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London, July 18 (NBC, MSNBC) - Adding mystery to the controversy over prewar intelligence gathering, British police said a body found Friday had been tentatively identified as that of a missing Defense Ministry adviser suspected of being the source for a news report that the government doctored information on Iraq’s weapons programs to bolster the case for war.
The family of the man, David Kelly, 59, a microbiologist who had worked as a U.N. weapons inspector, reported him missing after he went out for a walk Thursday with no coat despite a heavy rainstorm.
The body, found by police in a wooded area about five miles from Kelly’s home, was to be identified Saturday, said Acting Superintendent David Purnell of the Thames Valley Police. The cause of death was unknown, and an autopsy was scheduled.
"But what I can say is that the description of the man found...matches the description of Dr. David Kelly," Purnell told reporters.
The Defense Ministry said Kelly might have been the source for a British Broadcasting Corp. report that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s aides gave undue prominence to a claim that Iraq could launch chemical or biological weapons on 45 minutes’ notice.
The ministry said Friday that Kelly had been told he had violated civil service rules by having unauthorized contact with a journalist, but "that was the end of it." It said Kelly had at no point been threatened with suspension or dismissal after admitting speaking to the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, who said in May that a senior intelligence source told him that the government "sexed up" intelligence on Iraq.
Gilligan quoted his source as saying Blair’s communications chief, Alastair Campbell, had pressed intelligence chiefs to insert into a dossier on Iraq the assertion that Baghdad could use weapons of mass destruction on 45 minutes’ notice. Campbell has denied the allegation.
Kelly, questioned Tuesday by a committee of Parliament, said he did not make the claims in the report and did not believe he was the source cited. The BBC has refused government requests to reveal its source.
Members of Parliament who questioned Gilligan behind closed doors Thursday said he backed away from his allegations against Campbell. Gilligan himself called the questioning an "ambush."
In Tokyo, Blair said an independent judicial inquiry was expected. Blair’s spokesman said that the government would "cooperate fully" and that the judge leading the inquiry would have access to "any papers that he wants and to any people he wishes to speak to."
POSTWAR FALLOUT
Television journalist Tom Mangold said he had spoken Friday morning to Kelly’s wife, Janice, who said her husband felt stressed after appearing before the committee.
"She didn’t use the word ‘depressed,’ but she said he was very, very stressed and unhappy about what had happened and this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in," Mangold said.
Gilligan’s report sparked parliamentary hearings into how the government made the case for war, forced Blair onto the defensive and pitted government officials against the broadcaster in a heated war of words.
Donald Anderson, chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, where Kelly testified Tuesday, said the committee "felt pretty confident that he [Kelly] was not in fact the source."
Anderson, a member of Blair’s Labor Party, told BBC television that Kelly appeared "rather relaxed" during his testimony and seemed to be "on top of things."
But committee member Richard Ottaway, a member of the opposition Conservative Party, said Kelly suggested that he was under great deal of strain.
"At the meeting last week, he did hint at the sort of pressure he was under," Ottaway said.
"He was asked to provide some evidence, and he replied that he would do so but he could not get into his house because of the media pressure."
Opponents of Blair said Kelly appeared to have been made a "fall guy" put forward to shield top officials from blame.
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