The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, will come under pressure this morning at the Hutton Inquiry to clarify his role in the controversy over the Iraqi weapons dossier and the events which culminated in the tragic death of the scientist, Dr David Kelly, writes Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, in London
There was little comfort for Mr Blair in the evidence given yesterday by his Defence Secretary. Despite speculation that Mr Geoff Hoon would sacrifice himself to protect Mr Blair, he disowned responsibility for most of the major decisions taken in the course of the controversy.
Mr Blair is expected to be questioned for at least 2½ hours at the Royal Courts of Justice in London where the inquiry, chaired by Lord Hutton, is now in its third week.
Meanwhile, the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death on July 18th were clouded further when a former colleague in the Ministry of Defence, Wing Commander John Clark, revealed yesterday that the scientist had booked a flight to Iraq for July 25th and was "very keen" to travel. The Defence Secretary told the inquiry that when Dr Kelly admitted speaking to the broadcast journalist Andrew Gilligan, Mr Hoon had revealed his name only to the chairman of the BBC, Mr Gavyn Davies, as part of an effort to overcome differences between the Blair government and the corporation arising out of Mr Gilligan's reports.
He said he took "particular exception" to the implication in Gilligan's coverage that the British government had lied to the people about Iraq's weapons capacity.
The Ministry of Defence had been given "no proper opportunity" to respond to this claim before it was broadcast. Mr Hoon denied any direct involvement in the preparation of a series of questions and answers for press officials in his department which provided journalists with clues to Dr Kelly's identity.
He said his first instinct when Dr Kelly came forward was to set dis-ciplinary proceedings in train against him, in order to show officials and members of the military that "unauthorised contacts" with journalists would be punished.
Mr Hoon defended his decision, against civil service advice, that Dr Kelly should appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, because he was concerned about accusations of a government cover-up. But he also suggested that this committee may have placed unsustainable pressure on Dr Kelly by insisting that the scientist provide the names of all journalists with whom he had been in contact.
Despite Dr Kelly's stature as a specialist on Iraqi weapons, Mr Hoon said that when he met the scientist in the office canteen, he did not know who he was and only discovered his identity when the man was dead.