Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

British Whodunit

Aired August 01, 2003 - 10:33   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: A judge in Britain says that he will question the prime minister as he investigates the death of British weapons expert David Kelly. the preliminary inquiry began today. Kelly apparently committed suicide amid accusations that he leaked information, saying Britain had -- quote -- sexed up claims about Iraq's weapons program.
Let's go live now to London.

Our Robin Oakley is standing by with more on this inquest.

Robin, hello.

ROBIN OAKLEY, CN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.

Well, there's a lot of reputations and a few jobs riding on the outcome of this inquiry by Lord Brian Hutton, and there are a lot of top witnesses are going to be called before the inquiry, because Dr. Kelly's death followed his becoming the central figure in a huge battle between the government and the British broadcasting corporation, the public service broadcaster, whose reporters had alleged that the government sexed up it's dossier, its intelligence dossier, for making the case for war against Saddam Hussein.

And Lord Hutton has made clear today that he will call the prime minister, the defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, Alstair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of communications, as well as the chairman of the BBC governors, before this inquiry. But he's determined that it doesn't become a trial, a battle between the government and the BBC. He's insisting this is an inquiry into one man's death. He opened the proceedings with a minute's silence in memory of Dr. David Kelly, and he's insisting that every word of the proceedings comes out and is available to the wider public.

But what will the be some relief to Tony Blair and his government is Lord Hutton hasn't indicated any desire to widen out the inquiry. In order to find out what was responsible for his death, he's not going to widen it out from what he said today into a more general inquiry into the government's use or misuse of intelligence in building that case for war against Iraq -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Robin a couple questions for you here. Why not widen that inquiry?

OAKLEY: Well, because he was given a specific remit to get on as quickly as he could with a very specific investigation of precisely why Dr. David Kelly came to his death. Now the key questions in that, of course, was it a failure by the BBC, which used him as a source for its main story to protect his identity sufficiently? Was it the effort by the ministry of defense to whom he went forward and confessed he might have been the source of the story? Though he had said he hadn't said as much as the reporter said. Or was it Downing Street driving on the ministry of defense, trying to get this man out into the public domain, where he was then drilled pretty mercilessly by the House of Commons investigative committee? All of these people are potentially to blame for Dr. Kelly's death.

It will be Lord Hutton's task, really, to assign the blame, and he's made clear he's going to call for every kind of document that might have passed between Tony Blair's Downing Street and the ministry of defense in the process -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And just, finally, is the suggestion here potentially that dr. David kelly did not commit suicide, that this was actually a murder?

OAKLEY: No, there is no suggestion whatsoever that murder was involved, and we heard some additional evidence today from Lord Hutton, from a postmortem inquiry, to say that dr. Kelly was found not only with his wrists slit, apparently by his own act, but also that there were four electrocardiogram pads on his chest, and that his death had been hastened by some kind of cardiovascular basic weakness, and that that may be an explanation, at least of the speed of his death, if not the cause of it. But there's no suggestion, Daryn, of murder.

KAGAN: All right, just had to clear that up for the conspiracy theorists out there.

Robin Oakley in London, thank you so much for that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired August 1, 2003 - 10:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: A judge in Britain says that he will question the prime minister as he investigates the death of British weapons expert David Kelly. the preliminary inquiry began today. Kelly apparently committed suicide amid accusations that he leaked information, saying Britain had -- quote -- sexed up claims about Iraq's weapons program.
Let's go live now to London.

Our Robin Oakley is standing by with more on this inquest.

Robin, hello.

ROBIN OAKLEY, CN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.

Well, there's a lot of reputations and a few jobs riding on the outcome of this inquiry by Lord Brian Hutton, and there are a lot of top witnesses are going to be called before the inquiry, because Dr. Kelly's death followed his becoming the central figure in a huge battle between the government and the British broadcasting corporation, the public service broadcaster, whose reporters had alleged that the government sexed up it's dossier, its intelligence dossier, for making the case for war against Saddam Hussein.

And Lord Hutton has made clear today that he will call the prime minister, the defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, Alstair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of communications, as well as the chairman of the BBC governors, before this inquiry. But he's determined that it doesn't become a trial, a battle between the government and the BBC. He's insisting this is an inquiry into one man's death. He opened the proceedings with a minute's silence in memory of Dr. David Kelly, and he's insisting that every word of the proceedings comes out and is available to the wider public.

But what will the be some relief to Tony Blair and his government is Lord Hutton hasn't indicated any desire to widen out the inquiry. In order to find out what was responsible for his death, he's not going to widen it out from what he said today into a more general inquiry into the government's use or misuse of intelligence in building that case for war against Iraq -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Robin a couple questions for you here. Why not widen that inquiry?

OAKLEY: Well, because he was given a specific remit to get on as quickly as he could with a very specific investigation of precisely why Dr. David Kelly came to his death. Now the key questions in that, of course, was it a failure by the BBC, which used him as a source for its main story to protect his identity sufficiently? Was it the effort by the ministry of defense to whom he went forward and confessed he might have been the source of the story? Though he had said he hadn't said as much as the reporter said. Or was it Downing Street driving on the ministry of defense, trying to get this man out into the public domain, where he was then drilled pretty mercilessly by the House of Commons investigative committee? All of these people are potentially to blame for Dr. Kelly's death.

It will be Lord Hutton's task, really, to assign the blame, and he's made clear he's going to call for every kind of document that might have passed between Tony Blair's Downing Street and the ministry of defense in the process -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And just, finally, is the suggestion here potentially that dr. David kelly did not commit suicide, that this was actually a murder?

OAKLEY: No, there is no suggestion whatsoever that murder was involved, and we heard some additional evidence today from Lord Hutton, from a postmortem inquiry, to say that dr. Kelly was found not only with his wrists slit, apparently by his own act, but also that there were four electrocardiogram pads on his chest, and that his death had been hastened by some kind of cardiovascular basic weakness, and that that may be an explanation, at least of the speed of his death, if not the cause of it. But there's no suggestion, Daryn, of murder.

KAGAN: All right, just had to clear that up for the conspiracy theorists out there.

Robin Oakley in London, thank you so much for that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com