Hearing Transcripts

102
1 than that speculation.
2 Q. And is there anything else that you wish to say?
3 A. My Lord, if I may, I have expressed my condolences to
4 Mrs Kelly and her family privately. I would like with
5 your permission to take the opportunity of doing so
6 again publicly and at the same time thank Mrs Kelly for
7 her understanding. At each stage in these events I was
8 trying to establish above all the facts what was the
9 truth about Mr Gilligan's broadcast and his subsequent
10 article, what was said by Dr Kelly to Mr Gilligan and
11 was Dr Kelly in fact Mr Gilligan's single source. In
12 doing so I emphasised at all times the importance of
13 treating Dr Kelly absolutely fairly.
14 LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you very much Secretary of State.
15 A. Thank you my Lord.
16 LORD HUTTON: Well, I think Mr Dingemans it might be more
17 convenient to everyone if I sat at 2.15. That might
18 slightly cut down the afternoon but I think that is
19 preferable.
20 (1.15 pm)
21 (The short adjournment)
22 (2.15 pm)
23 WING COMMANDER JOHN CLARK (called)
24 Examined by MR KNOX
25 LORD HUTTON: Yes Mr Knox.
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1 MR KNOX: My Lord, the next witness is Wing Commander Clark.
2 LORD HUTTON: Yes, please sit down Wing Commander Clark.
3 A. Thank you my Lord.
4 Q. Could you tell the Inquiry your full name and your
5 occupation?
6 A. My name is Wing Commander John Clark. I am
7 a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force.
8 Q. What is your particular specialisation?
9 A. My specialisation is air traffic control.
10 Q. What is your current job title?
11 A. My current job title is CPAC, CONAC 1.
12 Q. CPAC, am a right in thinking, stands for Counter
13 Proliferation Arms Control?
14 A. Correct, and the CONAC stands for Conventional Arms
15 Control. There are actually four of us and I happen to
16 be number 1.
17 Q. When did you start working for CPAC?
18 A. I started working for CPAC in September of last year.
19 Q. Broadly speaking, what are your roles working for CPAC?
20 A. One of my principal roles is to support the Director of
21 CPAC in his activities as commissioner to UNMOVIC.
22 Q. Do you have any other relevant roles?
23 A. Yes, I have some conventional arms control roles.
24 I work with the OSCE on the Code of Conduct and on
25 a number of other treaties, conventional arms control
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1 treaties.
2 Q. I want to ask you one or two questions about your
3 contact with Dr Kelly. Whereabouts do you work?
4 A. I work in the Metropole Building in office 234, that is
5 office 34 on the second floor. I share that office with
6 John Harrison. Once a week Dr David Kelly would make
7 use of a spare desk that was in that office.
8 Q. From what time did you share that office with Dr Kelly?
9 A. From starting work in September with the Ministry of
10 Defence.
11 Q. How often did Dr Kelly come into the office?
12 A. Generally, he would come in once a week; but because of
13 the increase in work in association with our work we
14 were doing in Iraq, then we saw him perhaps on a more
15 regular basis. Traditionally it would be once a week
16 unless he was out of the country, and he did spend
17 a fair amount of time out of the country.
18 Q. When you say with the increase of work with Iraq, can
19 you put a date to that?
20 A. Probably the last two months of his life, the activity
21 associated with the Iraqi Survey Group, the ISG. That
22 increased. He was a principal figure in providing
23 assistance to the ISG, so we saw him on a more regular
24 basis.
25 Q. Did Dr Kelly keep any papers in the office?
105

1 A. Not on a routine basis. I know when Special Branch
2 checked our office there were a couple of documents but
3 he had no in tray or out tray. He merely used the desk
4 to work from.
5 Q. Did he have a computer at the desk?
6 A. No, none at all.
7 Q. He presumably had a telephone at his desk?
8 A. Yes, there were two telephones at the desk. The reason
9 there were two telephones is we changed over to a more
10 modern digital system and the old analogue system was
11 still there, hence there were two telephones there.
12 Q. Did he take telephone calls?
13 A. No. To the best of my knowledge I have no recollection
14 of him ever receiving any calls whatsoever. He made
15 calls, invariably to the Foreign Office and to DIS which
16 were the other parties he was involved with.
17 Q. How much contact would you have with him? He comes in
18 once a week or so. Would you see him all day then?
19 A. No. He would come in, he would perhaps spend one or two
20 hours and then he would go and visit the other areas
21 that he was involved with, the Foreign Office and DIS.
22 Q. Would he ring home or anything like that?
23 A. I have no recollection of him ever ringing home.
24 Q. Did you work together at all?
25 A. Yes. We worked quite closely because he really was the
106

1 fount of all knowledge in respect of Iraq. So whilst
2 I was supporting Dr Bryan Wells in his role as
3 Commissioner to UNMOVIC, he had the experience, he had
4 been a senior inspector so I was able to call on his
5 knowledge. He was actually a very, very good teacher in
6 bringing me up-to-date on Iraqi issues.
7 Q. During the Iraq War itself was there anything in
8 particular that you spoke to Dr Kelly about?
9 A. Really we spoke about things as they evolved and as they
10 took place. We would speak on an almost daily basis on
11 the telephone. Dr Kelly would scan the Internet, he
12 picked up a lot of snippets from contacts and he would
13 convey that message back to me so that I could brief
14 Dr Wells in due course on anything that we may have
15 picked up, as I said, from the Internet or through the
16 media.
17 Q. Do you know if Dr Kelly worked from home at all?
18 A. Yes, that was my understanding in that he primarily
19 worked from home.
20 Q. Did you have any social contact with Dr Kelly?
21 A. None whatsoever.
22 Q. After the Iraq conflict had finished, was there anything
23 that you discussed with Dr Kelly?
24 A. Initially we got involved in what was known as sensitive
25 site exploitation, which was the initial hunt for
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1 weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So we discussed
2 how things were proceeding and the success or lack of
3 success, perhaps, in finding WMDs. Then we followed on
4 the transition from SSE to the Iraqi Survey Group and
5 clearly we were involved in supporting that.
6 Q. Was Dr Kelly able to help in providing names for people
7 to join the ISG, the Iraq Survey Group?
8 A. Yes, Dr Kelly was really the main provider of names.
9 These were individuals he had worked with when he was
10 an UNSCOM inspector, senior UNSCOM inspector. So he had
11 knowledge of these individuals. Also he did put forward
12 some individuals he had worked with, and he knew they
13 were experts in their field, at DSTL at Porton Down.
14 Q. He is putting forward names to you, is he?
15 A. He is putting forward to Dr Bryan Wells and I am working
16 on the list trying to put together -- what we did is we
17 actually had a couple of open days where we welcomed
18 individuals along and we briefed them. Those lists
19 primarily were drawn from the names put forward by
20 Dr Kelly.
21 Q. We know that after the war Dr Kelly appears to have gone
22 to Iraq. Were you aware of that at the time?
23 A. Yes, I in fact organised the trip and accompanied him on
24 the trip to Iraq.
25 Q. Did anything in particular strike you on that trip?
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1 A. Not really, other than Dr Kelly was extremely keen to
2 return to Iraq to complete the mission he had commenced
3 some ten years ago.
4 Q. When you say to complete the mission he had commenced,
5 what was that?
6 A. I think he wished to be able to detect the WMD and
7 really to put them beyond reach of any subsequent
8 regime.
9 Q. Did you notice anything different in Dr Kelly's state of
10 mind after the Iraq War had finished?
11 A. No, not at all.
12 Q. We know that on 19th May, it seems, Dr Kelly went to or
13 tried to go to Iraq but he could not get in when he got
14 to Kuwait. Are you able to tell us anything about that
15 incident?
16 A. Yes. A meeting took place the previous Friday between
17 Dr Bryan Wells and Brigadier Deverell who was to be the
18 Deputy Commander of the Iraqi Survey Group. He was to
19 depart that following Monday to Iraq to carry out
20 a reconnaissance as part of taking on responsibility.
21 Dr Kelly was extremely keen to get out there in order to
22 learn what was going on on the ground, in order that we
23 could brief our prospective inspectors. So Dr Wells
24 asked Brigadier Deverell if he was willing to take
25 Dr Kelly along with him and he agreed. So it was agreed
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1 that Dr Kelly would go.
2 That is where, I think, there was some confusion,
3 because Dr Kelly, as you know, was refused entry to
4 Kuwait because he did not have the proper documentation
5 and that, I think, was based on a number of assumptions.
6 Dr Kelly assumed because PJHQ, the Permanent Joint War
7 Headquarters, had arranged the travel in the form of the
8 tickets, they would have looked after the entry
9 requirements.
10 Q. But they had not?
11 A. They had not. PJHQ, to defend them, they were of the
12 opinion that Dr Kelly was a regular traveller to the
13 Middle East and they thought he either had some form of
14 identification, because with military identification one
15 can get into Kuwait, so therefore he would be able to
16 use that; or he would have been aware of the visa
17 requirements and addressed those. So both supposed the
18 other had sorted it out.
19 Q. Did Dr Kelly express any discontent to you about what
20 had happened?
21 A. He rang me up the next day when he returned to the
22 United Kingdom and he was angry and frustrated.
23 I think, to be perfectly honest, he was a little
24 embarrassed that his attempts to support and provide
25 support to the Iraqi Survey Group had been thwarted.
110

1 Q. We know on 29th May Mr Andrew Gilligan made a broadcast
2 on the Today Programme. Did you yourself hear that
3 broadcast?
4 A. No I did not.
5 Q. Were you aware of the press storm that appears to have
6 arisen after that broadcast?
7 A. Not really, no. It was not an issue I personally had
8 focused on.
9 Q. You did not focus on the question whether Dr Kelly might
10 be anything to do with it?
11 A. No, not at all. No.
12 Q. Were you aware, at any point, of any rumours going
13 around that Dr Kelly was something to do with
14 Mr Gilligan's story?
15 A. No, not at all. The only thing I was aware of was the
16 fact that something was going on which involved Dr Kelly
17 and Dr Wells. Normally the common ingredient would be
18 Iraq and I would normally be involved. I was not
19 involved, so I assumed either it was something very
20 important that was above my level of interest or else it
21 was something that was of no concern of mine.
22 Q. Can you remember roughly when you became aware of these
23 meetings that seemed to be taking place between Dr Kelly
24 and Mr Wells?
25 A. I cannot recollect the exact dates.
111

1 Q. Can I ask you about Dr Kelly's press contacts. Were you
2 aware he had a number of press contacts?
3 A. Yes. In fact he made no secret of that fact. He was
4 quite proud that he had many press contacts, from
5 diverse backgrounds.
6 Q. When you say he was quite proud of this, how did he as
7 it were show his pride in his press contacts?
8 A. He would openly tell people he had regular contacts with
9 the press.
10 Q. That would be tell people at the MoD for example?
11 A. He would tell people at the MoD. When we were on our
12 trip to Iraq, he told members of the Iraqi Survey Group,
13 I recollect, that he had contacts with the press.
14 Q. What role did you think Dr Kelly had in relation to the
15 press?
16 A. My understanding was that he would brief the press but
17 primarily on an unattributable nature. So he was the
18 individual who would perhaps provide the detail that was
19 required, but he would not be the front man that would
20 necessarily be named as providing the information.
21 Q. And did you believe any of these press contacts were
22 unauthorised? How did he put them to you?
23 A. He believed -- the way it came across to me, he believed
24 he was operating within the rules that he was allowed to
25 operate within.
112

