb has had her own credibility problems during this war.

Oddly enough, Dr. Kelly wasn't the only prominent microbiologist who died of mysterious causes in the years following 9/11. The death of Dr. Don Wiley still haunts Memphis. Comparing the two, the Hutton Inquiry has no corner on the weirdness market when factoring in former Memphis coroner O.C. Smith.

Digression aside, Kelly was no anti-war moonbat. He had extensive knowledge of Saddam's bioweapons programs, especially anthrax. Femme-fatale and ex-con Judy Miller was a confidante, both during the run-up to war and as a source for her book "Germs".

Kelly apparently liked to "impart knowledge". Some described him as a gossip, as he had many interviews with journalists other than Miller. Here's part of the transcript from the Hutton inquiry:

15 Q. What type of subjects would these e-mails be about?
16 A. Again usually about bio-weapons. He had some interest
17 in the hunt in the United States for the person who had
18 sent the letters containing anthrax. I believe he had
19 been consulted about that by the Americans because he
20 was an expert on that particular subject.

Speculative folks might assume several things--one, that he knew too much about his subject, and two, he talked too much. That doesn't tend to suggest suicide.

But who knows. There are way too many conspiracies swirling around him and all this stuff. To illustrate the insanity, some in Britain are blaming MI5 for both the Kelly death and Princess Diana's accident. In America some in the radical left believe the Bush administration is perfectly capable of committing murder and mayhem, the anthrax letters being no exception. There are only a handful on the right who believe the letters might have come from an enemy, but if such were the case it might provide yet another explanation for Dr. Kelly's demise.

But every time this "sexed-up" intelligence story pops up something bothers me about it, and that is--why would a Labor Party Prime Minister willingly go along with a fraud to help an American Republican president? What did Blair stand to gain from such a move? The risk/reward strongly favored risk. Even a cursory glance at Blair's history reveals he was consistent in supporting the US regards Saddam, including Operation Desert Fox in 1998.

So why? Well, maybe his judgment stinks. Maybe he's gullible, Maybe he was strong-armed by Bush over something else (which means Clinton also strong-armed him). Perhaps he's just an idiot. Or perhaps he knows a lot more than the rest of us.