Hoon believes his career is in jeopardy over Kelly's death

LONDON, August 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Britain's Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told colleagues he believed that the death of a government scientist at the center of claims that London exaggerated the case for war on Baghdad would put an end to his political career in Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, shaken to foundations by the scientist's death, a British newspaper reported Sunday, August 17. 

Meanwhile, the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly revealed that key last-minutes changes had been made to the British government's dossier on Iraq's weapons capabilities, so that London could join the U.S. in invading Iraq.

Hoon telephoned colleagues to tell them he expected to have to "fall on his sword" over the death of David Kelly, the Independent revealed.

"He's told us he's going to carry the can," the daily quoted one Hoon's colleague as saying. 

The daily further said that the inquiry into the scientist's death disclosed that Hoon had over-ruled his most senior civil servant - permanent secretary Kevin Tebbit - to order Dr. Kelly to appear before MPs investigating the Iraq weapons row.

Tebbit asked Hoon to "show some regard for the man himself," who was unused to being in the public eye, the Independent said according to the Inquiry led by Senior judge Lord Brian Hutton.

Some of the most senior officials of Blair's office, including media chief Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, are preparing to give evidence to the judicial probe in London this week. Blair is also due to be summoned to testify at some stage, along with Hoon himself.

Caught in the lethal crossfire over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) between Downing Street and the BBC which dictated the course of his death, Kelly's body was found Thursday morning, July 17, at Harrowdown Hill, five miles from Kelly's home in Southmoor, Oxfordshire.

The mild-mannered 59-year-old senior U.N. advisor admitted he had met Andrew Gilligan, the defense correspondent of BBC Radio 4's Today program, a week before he broadcast his story on the Radio about the so-called "dodgy Iraq dossier."

On 29 May, Gilligan broadcast that a senior British official had told him that the Government's dossier on Iraq, published in September 2002, was "sexed up" by Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief, against the wishes of the intelligence services.

The dossier claimed that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do.

The Guardian also revealed Saturday, August 16, that Blair's "headline-grabbing" claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was based on hearsay information.

Last-Minute Changes

Was Iraq invaded for no good reason?!

The respected daily further said that the Hutton inquiry revealed thus far that not only claims about the threat posed by alleged Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction had been beefed up in the two weeks before the dossier's publication, but a crucial change was made to the title as well.

Right up until the publication of the final draft, and as late as 19 September, the document was entitled "Iraq's program for weapons of mass destruction". But on 24 September, when the Government published the finished version, it left out the words "program for," the Independent can confirm. 

According to Dr Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge academic who exposed the Government's February dossier as having been plagiarized from a student thesis on the internet, that the inclusion of the word "program" does not assume that such weapons existed.

In the same draft is an acknowledgement that "Iraq has chemical and biological weapons available, either from pre-Gulf war stocks or more recent production". In the final document, this has been changed to: "Iraq has chemical and biological agents and weapons available, both from pre-Gulf war stocks and more recent production."

Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's communications chief, insisted that he first saw the 45-minutes claim in the first draft of the dossier to be presented to the Government. He said it was discussed at a meeting of the Iraq communications group he chaired on 10 September.

But Hutton inquiry evidence suggests that the meeting was held five days earlier.

"He [Campbell] gave the impression that the first he knew about the 45 minutes was when he saw the first draft. What has come out is that he was being economical with the truth. Worse, he was being plain misleading," the daily quoted as saying Richard Ottaway, a Tory member of the Foreign Affairs Committee which originally quizzed  Campbell on the issue.