1 Q. We know that Dr Kelly flew again to Iraq on 5th June.
2 Do you know what the purpose of that visit was?
3 A. Yes, that was really a rerun of the visit which I had
4 been tasked by Dr Wells to (a) organise and (b)
5 accompany Dr Kelly.
6 Q. So you went on that trip as well?
7 A. Yes, I did.
8 Q. You went to Qatar first?
9 A. Yes, we went to Qatar in the first instance because the
10 Iraqi Survey Group was just forming. It was just
11 approaching its operational status and the largest
12 element of the Iraqi Survey Group was actually still in
13 Qatar. We arrived on the 5th, which I think was
14 a Thursday, and they were moving forward the following
15 Sunday to Baghdad. So the largest element was still in
16 Qatar.
17 Q. Did Dr Kelly receive any calls from the press while he
18 was in Qatar?
19 A. He received one, to the best of my knowledge. That was
20 on the evening of the 6th in a restaurant in Doha and he
21 received -- that was from Nick Rufford.
22 Q. That was 6th June?
23 A. Absolutely.
24 Q. And he presumably told you it was from Nick Rufford, is
25 that right?
113

1 A. Well, we were sat at the dinner table and he took the
2 call, it was a very short call. I was sat next to
3 David Kelly and the only recollection I have of the call
4 is he said he had no comment and then he said: oh, that
5 was a call from Nick Rufford from the Sunday Times and
6 that was the end of it.
7 Q. What was the accommodation Dr Kelly had when he was in
8 Kuwait?
9 A. Dr Kelly, he lived in what was known -- in Kuwait,
10 or...?
11 Q. In Qatar.
12 A. In Qatar Dr Kelly lived in what was known as DV
13 accommodation, "distinguished visitor". We would call
14 it VIP. So he had a suite of rooms with absolutely
15 first class facilities.
16 Q. After going to Qatar, where did you go next?
17 A. When we finished in Qatar we then flew to Kuwait. Our
18 reason for flying to Kuwait was to be briefed by the
19 Senior British Land Adviser, because up until the
20 establishment of the ISG, SBLA in Kuwait had played an
21 integral role in the hunt for weapons of mass
22 destruction.
23 Q. Did Dr Kelly have similar accommodation in Kuwait?
24 A. No, unfortunately we were put up by the British Army and
25 we were put into transit accommodation which was
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1 basically six beds in one air conditioned room; and we
2 all shared the same facilities.
3 Q. After Kuwait you went to?
4 A. We went to Baghdad International Airport which was then
5 the forward operating area for the Iraqi Survey Group.
6 Q. Were you briefed on anything there?
7 A. Yes, we were briefed on -- having been briefed on the
8 proposed plans in Qatar, we saw the plans coming to
9 fruition of how the ISG was going to be established, how
10 it was going to take shape, to move forward on the work.
11 Q. Were any briefings given on mobile laboratories?
12 A. Yes, we were allowed to view the mobile laboratories.
13 In fact Dr Kelly was given the opportunity to take
14 pictures or photographs of the mobile labs. And we were
15 briefed -- and I do not have a recollection of his name
16 but we were briefed by an American naval captain on his
17 perspective of what he believed these mobile facilities
18 were.
19 Q. And Dr Kelly actually took some photographs?
20 A. Yes, he did.
21 Q. And while you were in Baghdad was Dr Kelly given VIP
22 accommodation again?
23 A. No, he was not actually. We cannot blame the British
24 Army on this occasion but we were in a vermin infested
25 bungalow that had half a roof, three walls and we
115

1 literally shared this room. We had two cots and that
2 was it. No running water, no nothing. It was real
3 field conditions.
4 Q. After Baghdad where did you then go?
5 A. After Baghdad we returned to Kuwait. That was merely
6 because we had booked our flights back from Kuwait.
7 Q. Then you flew back to London?
8 A. Flew back to England.
9 Q. Did Dr Kelly go anywhere else in June 2003 after going
10 to Iraq?
11 A. Yes, immediately we returned to the UK on Thursday we
12 briefed our prospective inspectors on the Friday. That
13 following Monday he went out to the States to meet up
14 with a colleague and also to speak to some individuals
15 that were in UNMOVIC.
16 Q. We know that on 30th June Dr Kelly wrote to his line
17 manager, Mr Wells, saying he had had a conversation with
18 Mr Gilligan. Were you aware at all at the end of June
19 or indeed in early July that Dr Kelly had, as it were,
20 reported himself to Mr Wells?
21 A. Yes, but it was some time after the letter had been
22 written. In fact, I realised he had written to Dr Wells
23 probably about the same time that Dr Wells made me aware
24 of the fact that Dr Kelly was appearing before the two
25 Committees.
116

1 Q. We know that Dr Kelly was interviewed on 7th July,
2 Monday 7th July. Did you see Dr Kelly on that day?
3 A. It had been my intention to see him on that day, because
4 Dr Kelly was actually up at Royal Air Force
5 Honnington -- was that the 7th? Just let me check my --
6 Q. You are certainly there on 8th July.
7 A. Yes he was. So I went up on the 7th to meet with
8 Dr Kelly and the other prospective inspectors. There
9 were a number of bits of documentation that needed to be
10 filled in and also they needed some additional
11 briefings. So I went up on the Monday lunchtime and was
12 surprised to get up there and find that Dr Kelly was not
13 there and to find he had been recalled to London.
14 Q. So you did not see him on the 7th or 8th July?
15 A. No, I did not.
16 Q. We know on the evening of 8th July a press announcement
17 is made saying that an official has come forward saying
18 he had spoken to Mr Gilligan. Were you aware of that
19 press announcement at the time?
20 A. No, I was not.
21 Q. Did you later find out about this?
22 A. Yes. The first that I knew of it was actually watching
23 the BBC News at 10 and there was a report based on the
24 press announcement.
25 Q. Now, I take it from your previous answer that until this
117

1 press announcement you had had no suspicions that
2 Dr Kelly might be involved in talking to Mr Gilligan?
3 A. Absolutely.
4 Q. Did you draw any inferences from the press announcement
5 once you heard about it?
6 A. Yes. As I said previously, I knew that something was
7 occurring which involved Dr Kelly and Dr Wells but I had
8 no idea what it was. So it was just a case of the fact
9 that the story -- or, sorry, the article as portrayed on
10 the TV, that coupled with the information I had picked
11 up as to what was going on in the department, I put two
12 and two together and thought perhaps this was Dr Kelly.
13 It really was a guess more than anything else and it was
14 something I did not share with colleagues.
15 Q. Was there anything in the article which you heard on the
16 TV which made you think it might be Dr Kelly? Was there
17 any particular detail that was given out?
18 A. Nothing comes to mind.
19 Q. On Wednesday 9th July, the day after the announcement,
20 did anyone contact you about this matter relating to
21 Dr Kelly?
22 A. Yes, I was sort of contacted second-hand by the MoD
23 press office. They had rung a colleague and he had put
24 a lady called Clare Cridland through to myself to
25 explain really the raison d'etre as to how Dr Kelly's
118

1 name had come to the attention of the press.
2 Q. Can you remember what time that was?
3 A. That was in the morning. So it was fairly early on.
4 Q. Is this early on on Wednesday morning?
5 A. Would it be Wednesday or Thursday? I am just trying to
6 think. Actually I think that was -- my recollection is
7 that was probably on the Thursday morning. It was after
8 it had been out in the public. So it was the following
9 morning. So when I came to work, I knew of Dr Kelly's
10 name.
11 Q. So that is probably the Thursday, the 10th?
12 A. In all likelihood, yes.
13 Q. What about on the previous day, Wednesday 9th July? Did
14 you have any discussions with anyone about the Dr Kelly
15 matter?
16 A. No. No.
17 Q. You have said you were speaking to someone on 10th July.
18 Did you, yourself, after the conversation you have just
19 mentioned, talk to anyone?
20 A. Yes, having been briefed on the raison d'etre behind the
21 releasing of Dr Kelly's name I spoke to my line manager
22 in the form of Dr Wells and briefed him accordingly.
23 Q. You say the raison d'etre of the release of Dr Kelly's
24 name. What were you told was the raison d'etre?
25 A. I was basically told in simple terms if the press were
119

1 able to identify Dr Kelly by name that the MoD would not
2 deny it and in fact they would confirm it.
3 Q. You were told this after Dr Kelly's name had already
4 been identified?
5 A. Yes, but that is how it had come about.
6 Q. Did Dr Kelly come into work on that Thursday, 10th July,
7 or indeed the following day?
8 A. (Pause). I cannot remember.
9 Q. Can you remember if you spoke to him at all on either of
10 those days, at the end of that week?
11 A. I do not have any recollection but I would have been
12 surprised if I had not, because we did speak most days.
13 Q. Can you remember if you had any conversations, not
14 necessarily right at the end of that week, but around
15 that time can you remember having any conversations with
16 Dr Kelly about his name having come out?
17 A. No. I think the only time really we spoke about that
18 was the following week.
19 Q. We know that Dr Kelly appeared in front of the Foreign
20 Affairs Committee on 15th July. When did you find out
21 that he was going to have to do that?
22 A. The previous Friday.
23 Q. And who told you that?
24 A. Dr Wells.
25 Q. What did Dr Wells explain to you about that?
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1 A. He just explained -- I probably initiated the
2 conversation, in that expressing concern about the
3 situation as it was evolving. I regarded, as I say,
4 Dr Kelly as a friend and a colleague. And I think
5 Dr Wells briefed me that he was due to appear before the
6 Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and
7 Security Committee the following week.
8 Q. So that would probably have been on Friday 11th?
9 A. Absolutely.
10 Q. Did you speak to Dr Kelly about this, either on the
11 Friday or the following --
12 A. No, I did not speak to Dr Kelly on the Friday.
13 Q. Did you offer Mr Wells that you would give assistance to
14 Dr Kelly?
15 A. Yes, I felt it was the honourable thing to do to be of
16 whatever use I possibly could. But -- again I based
17 that -- my wish was to support not only Dr Wells but
18 Dr Kelly too.
19 Q. And what did Dr Wells say to that?
20 A. He took me up, took my offer up and said he would be
21 grateful for my assistance. I pointed out that I would
22 be happy to provide support in whatever he felt was the
23 most appropriate manner.
24 Q. Whatever that would be, whatever Dr Wells felt was the
25 most appropriate manner?
121

1 A. Yes. Yes.
2 Q. What assistance did you then give in the following week?
3 A. Right. Dr Wells obviously spoke to Dr Kelly and
4 Dr Kelly contacted or spoke to me on the Monday and said
5 he was pleased that I was going to be there as his
6 companion, to provide moral support. In addition to
7 that, I provided the normal support a friend would
8 provide, I provided him with tea, coffee, made sure that
9 at no time was he on his own, kept him busy with
10 conversation and really tried to address his needs in
11 order to make him as comfortable as possible.
12 Q. Did Dr Kelly come in on the 14th July, the Monday, the
13 14th?
14 A. Yes he did. He came in about 11 o'clock.
15 Q. And were you with him all day or --
16 A. I was with him until just after lunch; and then he and
17 Dr Bryan Wells went across to DIS to meet with DCDI,
18 Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence.
19 Q. Did they come back afterwards to you?
20 A. They came back. Then very quickly after that Dr Kelly
21 went home. So he went home about 4 o'clock in the
22 afternoon.
23 Q. Did you at any point before the hearing in front of the
24 FAC or the ISC discuss the forthcoming appearance with
25 him?
122

