Examination of Witness (Questions 40-59)
15 JULY 2003
DR DAVID
KELLY
Q40 Chairman: Were any of your contacts
authorised by the Ministry of Defence?
Dr Kelly: My primary authorisation
is through the Foreign Office: some were authorised and some were
not, some were informal.
Q41 Chairman: What did you think
the motives were of Mr Gilligan and others in seeking to contact
you?
Dr Kelly: Are we talking specifically
of Mr Gilligan?
Q42 Chairman: Yes.
Dr Kelly: The approach by Mr Gilligan
was to consult with me before his visit to Iraq as a broadcaster.
He wished to know certain aspects of Iraq, the UNMOVIC inspection
process, some of the personalities that are associated with the
programme should he encounter them, some of the sites that are
involved in the programme. You may remember that just before the
war the Iraqi Government was inviting journalists to visit the
sites so they could see, according to Iraqi claims, that there
was no illicit activity occurring.
Q43 Ms Stuart: I may not have heard
something you said in response to Mr Chidgey's question. You did
confirm that you had a meeting and talked with Susan Watts?
Dr Kelly: I have met with her
personally once at the end of a seminar I provided in the Foreign
Office on November 5.
Q44 Ms Stuart: You have neither met
nor talked to her since?
Dr Kelly: I have spoken to her
on the telephone but I have not met her face-to face.
Q45 Ms Stuart: When have you talked
to her on the telephone?
Dr Kelly: I would have spoken
to her about four or five times.
Q46 Ms Stuart: During May at all?
Dr Kelly: During May? I cannot
precisely remember. I was abroad for a fair part of the time in
May, but it is possible, yes.
Q47 Ms Stuart: Have you had any conversations
or meetings with Gavin Hewitt?
Dr Kelly: Not that I am aware
of, no. I am pretty sure I have not.
Q48 Mr Olner: Mr Gilligan's article
in the Mail on Sunday of 1 June states that the location
of your meeting was a central London hotel and that you were waiting
for Mr Gilligan when he got there. At whose request did that meeting
take place between you and Mr Gilligan?
Dr Kelly: Mr Gilligan.
Q49 Mr Olner: Any idea why he requested
it?
Dr Kelly: For the reasons that
I offered to the Chairman. Sorry, which one are we talking about?
Q50 Mr Olner: The one on 22 May.
Dr Kelly: The outcome of the first
meeting I had with him in February was that he would provide me
with feedback from his visit to Iraq, since I am interested in
Iraq, interested in other people's perspectives on Iraq and the
process. That was the reason for meeting with him, to get feedback
on that visit.
Q51 Mr Olner: Was this not a two-way
process, that you wanted also to communicate other things to Mr
Gilligan?
Dr Kelly: No.
Q52 Mr Olner: It was simply a journalist
fishing for information that you had got and you wanted to give
to him?
Dr Kelly: No, it was an occasion
on which I expected to get information about Iraq, about some
of the personalities that he either had encountered or attempted
to encounter, his experiences during the war itself and the experiences
he had with Iraqi minders when he was acting as a journalist before
the war.
Q53 Mr Olner: Obviously you have
read Mr Gilligan's accounts of the meeting, including the evidence
that he gave to this Committee. Is there anything in Mr Gilligan's
accounts that you dispute?
Dr Kelly: I think you would have
to ask me the specific question.
Q54 Mr Olner: You have obviously
read it.
Dr Kelly: I have read it.
Q55 Mr Olner: Is there anything there
that suggests Mr Gilligan was perhaps being careful with the truth?
Dr Kelly: It is not a factual
record of my interaction with him, the character of it, which
is actually difficult to discern from the account that is presented
there. It is not one that I recognise as being conversations I
had with him. There was one part of it which alerted me to that,
which was the comment about the 30 per cent probability of Iraq
actually possessing chemical weapons, that is the sort of thing
I might have said to him.
Q56 Mr Olner: Really Mr Gilligan's
story was basically about drafts of dossiers being changed, being
"sexed-up". Did you infer to Mr Gilligan in any way,
shape or form that he might have misrepresented what you said?
Dr Kelly: My conversation with
him was primarily about Iraq, about his experiences in Iraq and
the consequences of the war, which was the failure to use weapons
of mass destruction during the war and the failure by May 22 to
find such weapons. That was the primary conversation that I had
with him.
Q57 Mr Olner: You certainly never
mentioned the "C" word that he went on to explain in
his column?
Dr Kelly: The "C" word?
Q58 Mr Olner: The Campbell word.
Dr Kelly: The Campbell word did
come up, yes.
Q59 Mr Olner: From you? You suggested
it?
Dr Kelly: No, it came up in the
conversation. We had a conversation about Iraq, its weapons and
the failure of them to be used.
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