"DARK ACTORS"?

Blair on brink as Kelly family point finger: Kelly sent an e-mail accusing "many dark actors playing games" then killed himself (Neil Mackay, James Cusick and Torcuil Crichton, 20 July 2003, Sunday Herald)

TONY Blair faces the biggest political crisis of his six-year premiership with calls for him to resign while in Oxfordshire the body of Dr David Kelly was formally identified and it was said that he took the powerful painkiller coproxamol and then slit his left wrist with a knife.

The government's chief bio- warfare expert and former weapons inspector in Iraq took his own life after finding he had been outed by Whitehall as the possible source behind BBC claims that the government "sexed up" reports that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction in just 45 minutes.

Yesterday afternoon, Kelly's family--wife Janice and grown-up daughters Sian, Rachel and Ellen--issued a statement through Thames Valley Police which was both a thinly-veiled attack on the government and the media, and a tribute to a man described routinely by friends and colleagues as a scientists of "impeccable integrity". [...]

Clearly feeling the pressure, a tired-looking Tony Blair fielded rough questioning from journalists at a press conference in Tokyo. Asked if he felt Kelly’s death was on his conscience, Blair expressed his sorrow for the family but said, referring to the planned independent inquiry into Kelly's death: "I think we should make our judgement after we get the facts."

Looking gaunt and with a tremble in his voice, the PM was then accused by reporters of hiding behind the inquiry and dodged questions about whether he had discussed the possible resignations of his communications director, Alastair Campbell, and Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary and ultimately Kelly's boss.

He then blanked a reporter who asked: "Have you got blood on your hands Prime Minister? Are you going to resign?" The Prime Minister earlier described Kelly's suicide as a
"terrible tragedy", adding: "I am profoundly saddened for David Kelly and for his family." Members of Kelly's family have said that Blair's commiserations came "a bit late in the day".

Why do these British scandals always include a suiciude?

One interesting angle of all this, which hasn't been mentioned much yet, is that if Mr. Blair falles because of the War it will put pressure on his successor to withdraw from Iraq and put the Anglo-American alliance under tremendous pressure. It could also seat a Labour leader more inclined to play footsie with Old Europe and that would ice the relationship until the Tories return to power.

MORE:
-Death of Dr David Kelly: From the hunt for WMD, to the hunt for the mole, to the death of a civil servant. What's next...the end of Blair? (James Cusick, 7/20/03, Sunday Herald) Posted by Orrin Judd at July 20, 2003 2:30 PM