1 A. We spoke in very general terms. I felt it would be
2 inappropriate to ask him the obvious questions that
3 clearly the hearings were there to ask him. I asked him
4 how he felt. He was tired. He was clearly not looking
5 forward to the hearings. I did say: did you think when
6 you wrote the letter to Dr Wells that we would end up in
7 this position in the full glare of the press, and he
8 said under no circumstances had he felt, when he
9 submitted his letter to Dr Wells, that he would have
10 ended up in that position.
11 Q. Did Dr Kelly say anything more specific about how his
12 name had become public?
13 A. No.
14 Q. And did Dr Kelly seem surprised that he was appearing in
15 front of the Foreign Affairs Committee from anything he
16 said to you?
17 A. I do not think it was surprise. I think perhaps he was
18 resigned to the fact that due procedure had been
19 followed and that was probably the natural outcome,
20 having followed the procedure.
21 Q. Was there anything in particular in appearing in front
22 of the Foreign Affairs Committee that seemed to disturb
23 him? Did he say anything about that?
24 A. He was not looking forward to being televised.
25 Q. Did you go to the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing?
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1 A. Yes, I did. I went along with Dr Wells.
2 Q. And anyone else? Was it just you and Dr Wells?
3 A. We also had the press officer with us as well.
4 Q. So in other words there were four of you, is that right,
5 altogether?
6 A. Yes, but only two of us sat directly behind Dr Kelly in
7 order to provide moral support.
8 Q. Did you take any notes of the hearing?
9 A. Yes, I did. But I took notes of the questions as
10 opposed to the answers in order that if Dr Kelly had any
11 queries as a follow-on then we could perhaps investigate
12 those at a later time.
13 Q. Perhaps you can just confirm, they are the notes that
14 appear at MoD/20/39?
15 A. Yes, they are.
16 Q. What was the atmosphere, as far as you could tell, at
17 the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing?
18 A. It was uncomfortable to -- certainly from where I was
19 sat it was extremely warm. The fans or the air
20 conditioning had to be switched off because the
21 Committee could not hear David -- Dr Kelly, and they
22 were continually asking could he speak up, speak up. He
23 was quite a softly spoken individual, and he was
24 obviously having difficulty being heard.
25 Q. Was he more softly spoken than usual?
124

1 A. No, I do not think so, no. That was David Kelly.
2 Interestingly, he was someone if you and I were having
3 a conversation or if you and Dr Kelly were having
4 a conversation, you would have no difficulty, but in
5 a larger forum, yes, he could be difficult to hear.
6 Q. Did Dr Kelly appear to be behaving in any way unusually
7 in response to the questions, that is as far as you knew
8 him?
9 A. Not at all. He appeared to be coming across in a very
10 open and frank manner.
11 Q. After the hearing how did Dr Kelly appear to be?
12 A. Again, he was very tired. Without a doubt he had found
13 it quite stressful. But we had not come to the end, we
14 still had one more hearing to go, so I think it was
15 a case of: so far so good. We have got over the first
16 hurdle, now we have the second hurdle to attack the
17 following day.
18 Q. Did Dr Kelly say anything about the way the hearing had
19 gone?
20 A. Not really. I mean Dr Wells congratulated him on his
21 perception on how well it had gone. I think Dr Kelly
22 really just accepted the congratulations. As I said, we
23 had not reached the end of the game, we still had more
24 to do. So he was not in a position to really relax and
25 say: well, you know, I have come to the end of that.
125

1 Q. Did Dr Kelly comment on any of the questions that he had
2 been asked?
3 A. Yes. He was totally thrown by the question or the
4 quotation that was given to him from Susan Watts. He
5 spoke about that when he came back to the office. He
6 did say that threw him. He had not expected or
7 anticipated that that would have come to the fore at
8 that forum.
9 Q. When you say the question about Susan Watts, can you be
10 a bit more precise about what that question was?
11 A. I cannot remember exactly which member of the Committee,
12 but a member of the Committee read out a very long
13 quotation from Susan Watts -- well, no, it was
14 a quotation that had been reported on by Susan Watts
15 which apparently David or Dr Kelly had said. Now, in
16 response to that Dr Kelly said it was not his quote.
17 That had come on quite early. That had really surprised
18 him, that that quote had been tabled to him.
19 Q. So after the hearing he says to you: that really threw
20 me?
21 A. Yes he did.
22 Q. Did he say why it really threw him?
23 A. No, I have no recollection of that.
24 Q. Did he comment on any of the other questions he had
25 received?
126

1 A. No, I do not think so.
2 Q. There has been some speculation that perhaps
3 Mr Mackinlay was a bit brusque with him. Did he mention
4 anything about that?
5 A. No, I think Dr Kelly accepted he was doing his job.
6 Perhaps there is the nice guy/bad guy and Mr Mackinlay
7 was obviously playing a particular type of individual on
8 the Committee. He was clearly trying to get a reaction.
9 I think Dr Kelly felt that he was being prodded in that
10 manner to try to get a reaction.
11 Q. Dr Kelly came in the next day and attended the ISC
12 hearing. Did you see Dr Kelly before the ISC hearing?
13 A. Yes, but only for a very short while. He came in just
14 before lunchtime and I think we were at the ISC early
15 afternoon. He was somewhat later in because he had had
16 some family difficulties at home.
17 Q. And who went with him to the ISC hearing?
18 A. Myself and Dr Wells.
19 Q. And did you take notes of the ISC hearing?
20 A. Yes, I did. Once again I took notes of the questions.
21 Q. I think we can see those, if you just want to confirm,
22 at MoD/20/42.
23 A. Is it possible to go to the top of the page because --
24 yes, those are my notes.
25 Q. Are these just the questions again?
127

1 A. Primarily they are, perhaps with the odd comment.
2 Q. And why just the questions?
3 A. Because Dr Kelly obviously knew the answers -- they were
4 coming fast and thick and Dr Kelly knew the answers that
5 he was providing, so I just recorded the questions as
6 reference so that if he wished to go over any of the
7 questions, we had those as a reference document.
8 Q. That was the same as you did for the FAC hearing?
9 A. Absolutely.
10 Q. After the ISC hearing how did Dr Kelly appear?
11 A. Relieved that it was -- we thought that it was all over
12 with. Again, tired. He was asked by a colleague how he
13 felt and he said that the pressure associated with the
14 hearings was worse than that associated with the
15 interview he had had in association with his PhD.
16 I think up until then that had been the most stressful
17 interview he had perhaps had. So that was how he
18 related it.
19 Q. Did he actually say up until now that had been the most
20 stressful interview?
21 A. Yes. Yes, he did.
22 Q. And did you have any further conversations with him on
23 the 17th, after the hearing?
24 A. On the 16th?
25 Q. Sorry, on the 16th. Yes.
128

1 A. No. No. We tidied everything up and he went home.
2 Q. What sort of time did Dr Kelly go home?
3 A. I think it was closer to 5 than 4.
4 Q. And the next day, Thursday 17th July, did Dr Kelly come
5 into work?
6 A. No, he did not. We had two Parliamentary Questions that
7 had to be responded to that had been tabled by
8 Andrew Mackinlay and we also had a request from the
9 Foreign Affairs Committee to provide a response
10 resulting from the hearing.
11 Q. Do you know when the two Parliamentary Questions had
12 actually been tabled?
13 A. I do not, but I know that we had seen them before --
14 I am convinced we had seen them both before we went to
15 the Select Committees.
16 Q. So you saw them even before you went to the Foreign
17 Affairs Committee?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. I think we can just see the Parliamentary Questions, or
20 at least in part, at MoD/20/18.
21 I think the Parliamentary Question is the bit at the
22 top, is that right?
23 A. Yes, it is.
24 Q. And that is one question. Then there is another
25 question at MoD/20/25.
129

1 A. These, I think, are the subsequent questions. Was there
2 not questions before? Because I see these are dated the
3 17th.
4 Q. These appear to be the drafts for the reply.
5 A. Right.
6 Q. We are not aware I think of any other Parliamentary
7 Questions.
8 A. Right.
9 Q. These were the two Parliamentary Questions that you or
10 Dr Kelly were trying to answer on the 17th?
11 A. Yes they are.
12 Q. Then there is also a letter one can see I think at
13 FAC/1/13. Do you recognise this letter, Wing Commander?
14 A. Yes, I do.
15 Q. I think the two Parliamentary Questions and the letter
16 which had to be dealt with by Dr Kelly on the 17th?
17 A. Yes. Absolutely right.
18 Q. Can I ask you to go to -- sorry, I will not ask you to
19 go to it yet.
20 Did you play any part in assisting Dr Kelly to
21 answer these Parliamentary Questions and the letter?
22 A. Yes, I played the role of facilitator. The drafter of
23 the responses and the authoriser of the responses was
24 actually Dr Wells but Dr Wells on that day was also
25 working from home. So both Dr Wells and Dr Kelly were
130

1 working from home. So we basically needed somebody in
2 the office to collate the information and pass it on to
3 the necessary parties. What had been agreed on the
4 previous day, the 16th, was Dr Kelly would provide the
5 detail that was required by about 10 o'clock the next
6 morning; I would then insert that into generic responses
7 that Dr Wells had already constructed and then I would
8 send the responses to Dr Wells for his consideration as
9 he was the drafter; and that is exactly what happened.
10 Q. Could you go to MoD/20/12? This appears to be an e-mail
11 from Dr Kelly to you sent at 9.22.
12 A. Correct.
13 Q. You will see it says:
14 "John and Bryan.
15 "I have compiled the information as best I can. The
16 list of journalists is the most difficult because some
17 may date before 2002 and some may have nothing to do
18 with Iraq whatsoever. Attached is the information in
19 Word."
20 Am I right in thinking the information in Word he is
21 referring to is the information one sees subsequently on
22 this page?
23 A. Correct.
24 Q. There was no as it were specific attachment?
25 A. Correct.
131

1 Q. You will see that he answers at the foot of the page,
2 there is a bracket:
3 "Other than Andrew Gilligan I know that I have met
4 Jane Corbin and Tom Mangold in the past year but have
5 not recorded those meetings in my diary. I have
6 contacted Peter Watkins."
7 Over the page he lists the journalists he has had
8 contact with. Did you send on this information to
9 Dr Wells?
10 A. Yes, I collated it into -- Dr Wells had already written
11 a generic response which just required the detail to be
12 added. So I added the detail in accordance with
13 Dr Kelly's e-mail and then e-mailed that via a colleague
14 to Dr Wells. Of course Dr Wells had already seen the
15 detail because he had been on the e-mail addressees as
16 well as home.
17 Q. If you go to MoD/20/14, is this the e-mail you were
18 talking about? It is an e-mail which I think is being
19 sent by you at 11.48. There are three attachments.
20 A. Yes, I am sending this to a colleague -- in fact this
21 was not the colleague that forwarded it. Some of the
22 computers at the Ministry of Defence have e-mail access
23 to the Internet, some of us do not. In order to get it
24 to Dr Wells who was working at home on his own PC,
25 I sent it to a colleague who was then able to sent it
132

