| Date: | Thursday September 04, @05:44PM |
|---|---|
| Author: | ewing2001 |
| Topic: | News |
| from the Guardian dept. | |
Memo divulged at last minute says No 10 had control
Update Kelly-Inquiry: Hoon 'chaired the meeting that agreed Kelly naming plan' (Independent 09/05)
Guardian -Friday September 5, 2003
Photo: Geoff Hoon
...Tony Blair's repeated assertion to Lord Hutton that intelligence chiefs fully controlled the content of the September 2002 dossier was yesterday questioned by a government document which said No 10 had "ownership".
/...The political future of Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, was thrown into fresh doubt yesterday after the Hutton inquiry was told he had chaired a meeting that approved releasing the name of Dr David Kelly. 
The prime minister told the Hutton inquiry last week that the joint intelligence committee (JIC) and its chairman, John Scarlett, had ownership of the controversial dossier.
The prime minister stressed the point to try to knock down claims that his communications chief, Alastair Campbell, had "sexed up" the dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
But the Hutton inquiry yesterday released the minutes of a high-level meeting held days before the dossier was published on September 24 2002. It was held in Mr Scarlett's office and the minutes set out the main points that were agreed. Under a heading in bold, Ownership of the Dossier, the minutes record: "Ownership lay with No 10".
Independent -05 September 2003
The political future of Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, was thrown into fresh doubt yesterday after the Hutton inquiry was told he had chaired a meeting that approved releasing the name of Dr David Kelly.
Richard Taylor, Mr Hoon's special adviser, said the decision to confirm Dr Kelly's name to journalists was not opposed by the cabinet minister. In his testimony to the inquiry last week, Mr Hoon had said he was merely "aware" of advice from press officers that the scientist's identity should be made public. But Mr Taylor's evidence made clear Mr Hoon had failed to reveal he had chaired a morning media meeting, which authorised the MoD's so-called naming strategy.
The special adviser told the inquiry that himself, Mr Hoon, Peter Watkins, Mr Hoon's private secretary, and Pam Teare, the MoD director of news, had all attended the meeting on 9 July. Mr Taylor said the meeting agreed that if a journalist put Dr Kelly's name to the MoD, it could not deny he was the official who had admitted meeting Andrew Gilligan.
Hoon 'chaired the meeting that agreed Kelly naming plan'
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printed from IraqGate UK: New Evidence on Dossier +Kelly on 2004-05-30 23:27:40