WMD Dossier
Kelly's career specialisation led to confusion about his actual job, as he was frequently seconded to other departments. His job description included liaising with the media and he regularly acted as a confidential source, although rarely going on the record or appearing on-camera. In 2002, he was working for the Defence Intelligence Staff at the time of the compilation of a dossier by the Joint Intelligence Committee on the weapons of mass destruction possessed by Iraq. The government had commissioned the dossier as an element of the preparation for what later became the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Although he was not responsible for writing any part of the dossier, Kelly's experience of weapons inspections led to him being asked to proofread sections of the draft dossier on the history of inspections. Kelly was unhappy with some of the claims in the draft, particularly a claim, originating from August 2002, that Iraq was capable of firing battlefield biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order to use them (known as "the 45-minute claim"). Kelly's colleagues queried the inclusion of the claim but their superiors were satisfied when they took it up with MI6 through the Joint Intelligence Committee.
Kelly believed it was most likely that Iraq had retained some biological weapons after the end of inspections. After the end of the ground war, he was invited to join the inspection team attempting to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction programmes, and was apparently enthusiastic about resuming his work there. He made two attempted trips to Iraq. The first was on 19 May 2003, when he was prevented from entering Iraq from Kuwait because he did not have the proper documentation.
The second trip was from 5 June 2003 to 11 June 2003, when Kelly went to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories as a part of a third inspection team. Kelly was unhappy with the description of the trailers and spoke off the record to The Observer, which, on 15 June 2003, quoted "a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq." The expert said:
- They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.
It was confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry that Kelly was the source of this quote.
Read more about this topic: David Kelly (weapons Expert)