1 out on the Internet.
2 Q. There are three attachments, one is the letter to
3 Peter Watkins that is in the response to the 16th July
4 letter, then two PQs.
5 A. Absolutely.
6 Q. Then over the page at MoD/20/15 there is a letter which
7 is drafted on behalf of Bryan Wells. You drafted this
8 letter, did you?
9 A. He, Dr Bryan Wells, drafted this letter. I merely added
10 the detail that had been provided by Dr Kelly.
11 Q. That would therefore be, is this right, the second
12 paragraph:
13 "Is it not possible to give a comprehensive answer"?
14 A. Yes, absolutely.
15 Q. Then going to MoD/20 at 16, there is another letter?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Which part of this letter did you draft?
18 A. I certainly drafted all the bits below:
19 "Dr Kelly had contact with the following
20 journalists."
21 I then added all of the journalists' names.
22 Q. I note, at page MoD/20/17, you put Susan Wells.
23 A. Yes, Susan Wells is how -- if you go back to the
24 original one David Kelly had sent, he had referred to
25 her as Susan Wells.
133

1 Q. Not as Susan Watts?
2 A. I had not picked up -- to be honest I was not looking
3 for Susan Watts either, I was merely collating the
4 information in accordance with the detail that had been
5 provided. It was actually Dr Wells who identified
6 Susan Watts was being referred to as Susan Wells and
7 made the changes.
8 Q. Then, I think over the page, MoD/20/18, you have filled
9 in the draft reply; is that right?
10 A. Yes. Yes.
11 Q. And again I think there is the draft reply to the other
12 question that is at page 20. MoD/20/20. Again you
13 filled in this reply, did you?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Did you yourself then play any part in assisting
16 Dr Kelly to provide any further answers?
17 A. Not at this -- as far as the process was concerned, they
18 got sent to Dr Wells. Dr Wells reworked them, made some
19 changes and then sent them back to myself, and in that
20 process I had not had any more communications with
21 Dr Kelly on that issue. So we actually had what we
22 thought were the final products, and those were the ones
23 that we despatched.
24 Q. Can I just take you to that? There is another set of
25 e-mails at MoD/20/22. You see here another e-mail which
134

1 you are sending at 13.59. You are now sending it, as
2 I see it, to Parliamentary Questions. Who is that?
3 A. That is the organisation that we send completed
4 Parliamentary Questions to. So when they are finalised
5 and have been authorised, which in this case Dr Wells
6 had done so, we had the final versions and they had been
7 sent to the Parliamentary Branch, Parliamentary
8 Questions.
9 Q. You thought when you sent this e-mail you were sending
10 off the final versions?
11 A. Correct.
12 Q. Can I ask you to look at the final versions? If you go
13 to MoD/20/23 you have added in at 23 a specific
14 paragraph under the three names:
15 "Dr Kelly has also had meetings with Jane Corbin and
16 Tom Mangold but has no records of the dates."
17 That was actually consistent with what Dr Kelly told
18 you in his initial e-mail?
19 A. Yes but I did not add that, Dr Wells added that.
20 Q. Then over the page at MoD/20/23 -- I apologise. Sorry,
21 I think there is nothing I need to show you on 23. But
22 everything you see in the following pages, at 24 and 25,
23 as far as you were concerned, this represented final
24 answers?
25 A. Yes, it did.
135

1 Q. We know that there appears to be another draft which you
2 can see at MoD/20/27, do you see this?
3 A. What I am looking at now is the draft that went to the
4 PS to the Secretary of State. So that again was the
5 completed version. The previous one was the PQs that
6 went to the Parliamentary Branch. This is now the
7 completed version of the letter.
8 Q. If you go to MoD/20/28, if you look at the second
9 paragraph you will see there is a reference in the
10 second paragraph to:
11 "... journalists whose business cards Dr Kelly has
12 in his possession..."
13 Did anyone contact you about the reference to
14 business cards?
15 A. Yes, after we had despatched these one of the copy
16 addresses was the PUS's office and I was contacted by
17 the PUS's office to suggest that that statement could be
18 improved and perhaps to say that it was perhaps too
19 loose and perhaps needed to be refined. So the
20 suggestion was that we rework the statement on the
21 business cards.
22 Q. And did you talk to Dr Kelly about this at all?
23 A. Yes, I spoke to a colleague, James Harrison, who I share
24 the office with. He is also the deputy director and is
25 a very experienced civil servant, so I discussed the
136

1 issue with him, I discussed it with Dr Wells and then
2 I discussed it with Dr Kelly; and we agreed that whilst
3 it may not be the most articulate statement, it was
4 a very accurate statement of how the list had been
5 collated. So it was decided that the reference to the
6 business cards and how that had been used to form the
7 list would remain.
8 Q. If we go to MoD/20/30, you can see that the list has
9 Susan Watts at the end of the list. Do you see that
10 there?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Was there any discussion about Susan Watts that you had
13 with anyone?
14 A. Yes. On the same call the advice was that Susan Watts,
15 rather than just being part of the generic list, that as
16 Susan Watts had been referred to in the Foreign Affairs
17 Committee, that really she ought to be taken out of the
18 generic list and be put into the paragraph which
19 referred to the contacts, the specific contacts that
20 Dr Kelly had had with journalists.
21 Q. You say that was a telephone call from?
22 A. It was the same telephone call from the PUS's office.
23 Q. That point was discussed with Dr Kelly?
24 A. With the same people as last time, but that was agreed,
25 that that was a sensible measure.
137

1 Q. I think we can jump forward. If you go to a further
2 draft at MoD/20/31 there is a further e-mail you send at
3 16.53. If you jump on a few pages to page 34, you can
4 see Susan Watts' name appearing in the body of the
5 second paragraph.
6 A. Correct.
7 Q. And that was inserted by you?
8 A. Yes, it was.
9 Q. Did Dr Kelly ever see this draft with Susan Watts' name
10 in the body of the paragraph?
11 A. It was discussed with him, yes, but he would not have
12 seen it, no; he did not physically see it.
13 Q. Did he physically see in fact any of the final PQs?
14 A. The only way he would have seen it is if Dr Wells had
15 sent him copies. I know that he and Dr Wells were
16 communicating with each other, but certainly I did not
17 send him any copies.
18 Q. Can you recall what conversations you had with Dr Kelly
19 in the course of the 17th July apart from specifically
20 on the e-mails?
21 A. Yes. We had a number of calls. The first one was
22 obviously about 10 o'clock in the morning to say the
23 information required is on the Internet machine. The
24 reason he would make that call is the Internet machine
25 is a stand alone machine in an office some 30 yards from
138

1 where I work, so you had to know it was on there to go
2 and find it.
3 We also had a general discussion of developments,
4 how he was feeling. He was feeling still tired but in
5 good spirits, although at that stage -- and David Kelly
6 was a very private man and very rarely mentioned his
7 family -- I mentioned he had come in later on the 16th
8 because of a personal problem at home. That was because
9 he had obviously come back from Cornwall and his wife
10 had been left in Cornwall and he some way had to work
11 out how to get his wife, who has arthritis, back from
12 Cornwall. That is why he had been making arrangements
13 on the 16th and that is why he was somewhat later in.
14 On the 17th, when I asked him how he was going, he
15 basically said he was holding up all right but it had
16 all come to a head and his wife had taken it really very
17 badly. Whether that was in association with the
18 additional pressure of having to get back the day before
19 under her own steam, I do not know, but he did say that
20 his wife had been very upset on the morning of the 17th.
21 Q. Did you discuss going back to Iraq at all?
22 A. Yes, it was something we discussed regularly because
23 Dr Kelly was very keen to get back to Iraq to support
24 the ISG and on that morning, because we thought that
25 really we were clearing the workload associated with PQs
139

1 and with the Select Committees, we looked at
2 a reasonable date for him going back. Having discussed
3 it with Dr Wells, we came up with the date of the 25th
4 which basically gave him just slightly over a week to
5 get his personal effects sorted out and then he would
6 fly out. So that -- I spoke to him on the Thursday and
7 it was going to be a week the following Friday that he
8 would fly out.
9 Q. Did you book a flight for him?
10 A. Yes, I did. Having agreed that then he was booked on
11 a flight.
12 LORD HUTTON: So that was a definite plan, Wing Commander,
13 was it, that he would go out on the 25th?
14 A. It was my Lord.
15 LORD HUTTON: He knew that?
16 A. Provided basically we would seek authority from the
17 Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence that he was happy
18 we had received it, it was a definite plan. He had
19 agreed that Dr Kelly himself could easily make that
20 date.
21 MR KNOX: In the course of these conversations were you told
22 by anyone that any further contacts with journalists had
23 to be checked with Dr Kelly?
24 A. Yes, I was contacted by the Secretary of State's office
25 and he brought up the subject of the article that had
140

1 been published on 13th July, written by Nick Rufford.
2 Now, Dr Kelly had made no reference to that meeting in
3 his one-to-one meetings, and I was asked to check with
4 Dr Kelly if that meeting had taken place and, if it had,
5 then really it ought to be included in the response.
6 Q. Before we go on for a moment, when you say the Secretary
7 of State's office contacted you, who was the individual
8 you spoke to?
9 A. It was his PS -- can I check my notes?
10 Q. Was it a Mr Wilson?
11 A. No, it was Peter.
12 Q. Peter Watkins?
13 A. Peter Watkins.
14 Q. What did you do?
15 A. Again I discussed it with James Harrison with
16 Bryan Wells and attempted to ring Dr Kelly.
17 Q. At what time did you attempt to ring Dr Kelly?
18 A. It was -- I have since been told by the police --
19 I thought it was close to 3 o'clock but it was about
20 3.20, and I was told by his wife who answered the
21 telephone that Dr Kelly had gone for a walk at
22 3 o'clock.
23 Q. Can you recall what the last telephone conversation you
24 actually had with Dr Kelly was before that attempt to
25 get hold of him?
141

1 A. Yes, I had a call with him which was just before
2 3 o'clock. Again I thought it was earlier but we have
3 been able to track that down from investigating my log
4 of e-mails and the telephone log that the police were
5 able to provide. So about 6 or 7 minutes before
6 3 o'clock was the last conversation. That was the one
7 where we discussed Susan Watts and the business cards.
8 Q. When you say Susan Watts, i.e. appearing in the body of
9 the text?
10 A. Absolutely right. So that had been agreed.
11 Q. And after you had not been able to get hold of Dr Kelly,
12 what did you do?
13 A. I was surprised that I could not get two-way with him
14 because he was always very proud of his ability to be
15 contacted. He took his mobile phone everywhere. I do
16 not mean to be light-hearted but an example of that was
17 that one day I rang him up and I could hardly hear what
18 he was saying because he was on his lawnmower cutting
19 his grass. But that is the sort of man he was; he was
20 always contactable. So on this occasion when I rang him
21 I asked his wife in the first instance when she said he
22 went for a walk, did he have his mobile, and she did not
23 know. I rang and it was switched off and I was very
24 surprised that it had been switched off.
25 Q. When you say it was switched off, did you get any
142

1 message?
2 A. Yes, I got an electronic voice saying: the number you
3 have rung is not reacting. Which is the normal one that
4 one would associate if the telephone itself had been
5 switched off.
6 Q. After you had not been able to get hold of Dr Kelly on
7 the mobile then, did you try again?
8 A. I rang his wife because clearly I needed to get the
9 staff work taken forward and I needed to speak to
10 Dr Kelly. I spoke to her and said I had not been able
11 to contact Dr Kelly on his mobile and I thought she
12 might say something but she was quite matter of fact and
13 said, you know -- did not really record the fact.
14 I then said: could you ask Dr Kelly when he returns,
15 could he give me a ring. That is how the message was
16 left with his wife.
17 Q. Did you try to get hold of Dr Kelly again?
18 A. Yes, I did. I hoped that he would perhaps switch on his
19 mobile so I probably tried about every 15 minutes for
20 the remainder of the time. I left the Ministry of
21 Defence at about 10 to 5 because I had an optician's
22 appointment and then handed over responsibility to my
23 colleague, James Harrison.
24 Q. Did you get the same message every time you rang the
25 mobile?
143

1 A. Yes. It was never switched on.
2 Q. Did you try ringing Mrs Kelly again?
3 A. No I did not, because I felt that was going to put
4 undue -- bearing in mind Dr Kelly had said she was not
5 coping well with the pressure, I felt it would put undue
6 pressure on her. Clearly, he had not returned. He was
7 out having a walk and if I had gone back I would have
8 been, I felt, putting undue pressure on her because
9 there was nothing really she could do until he returned.
10 Q. Is there anything else you would like to say about the
11 circumstances leading to Dr Kelly's death?
12 A. Nothing really comes to mind.
13 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much Wing Commander Clark.
14 A. Thank you, my Lord.
15 MR JAMES HARRISON (called)
16 Examined by MR KNOX
17 Q. Mr Harrison, could you tell the Inquiry your full name
18 and your occupation?
19 A. James Harrison. I am the Deputy Director for Counter
20 Proliferation and Arms Control in the Ministry of
21 Defence.
22 Q. And since when have you held that post?
23 A. Since February 1999.
24 Q. When did you join the Ministry of Defence?
25 A. 1979.
144

1 Q. And what are your responsibilities in your current post?
2 A. Primarily it is the MoD's contribution to UK Government
3 policy on biological and chemical arms control.
4 Q. Does this include Iraqi chemical and biological weapons
5 programmes or not?
6 A. Essentially not. What I am concerned with is the
7 international treaties and conventions of which Iraq is
8 basically not a participant. Iraq has been dealt with
9 really exclusively by Bryan Wells assisted by
10 Wing Commander Clark; and I have not routinely been
11 involved on Iraq issues at all.
12 Q. Have you in fact ever been involved in Iraqi issues in
13 the recent past?
14 A. The only brief occasions I recall in late March/early
15 April this year, Dr Wells was away from the office on
16 leave and in his absence I had some involvement on
17 issues relating to sampling and analysis of suspected
18 biological and chemical materials coming from Iraq.
19 Q. I just want to ask you some questions about your
20 knowledge of Dr Kelly. Before your appointment in
21 February 1999, did you know Dr Kelly at all?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Did you know of him?
24 A. I do not believe so, no.
25 Q. And after your appointment, did you come to know him?
145

1 A. I did, essentially in his role as adviser on Iraq to
2 Bryan Wells' predecessor as the director of the branch.
3 Q. How did you regard Dr Kelly?
4 A. I regarded him with respect, as a considerable expert
5 with considerable experience of operations in Iraq.
6 Q. Where did Dr Kelly work in relation to where you worked?
7 A. For most of the time he had no dedicated desk in our
8 offices, which, at that time, were in the main building
9 on Whitehall, which is currently being refurbished. So
10 when he came into the office he would occupy a vacant
11 desk really wherever he could find one if somebody was
12 out of the office at the time. But he did not have any
13 regular place to sit.
14 Q. I think we heard from Wing Commander Clark that
15 certainly he was in a room where there was normally
16 a spare desk that Dr Kelly came and sat at.
17 A. Yes, that situation changed I would say about two years
18 ago when we moved into temporary accommodation in the
19 Metropole Building while the main building was being
20 refurbished. At that time we maintained a dedicated
21 spare desk, if you like, which was used by David Kelly
22 and another individual when they happened to be in the
23 building. I only moved into that office in about
24 January of this year.
25 Q. How often did you see Dr Kelly, from January 2003
146

1 onwards?
2 A. I would have said normally perhaps once or twice a week,
3 probably somewhat more in the more recent months when he
4 was engaged in the setting up of the Iraq Survey Group,
5 as you have heard earlier this afternoon.
6 Q. How long would he come into the office for, when he came
7 in?
8 A. It varied. I would say his routine was that he would
9 come into the office at sort of 9.30 or 10 o'clock
10 perhaps. He would exchange a few brief words, tell us
11 what his plans were for the day, whether he had meetings
12 with Bryan Wells over in the Foreign Office or with the
13 Defence Intelligence Staff. He would stay in the office
14 perhaps only a few minutes or perhaps an hour or two and
15 then go off to those meetings and very often would not
16 come back into the office again.
17 Q. We heard from Wing Commander Clark he did not keep any
18 papers in the office.
19 A. He did not that I was aware of at all.
20 Q. He did not have a computer there?
21 A. He did not, no.
22 Q. It appeared he worked mostly from home; is that right?
23 A. That was my impression, yes.
24 Q. Did you work with Dr Kelly on anything in particular?
25 A. Occasionally because I knew his particular expertise
147

1 I would consult him on particular issues. For example,
2 I was involved with the negotiations in Geneva on
3 measures to strengthen the biological and toxin weapons
4 convention; and I informally asked his views on what he
5 thought -- how effective he thought that the measures
6 under discussion would be.
7 Q. And did you have any social contact with him?
8 A. No, I did not. As I said, he came into the office, went
9 to meetings and went home and it was really no contact
10 outside that.
11 Q. Were you aware of Dr Kelly's press contacts?
12 A. I was aware that he had contacts with the press and that
13 he normally got clearance from the Foreign Office for
14 briefings on Iraqi issues. I think I was aware of
15 a particular programme, it was a Panorama programme,
16 I think it was involving Jane Corbin, I was reminded of
17 this when I saw her name on the screen just now. That
18 was earlier this year. I think he mentioned that he had
19 briefed her as part of her preparation for that
20 programme.
21 I also recall taking a telephone call from some
22 American newspaper some time in the last year or two who
23 was seeking to contact David Kelly. I passed the
24 details on to him.
25 Q. We heard from Wing Commander Clark that Dr Kelly was
148

1 proud of his press contacts. Did he ever say anything
2 to you which suggested that?
3 A. No, I cannot say that I recall him doing so.
4 Q. We know on 29th May Mr Gilligan's report appeared on the
5 Today Programme. Were you aware of that at the time?
6 A. I certainly did not hear the broadcast and I do not
7 recall paying any particular attention to press reports
8 of it either, at that stage.
9 Q. And we know also on 15th June this year an article
10 appeared in the Observer saying that a biological
11 weapons expert working for the Government had said that
12 mobile facilities found in Iraq were not for biological
13 weapons but for hydrogen production. Were you aware of
14 that article when it came out?
15 A. I was aware of it. I am not sure if I saw it in the
16 press cuttings that come round on a daily basis but
17 I was aware of it, yes.
18 Q. Did you hear anything about Dr Kelly in relation to
19 either of those articles, the Gilligan article or the
20 mobile trailer article?
21 A. I heard nothing in relation to the Gilligan article at
22 that stage. I was aware from a conversation with
23 John Clark that he and David Kelly had seen the
24 equipment in question during their visit to Baghdad.
25 Q. That is the mobile --
149

1 A. The mobile facilities. I was also aware, perhaps again
2 from John Clark, I am not certain, that clearly there
3 were very few people who were the potential sources of
4 that story; and I understood that Martin Howard had
5 asked David Kelly whether he was the source for that
6 particular story and that he had said that he was not.
7 Q. When did you become aware that Martin Howard had spoken
8 to Dr Kelly about this?
9 A. It would have been, I guess, in the days following the
10 publication of the particular article, but I do not
11 recall the date.
12 Q. So shortly after 15th June?
13 A. That week or possibly the start of the following week.
14 That timescale, yes.
15 Q. We know that on 10th July Dr Kelly was effectively
16 publicly named in the press as the source for
17 Mr Gilligan's article. Before that, had you been aware
18 of any speculation to the effect that he might be the
19 source?
20 A. I was aware that there was something going on and
21 Bryan Wells had mentioned to me that David Kelly had
22 been seen by, I think, Martin Howard and
23 Richard Hatfield. But I did not ask any detailed
24 questions as clearly the matter, whatever it was, was
25 sensitive; and I did not feel it appropriate to press
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1 for more details on it.
2 Q. You had not heard anything before that?
3 A. Not that I recall, no.
4 Q. We know that Dr Kelly was asked to give evidence before
5 the Foreign Affairs Committee and the ISC on 15th and
6 16th July. Did you see Dr Kelly at any time in the week
7 before he went to give evidence in front of the Foreign
8 Affairs Committee?
9 A. Yes, I did. I saw him on the morning of the 14th and
10 again certainly on the morning of the 15th and possibly
11 also the morning of the 16th and, indeed, the afternoons
12 of those two days.
13 LORD HUTTON: I think we might just give the stenographers
14 a short break now Mr Knox.
15 (3.23 pm)
16 (Short Break)
17 (3.30 pm)
18 LORD HUTTON: Yes Mr Knox.
19 MR KNOX: Mr Harrison, you saw Dr Kelly before he appeared
20 in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Can you
21 remember where you saw him and when you saw him in the
22 week before he went to the Foreign Affairs Committee?
23 A. Yes. On the morning of the Monday, 14th, I think, he
24 came into the office, I think perhaps around
25 mid-morning, and the only thing I recall him saying was
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1 that he had been in Cornwall and that was why he was
2 late arriving. And I asked if that was because he had
3 been away on leave and he explained that I think it was
4 the Ministry of Defence press office advised him to
5 leave his home for a few days in order to avoid being
6 besieged by the press during that period. I do not
7 recall any other discussion on the Monday particularly.
8 I know that he was seeing Bryan Wells in preparation for
9 the Foreign Affairs Committee, I think, meeting on that
10 day.
11 On the Tuesday morning again I saw him I think
12 before the hearing. There was in fact I think some
13 confusion, as I recall. Originally he was expecting to
14 appear before the Intelligence and Security Committee
15 that day as well and I think there was some confusion
16 and he went off to attend that hearing in the Cabinet
17 Office before it was established that it had been
18 rescheduled because of the statement that had been made
19 by the Foreign Secretary that day.
20 I do not recall any particular discussions in
21 advance of the hearing. I was aware, obviously, that
22 Bryan Wells and John Clark would be accompanying him and
23 looking after him. But I did see him after he returned
24 to the Ministry of Defence after the hearing; and in
25 fact I have watched most of the broadcast of that
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1 hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the
2 television.
3 Q. Before Dr Kelly went to the Foreign Affairs Committee
4 hearing did he show any signs of pressure or say
5 anything?
6 A. In terms of pressure, I think the only thing that he
7 mentioned as an annoyance, particularly, was having to
8 move out of his home for a few days. He certainly made
9 no reference to any Ministry of Defence disciplinary
10 procedures or anything of that sort and nor did I ask
11 him about those on the basis that those were essentially
12 personal and confidential to him. I think he made no
13 particular reference to his expectations of the Foreign
14 Affairs Committee, though, of course, I recognised that
15 any appearance by anyone before a Parliamentary
16 Committee of that sort is a fairly daunting thing to
17 prepare for.
18 Q. I think you said you did watch the broadcast of the
19 Foreign Affairs Committee?
20 A. I think I missed the start of it but I certainly saw
21 most of it.
22 Q. Did Dr Kelly appear to be his normal self in the course
23 of that hearing?
24 A. He was perhaps slightly more subdued than usual.
25 Although he was naturally a quiet sort of man, I would
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1 say he was both controlled but also sort of cheerful,
2 even sort of jaunty, perhaps, businesslike in his manner
3 normally and he was perhaps somewhat subdued, as I say.
4 Q. Did you see Dr Kelly after the hearing?
5 A. I did. He and John Clark came back into the office
6 after the hearing; and I think John and I, particularly,
7 exchanged some comments about the hearing, particularly
8 about the nature of some of the questioning, though
9 David himself said very little that I recall.
10 Q. Did he seem to be upset in any way?
11 A. That is not a word I would use, no; and I think he was
12 in the sort of frame of mind that I would expect of
13 somebody who has gone through an hour or so of intensive
14 questioning in that sort of forum. You know, it is not
15 a -- it is like having an exam or something of that sort
16 that you have to focus on very intently to the exclusion
17 of anything else. I think when you leave you tend to be
18 somewhat drained.
19 Q. Dr Kelly did not comment on any particular aspect of the
20 hearing, or did he?
21 A. He did not. I commented to John Clark and to him about
22 what seemed to me to to be the offensive nature of some
23 of the questioning but I do not think he responded or
24 picked up on that himself.
25 Q. Wing Commander Clark mentioned Dr Kelly said he had been
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1 thrown by a question in relation to Susan Watts. Do you
2 remember anything about that?
3 A. I do not, no.
4 Q. Did you do anything to reassure Dr Kelly?
5 A. Yes. Having, as I said, commented on what seemed to me
6 to be the unnecessarily aggressive nature of some of the
7 questioning and description of him, using such terms as
8 "chaff" and "fall guy", it seemed to me that to reassure
9 him I also wanted to point out that it seemed to me that
10 other members of the Committee and indeed the Chairman
11 had described him as an honest witness, and that
12 I wanted to make that point to him.
13 Q. Had Dr Kelly suggested he had been upset by the comments
14 that he was chaff --
15 A. No he had not. That was my own personal feeling.
16 Q. When you watched Dr Kelly give evidence, did you have
17 any reason to disbelieve what he was saying?
18 A. None at all.
19 Q. We know that Dr Kelly went to the ISC on 16th July. Did
20 you see Dr Kelly before he went to the ISC on 16th July?
21 A. I am not completely sure, in that I was attending
22 a meeting at the Department of Trade and Industry during
23 the morning from about -- I left the office about 9.40
24 to go to that and I think I returned around 2 o'clock.
25 So I certainly did not see him during that time.
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1 I might have seen him if the hearing was later than
2 2 o'clock, briefly, but I have to say I do not recall
3 anything in detail at all before the hearing.
4 Q. What about after the hearing?
5 A. Afterwards again John Clark and he returned together
6 into the office. I recall asking them briefly how it
7 had gone, and the impression I was given was that the
8 questioning had been reasonable, there had not been
9 problems and it had gone well.
10 Q. And that was what Dr Kelly himself said or ...?
11 A. It may well have been John Clark who said it and David
12 did not disagree; but certainly that was the mood in the
13 office.
14 Q. And are you able to say, from your knowledge, what
15 assistance Dr Kelly was given for the two hearings?
16 A. Well, I know that Bryan Wells and John Clark accompanied
17 him obviously to both hearings. They made the necessary
18 arrangements in terms of getting him in -- you know,
19 finding out just when and where the hearings were, how
20 to get him in and out of them, and generally sort of
21 holding his hand, if you like.
22 Q. We know that the Foreign Affairs Committee tabled two
23 Parliamentary Questions asking about Dr Kelly's contacts
24 with the press. Are you able to say when they were
25 received?
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1 A. I think it was either the Monday or the Tuesday morning,
2 because I do recall comment having been made at the time
3 that they had seemed to be overlapping really with the
4 hearing itself of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
5 Q. So they were received, in other words, before the
6 hearing took place?
7 A. I am pretty sure the questions were, yes.
8 Q. Do you know if Dr Kelly himself was shown the questions
9 before the hearing?
10 A. I do not know for a fact, but I would expect that he
11 would have been. There was no reason why he should not.
12 Q. We know that after the hearing there was a letter from
13 the Foreign Affairs Committee, again asking Dr Kelly to
14 clarify what his contacts were with the press.
15 Are you able to say whether there was any pressure
16 to answer these questions quickly, and if so why?
17 A. Well, Parliamentary Questions normally come with
18 a deadline set for a reply to them. In this particular
19 case, I think the deadline was noon on the Thursday, as
20 I recall. Clearly there were two particular reasons why
21 there was urgency, both on the Parliamentary Questions
22 and the letter from the Foreign Affairs Committee, the
23 first being that it was obviously a matter of topical,
24 political significance; the other being that Parliament
25 was due to rise for the recess on the Thursday. So in
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1 order to get the replies to the Committee and MPs before
2 they left for summer holidays, we needed to get them in
3 on the Thursday.
4 Q. Can I just ask: what would have happened if you had not
5 got them in on the Thursday? Would the answers just
6 have been ignored until Parliament reconvened?
7 A. In terms of the process, I am not sure -- well, I think
8 the letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee would
9 certainly have gone anyway, even if it had been later
10 than the Thursday. The Parliamentary Questions, I am
11 not certain whether the answers are held or I think in
12 this particular case, given the obvious importance of
13 the questions and their relevance to the Foreign Affairs
14 Committee's hearing, I suspect that their contents would
15 have been forwarded to the MP anyway.
16 Q. We have heard from Wing Commander Clark this afternoon
17 about how the answers were drafted to the two PQs and to
18 the letter. Is there anything within your knowledge
19 which you would like to say about how the answers were
20 drafted to those two questions and to the letter?
21 A. I was not involved initially with the questions because
22 David Kelly, John Clark, Bryan Wells -- it was their
23 business and they were getting on with it. However,
24 when the questions were submitted by John Clark to the
25 Parliamentary office at around 2 o'clock, and also the
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1 draft letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee, he passed
2 copies of them to me and I then looked at them. At that
3 stage, or later on in the sort of first half of the
4 afternoon, I raised some additional points with him on
5 the drafting of the questions.
6 Q. When you say "with him"?
7 A. With John Clark.
8 Q. What were those points you raised?
9 A. The particular points that I recall -- one was that it
10 seemed to me we should be sure that the answers fully
11 dealt with telephone contacts as well as face to face
12 meetings. The other point that was of concern to me was
13 that I felt we should try to make clear, if that was the
14 case, that it was journalists who had contacted Dr Kelly
15 rather than him taking the initiative. I think -- I am
16 sorry, I think there were also one or two small drafting
17 points which do not come to mind without seeing the
18 texts.
19 Q. We know that Wing Commander Clark was unable to get hold
20 of Dr Kelly after 3 o'clock.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. He wanted to discuss the drafts further with him. Are
23 you able to say whether you, yourself, took over at any
24 stage in the process?
25 A. Yes. As John Clark mentioned in his evidence, he had to
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1 leave about 5 o'clock for an optician's appointment.
2 I agreed that I would then take over responsibility for
3 handling the questions and the letter to the Foreign
4 Affairs Committee. That was quite normal. I had been
5 aware of the draft responses, I was aware of the
6 questions that had been raised by the PUS's office and
7 the Secretary of State's office and I was aware that
8 Bryan Wells was generally content. So it was quite
9 normal for me as Bryan Wells' deputy to step in and take
10 responsibility.
11 Q. Did you try to call Dr Kelly on his mobile?
12 A. Yes. John had left at, as I say, around 5 o'clock and
13 he had tried to ring -- he had spoken to Mrs Kelly
14 shortly before that. I was very conscious of the need
15 to get the balance right. On the one hand, we had to
16 try to answer these questions and the letter fully and
17 accurately on that day if we could. At the same time,
18 I did not want to be bothering Mrs Kelly on the phone or
19 David indeed unnecessarily soon, when there were already
20 messages for David to ring back.
21 Q. When you rang Dr Kelly's mobile phone --
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. -- what was the response? Was it dead, completely dead
24 or was there any electronic voicemail?
25 A. My recollection is it rang and was not answered and
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1 I rang at about 10 to 6 or thereabouts.
2 Q. I think we heard from Wing Commander Clark that when he
3 tried calling there was an automated response.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You say when you tried it was simply ringing and there
6 was no automated response?
7 A. Yes. We discussed this issue the following day, the
8 Friday. Bryan Wells was in the office and that was
9 after it had been announced by the police that
10 David Kelly was missing. We compared noting on our
11 telephone conversations. I think Bryan Wells had tried
12 shortly after I had and at that time on the Friday
13 morning my clear recollection was that I had rung his
14 mobile number and that the phone had rung but not been
15 answered.
16 Q. And you may already have said, what was the precise time
17 as far as you can tell that you first tried to get hold
18 of the mobile?
19 A. At around 10 to 6. That was the only time.
20 Q. Did you call Mrs Kelly at all?
21 A. Yes. Having failed to get through on the mobile, I rang
22 David Kelly's home number and spoke to his wife.
23 I apologised for bothering her again on this issue, but
24 asked obviously if David was back yet and if he could
25 give me a ring when he was back.
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1 Q. We know at MoD/13/32 you appear to have made a note of
2 your last conversation.
3 A. Indeed, yes.
4 Q. Perhaps you could just clarify one or two words.
5 "Rang Mrs K about 1750 or so."
6 I am not quite sure, the words you have inserted
7 then are?
8 A. "Having tried mobile -- rang, no answer."
9 Q. And then?
10 A. I am afraid I am not sure what the blob is.
11 Q. Then after that?
12 A. "To see if back", i.e. if David was back yet. "Gone for
13 a walk by the river. Bad headache. Had intended to go
14 about 2 o'clock, but delayed [by phone calls?].
15 Sometimes goes on long route."
16 It then says "DPACS" which is Bryan Wells' former
17 title. What I interpret that as meaning is that I rang
18 Bryan Wells to report this at that time and indeed
19 I understand that he rang David Kelly's mobile also as
20 a result of that phone call.
21 Q. Continuing with the note.
22 A. "Rang PS/S of S [that is private secretary to Secretary
23 of State, Peter Watkins] 1830 to report delay. Defer
24 till am. Rang Mrs K about 1840. To say leaving --
25 don't ring back. We'll speak in the morning. Mrs K
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1 sounded okay."
2 LORD HUTTON: Was it Mrs Kelly that said that Dr Kelly had
3 a bad headache, was that what happened?
4 A. That is correct, my Lord, yes.
5 LORD HUTTON: I see. Yes.
6 MR KNOX: The only other point on that note, the square
7 brackets "[by phone calls]", is that something that
8 Mrs Kelly said to you or by your own supposition?
9 A. I scribbled this note hastily on the Friday morning
10 following as a result of Bryan~Wells having come into
11 the office to say that David Kelly had been reported
12 missing because these having been likely to be the sort
13 of latest contacts with the Kellys, it seemed to me
14 important to make a note of them. At that time I was
15 not 100 per cent certain if Mrs Kelly had said David had
16 been delayed by phone calls or something else, but that
17 is what I thought she may have said.
18 Q. It seems from this note that you spoke to Mr Watkins, is
19 that right?
20 A. Yes, that is right, yes.
21 Q. What did he say about the delay?
22 A. I explained the position and said that I thought it was
23 more important to get the full and accurate information
24 from David Kelly himself, even if that meant waiting
25 until the next morning rather than putting in the
163

1 answers as they were, possibly incomplete. He was
2 obviously reluctant to agree that we should extend but
3 he accepted that that was the right thing to do.
4 Q. Is there anything else you would like to say about the
5 circumstances leading to Dr Kelly's death?
6 A. I do not believe there is, thank you.
7 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much indeed Mr Harrison.
8 A. Thank you.
9 MRS WINIFRED ANN TAYLOR (called)
10 Examined by MR DINGEMANS
11 Q. Can you tell his Lordship your full name?
12 A. Yes, my full name is Winifred Ann Taylor.
13 Q. Your occupation?
14 A. I am Member of Parliament for Dewsbury in
15 West Yorkshire.
16 Q. Are you Chairman of any Committee?
17 A. I am Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee
18 and have been for two years.
19 Q. Can I deal very briefly with the dossier that was
20 published by the Government on 24th September?
21 A. Hmm, hmm.
22 Q. I understand that you had a very limited role in that;
23 is that right?
24 A. Yes. I was offered a briefing prior to the publication
25 of the dossier, as were the Chairs of two Select
164

1 Committees: the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
2 Committee and the Chairman of the Defence Committee.
3 They had a briefing together from the Prime Minister.
4 I had a briefing a few days later, separately, because
5 I could not make the same date that they could.
6 Following that meeting with the Prime Minister, he
7 suggested that perhaps because I had chaired a different
8 Committee, I think, and therefore had access to some of
9 the intelligence material, that I should look at the
10 dossier before publication.
11 Q. Can I take you to ISC/3/4 which is an e-mail of
12 18th September? It says at the bottom of the page:
13 "The Prime Minister has asked Ann Taylor to read
14 through the dossier in draft and give us any comments.
15 He stressed that it was for her only ... to see in
16 draft."
17 We are told that was fixed for 8 o'clock in
18 John Scarlett's office tomorrow morning followed by
19 intelligence briefing at 9 during which you will pass on
20 all comments to John?
21 A. That is right.
22 Q. Then at ISC/3/3 we will see an e-mail response which
23 I think picks up some of the comments that you have
24 made?
25 A. Yes, I saw the document and went through it. I then
165

1 discussed it with John Scarlett and David Omand, who
2 were taking me through from their perspective, and
3 I asked some questions and made some comments about it.
4 Q. You published a report on the Intelligence and Security
5 Committee on 8th May, is that right?
6 A. We do not publish our reports ourselves. We send our
7 reports, our annual reports to the Prime Minister.
8 Q. Can I take you to ISC/2/10. That is a letter dated
9 8th May. What is this?
10 A. That is the letter that I send to the Prime Minister
11 which is then published when our report is published.
12 As we are a statutory Committee rather than a Select
13 Committee of Parliament, we report to the
14 Prime Minister. And at the time of each annual report,
15 it has been customary for the Chair of the Committee to
16 write a letter to the Prime Minister highlighting one or
17 two of the major points. Certainly in recent years that
18 letter has been reproduced at the front of the annual
19 report that we publish or we get published by the
20 Prime Minister.
21 Q. And we can see the whole of the report. Can I just take
22 you to two passages. ISC/2/35. This is headed "Iraq"
23 at paragraph 80, if you have the hard copy there?
24 A. I have.
25 Q. You note in paragraph 81 towards the bottom of the page:
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1 "In September 2002 some intelligence was
2 declassified and used to produce a dossier on the Iraqi
3 WMD programme. The Agencies were fully consulted in the
4 production of the dossier, which was assembled by the
5 Assessments Staff, endorsed by the JIC and issued by the
6 Prime Minister. The Committee supports the responsible
7 use of intelligence and material collected by the
8 Agencies to inform the public on matters such as these."
9 Then you talk in paragraph 82 about the February
10 dossier which I think some people have called
11 colloquially the "dodgy dossier". If I can go over the
12 page to 83, at the top of the next page:
13 "It is impossible at the present moment to make any
14 definitive statements about the role of intelligence and
15 the situation in Iraq. Whilst the Committee has been
16 briefed, we intend to examine in more detail the
17 intelligence and assessments available and their use.
18 We will report when our inquiries have been completed."
19 When did you start? That is dated 8th May. When
20 did you start the inquiries or were you just continuing
21 as it were?
22 A. Perhaps I could put this in some context. We had
23 indicated in our previous year's annual report that we
24 intended to take evidence on the work of the agencies to
25 counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
167

1 and their delivery means. That work was something that
2 we started in about this summer of 2002, late
3 spring/early summer. We certainly made the decision and
4 reported it in the annual report of that year, of 2002.
5 We then got into the situation where the dossier was
6 produced in September. I was briefed, as you have
7 mentioned. The Committee was also briefed by
8 John Scarlett; and during the year we were briefed by
9 the heads of the agencies as well as John Scarlett, on
10 occasions, about what was happening and what was
11 developing in Iraq.
12 We felt that the relationship between the role of
13 intelligence and policy makers was a very important and
14 interesting one; and we did not feel that we could draw
15 all the conclusions about that relationship when the
16 situation was developing; and we therefore decided
17 probably at quite an early stage that we would have to
18 do more work on the relationship between intelligence
19 and policy making, but at the same time we were doing
20 other work because we had the situation in Bali where we
21 had that dreadful incident and we were asked to do an
22 inquiry about that. So we were concentrating a lot of
23 our time on that. But this as an issue was still there
24 at the back of our minds, and we were also of course
25 getting briefings from time to time on the situation in
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1 Iraq.
2 That is the background. We then got to the
3 situation where the February dossier, to which you
4 refer, was published. Around that time we were having
5 our normal briefings from heads of agencies and others;
6 and because of the degree of controversy surrounding
7 that document we were able and wanted to find out more,
8 so asked questions about that from the head of the
9 agencies, SIS in particular, because we wanted to know
10 just how that dossier had been prepared, how the
11 difficulties had arisen about the allegations with that
12 dossier; and we had, I think, probably what I would call
13 unique reference points for the development of the
14 difficulties which subsequently are the object of the
15 inquiries that are continuing.
16 So we decided in February to ask questions about
17 that particular dossier. We decided, on the continuing
18 basis, to look at this inter-relationship between
19 intelligence and assessments and policy formation; and
20 then, in May of this year, when we completed our annual
21 report, we very specifically decided that we would, as
22 we say in paragraph 83, examine in more detail the
23 intelligence and assessments available and their use.
24 So that was the sequence of events. And we informed the
25 Prime Minister in our report which we sent him at the
169

1 beginning of May that that would be the work that we
2 would be undertaking in subsequent months.
3 Q. And I think the Prime Minister published your report
4 in June; is that right?
5 A. Yes, that is quite normal, for there to be something of
6 a delay, not least because the Government publishes
7 a response to our report.
8 Q. Had you actually started to hear any evidence before
9 Dr Kelly's name became public or you were contacted
10 about Dr Kelly?
11 A. Yes. In early May, when we submitted our report to the
12 Prime Minister, I also wrote to John Scarlett saying how
13 we intended to take on this work and to ask for
14 cooperation and to ask for material or to point out that
15 we would need material to be made available. We asked,
16 in fact, for all the JIC assessments going back to 1990
17 relating to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; and we
18 started to think about how we would structure our work
19 and who we would want to see. That did not become
20 public, that we were doing that, until the
21 Prime Minister made it public in response to a question
22 in the House on I think June 4th.
23 Q. And had you heard any witnesses before you had
24 conversations with Sir David Omand on around 8th July?
25 A. We had not heard witnesses in the sense of calling
170

1 people in from outside our normal range of contacts. We
2 had been getting information on a pretty regular basis.
3 We have quite a lot of contact with the agencies, with
4 SIS, with GCHQ and indeed with the Security Service.
5 Obviously, throughout the year, and indeed through May
6 and June when we have been having contacts, having
7 briefings, making our visits that we do from time to
8 time, these issues had been coming up and we had been
9 asking questions by way of getting background which
10 would be important to us in terms of how we conducted
11 our inquiry later.
12 LORD HUTTON: May I ask: were those written questions or
13 questions put in conversations with the agencies?
14 A. Questions in conversations at this stage.
15 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much.
16 MR DINGEMANS: Had you heard of Dr Kelly at all before you
17 had some discussions on 8th July with Sir David Omand?
18 A. I had not heard of Dr Kelly at all; and in fact the
19 discussions on the 8th July were with the Clerk to the
20 Committee, not myself.
21 Q. What do you understand was said on 8th July? You are
22 planning to hear some evidence, I think Mr Scarlett told
23 us he was going to give evidence to you, I think, on
24 10th July.
25 A. Yes. We had asked for, as I say, all the JIC
171

1 assessments, going back to 1990. So there was a lot of
2 preparatory reading that Committee members had to do.
3 That was a very substantial amount of work. And so we
4 decided that we would have as many witnesses, take as
5 much evidence as we could before the summer recess. In
6 actual fact that was not going to be possible, so we had
7 to sit throughout the first week of the recess in order
8 to fit as many witnesses in as possible.
9 On the morning of Tuesday, 8th July, the Committee
10 was meeting late morning. As we started the meeting,
11 the Clerk gave me a note, because he had just been
12 called by the private secretary to Sir David, telling
13 the Clerk, so that he could inform me, that an MoD
14 official had told his line manager that he had, in fact,
15 spoken to Andrew Gilligan and the Clerk, at that stage,
16 alerted me to that fact. And that was the first thing
17 that happened.
18 Subsequently, during the meeting, the Clerk was
19 called out of the room because a further message came
20 about how this knowledge might actually be put into the
21 public domain.
22 Q. When you heard that an MoD official had reported to his
23 line manager that he might be Andrew Gilligan's source,
24 did you consider that to be relevant to your inquiry?
25 A. Yes. We thought it would be relevant but not
172

1 necessarily central.
2 LORD HUTTON: Presumably you were familiar with
3 Mr Gilligan's name?
4 A. We were familiar with his name, with the allegations and
5 with the evidence that he had given to the Foreign
6 Affairs Committee.
7 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
8 A. Indeed, we did discuss whether we should invite him to
9 give evidence to our Committee, but we thought there was
10 very little to be gained from that.
11 LORD HUTTON: Yes. Thank you.
12 MR DINGEMANS: Were you aware of any other discussions with
13 the Clerk and Sir David Omand that morning?
14 A. Well, I think it was from late morning into the
15 afternoon we were having a meeting, and it was, again,
16 quite a lengthy meeting, and the Clerk reported to me
17 that there had been a suggestion that there would be an
18 open letter to me from MoD, I think, stating that
19 someone had come forward and that that person was
20 willing to give evidence to the ISC and that that open
21 letter would be the way in which the public, the press,
22 would be informed that someone had come forward and --
23 Q. Had you ever received any open letters before?
24 A. Not that I can think of. I do not think so.
25 Q. So what did you think of the suggestion?
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1 A. Not much. So I said that I did not think that this
2 would be appropriate, that it might well be that if
3 someone had come forward that the Committee would want
4 to interview that person; but that if the Government or
5 Ministry of Defence or any other part of the Government
6 wanted to make a public statement about somebody coming
7 forward as a possible source, then they should do that,
8 not do it by way of a letter to the Committee.
9 My Committee does not take publicity as something
10 that is central to its activity, quite the reverse. We
11 do not give a running commentary on our work and who we
12 see, we find it far more productive to just get on with
13 our inquiries, and we did not want to be party to
14 something which was probably being bounced on us perhaps
15 with good reason from the Government's point of view,
16 they wanted to get something out quickly, I can
17 understand that. But it did not seem appropriate to me
18 and it did not seem appropriate to my Committee that the
19 fact of a possible source coming forward should be made
20 public by way of that open letter. So I just sent
21 a message back saying I did not think that was
22 appropriate.
23 Q. Did you, as it were, encourage them to make a press
24 statement or say: that is really a matter for you?
25 A. I was saying if they want to make a press statement and
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1 they want to say he is available for the ISC that is up
2 to you, but we, as a Committee, do not make press
3 statements unless we issue a report and we do not give
4 a commentary. So we were not getting involved in that.
5 We just carried on with our normal meeting.
6 Q. Now, the press statement was issued. We know that
7 subsequently you hear evidence from Mr Campbell. Had
8 you, at this stage, asked Mr Campbell to give evidence
9 to you?
10 A. I had written to the Prime Minister with a list of
11 possible witnesses on, I think, about 9th June.
12 I cannot quite remember the date. I can come back to
13 you on that. Because we send our report to the
14 Prime Minister, he publishes it, and then we have
15 a meeting between the Committee and the Prime Minister
16 so that we are able to emphasise the points that we
17 think are most important to him and subsequently there
18 is a debate on the floor of the House of Commons on the
19 report.
20 As we wanted to have a good cross-section of
21 witnesses, some of them very senior, I thought it
22 appropriate to make that clear to the Prime Minister
23 before we saw him because had there been any difficulty
24 with getting those witnesses to come and see us, and
25 give evidence, then I would have wanted to raise it at
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1 the meeting with the Prime Minister.
2 Q. Now, on 9th July, I appreciate you did not see these at
3 the time, CAB/1/86, there were some e-mails being
4 exchanged within 10 Downing Street.
5 A. So I gather.
6 Q. And the first one is timed at 9.48. We have to read up
7 from the bottom of the page. It is from Sandra Powell
8 on behalf of Mr Campbell to Clare Sumner with copies to
9 David Manning, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan
10 John Scarlett and others:
11 "I'm wondering whether in the light of yesterday's
12 developments, there is not a case for me [I assume that
13 is Mr Campbell] doing more with the ISC than the half
14 hour with a limited focus on intelligence handling. If
15 the BBC source situation develops as it might, surely it
16 is in our interest for the ISC to delve deeply into
17 this, by interviewing the source, and Gilligan and
18 myself, and for us all putting over our concerns about
19 the damage this could do to the integrity of the
20 Intelligence Services."
21 There are some replies. We can see Miss Sumner
22 replies:
23 "I have not gone back to them yet -- we could
24 offer..."
25 It seems you are likely to get one and a quarter
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1 hours. Then at the top:
2 "We should certainly get them to interview Gilligan
3 and source, and best if you give evidence after both of
4 them."
5 Were you aware of any of these e-mails at the time?
6 A. No. I was aware that Alastair Campbell did not think
7 that half an hour was enough so he was willing to come
8 earlier than we had suggested. He, I think, was
9 literally flying out of the country, possibly to the
10 States with the PM, I cannot quite remember. But he
11 offered to come earlier because he thought he needed
12 more time to go into those issues. As I say, we had
13 already, as a Committee, discussed whether we should
14 invite Andrew Gilligan and did not see much point in
15 doing that. But it was not actually suggested to us by
16 No. 10 that we should be interviewing him or pursuing
17 the matter further in that way.
18 Q. At CAB/11/6 there is a note that is made by
19 Sir David Omand, and I appreciate you did not make it
20 and it is Sir David Omand's note and it is dated
21 21st July, but if we go down to 8th July.
22 A. Hmm, hmm.
23 Q. "There was discussion of the difficulty that Government
24 witnesses before the ISC would be in if [they were asked
25 about] ... the Gilligan source. ... I was uneasy that
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1 we [might] be accused of a cover up ... I suggested that
2 we should write to the Chairman..."
3 And there was reference to you taking evidence in
4 private.
5 Over the page, at CAB/11/7, just as it were to give
6 you the context of it, at paragraph 8:
7 "Immediately after the meeting at about midday
8 I went to see the Clerk to the ISC, and explain that
9 I was minded to write to the Chairman in those terms.
10 The Clerk expressed some concern, saying that the ISC
11 would not want to be put in a position publicly of
12 having to see an individual; they would make their own
13 mind up on the progress of their inquiry. He was sure
14 that Ann Taylor would not want to break the Committee
15 rule that they were not giving a public commentary on
16 the progress of their inquiry, and a publication of the
17 letter from me to her might be seen as just that.
18 I then had to leave immediately for Heathrow Airport for
19 an official visit to Ottawa."
20 Then it appears there was some telephone
21 conversation:
22 "I was informed by telephone that Ann Taylor had
23 confirmed she definitely did not want to receive any
24 letter that was going to be made public. There was
25 confirmation that she however would be prepared to see
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1 a reference to the ISC possibly interviewing the
2 individual, if that came at the end of a press statement
3 from Government."
4 Does that accord with your recollection of the
5 exchanges on that day?
6 A. Yes, that is a fair statement.
7 Q. Now, we know that the Ministry of Defence issued a press
8 statement on the evening of 8th July. Did you see that?
9 A. I honestly cannot remember whether I saw it. I think it
10 came out slightly late. I think my Clerk did tell me
11 that it had come out but it did not seem very
12 exceptional. I think he may have read the phrase out to
13 me on the phone.
14 Q. What was your reaction after seeing that?
15 A. Well, fine, that is just another stage in the whole
16 saga.
17 Q. As we now know, but did you consider that that meant
18 that you had to interview this person who had come
19 forward?
20 A. I think we instinctively thought when we had been told
21 in the afternoon that someone had come forward that we
22 would probably want to interview them. We did not of
23 course, at that stage, know whether this was the source
24 or one of the sources or, you know, what degree of
25 relevance this person had. So, we were pretty open
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1 minded about that, but I think we thought we would have
2 to see the person.
3 Q. Did anyone discuss with you whether or not the evidence
4 should be in public?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Can I take you to CAB/1/87? Again I appreciate it is an
7 e-mail you have not seen. It is another internal
8 Downing Street e-mail from Clare Sumner to Mr Campbell.
9 She says at the bottom of the page:
10 "I have confirmed that you will appear ... on
11 17th July and will have to leave promptly.
12 "I asked where they were with other interviews.
13 "The ISC Clerk told me that the Committee were not
14 interested in interviewing Andrew G as he could not say
15 anything more to them than the FAC" which I think
16 accords with what you have told us.
17 "He said that on the source they were waiting for
18 David O to write to them with the correspondence. He
19 implied that he did not believe it was the source so
20 could not see the point of the ISC seeing him and said
21 they were not interested in the BBC/AC row."
22 Is that right, you were not particularly interested
23 in that?
24 A. We were not focusing on the BBC/Alastair Campbell row
25 though we were wanting to draw our own conclusions about
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1 the intelligence that was used in the dossier in
2 September; and we had of course already commented on the
3 February dossier.
4 Q. Yes.
5 A. So our interest, our primary interest was the
6 intelligence and its use and how it informed policy
7 decisions.
8 The BBC/Alastair Campbell row was, from our point of
9 view, a very marginal issue but of course it did impinge
10 on the authenticity, in intelligence terms, of the
11 original September dossier.
12 Q. Then, continuing on in the e-mail:
13 "The fact he rested [that must be your Clerk] this
14 on was that AG said that he had known his source for
15 years whereas the MoD said months. I think this point
16 could be clarified in the letter from David Omand to the
17 ISC. I pointed out that the BBC had not denied he was
18 the source."
19 A. Hmm, hmm.
20 Q. Then at the top Mr Powell e-mails Clare Sumner, copying
21 Mr Campbell:
22 "I think one of us should speak to Ann on this."
23 Did anyone try to speak to you on this?
24 A. No, the views about whether or not it was the source
25 were the Clerk's own instinctive reactions to the
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1 information that he had, but nobody, neither
2 Jonathan Powell, Clare Sumner, Alastair Campbell,
3 John Scarlett, any of the people on that list did speak
4 to me about that.
5 Q. Then you in fact asked Dr Kelly to come and give
6 evidence?
7 A. We did.
8 Q. And I think there was some confusion about whether he
9 was going to give evidence on the 15th or 16th. Can you
10 just help us briefly with that?
11 A. Yes. As I say, we were trying to fit in as many
12 witnesses as possible during the last week in which
13 Parliament was sitting and the first week of the recess.
14 We had some small slots available. On 15th July, we
15 were taking evidence from the Prime Minister, from
16 Jack Straw, from others, and we were wanting and we did
17 fit in an appointment with Dr Kelly, I think for 12.30.
18 However, our morning session was taking a long time.
19 It was quite slow in that there was a lot to get
20 through; and we also had the additional complication
21 that Jack Straw was making a statement on Iraq in the
22 House of Commons at 12.30, which was exactly when
23 Dr Kelly was due to give us his evidence, and therefore
24 we made a decision mid-morning that we were not going to
25 be able to fit everything in and there were members of
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1 the Committee who were very keen to see Jack Straw's
2 statement at 12.30; and therefore we made the decision,
3 mid-morning, to ask Dr Kelly if we could reschedule his
4 evidence session and arrangements were made in the way
5 that we would normally do this through the Ministry of
6 Defence, who were responsible for getting that message
7 through to Dr Kelly.
8 Q. We have heard evidence that he in fact gave evidence on
9 16th July.
10 A. He gave evidence on 16th July, yes.
11 Q. Before he gave evidence, did anyone write a letter to
12 you suggesting that he should j