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Published on 7/22/2003

The apparent suicide of Dr. David Kelly, a noted British scientist involved in weapons analysis, is another bizarre turn in the trans-Atlantic events surrounding President George W. Bush's claims about the seriousness of Iraqi arms.

Richard Sambrook, news director for the British Broadcasting Corp., said Sunday that the late Mr. Kelly had been the source for a news story that the British government “sexed up” an intelligence report saying Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed within 45 minutes. Mr. Kelly had told a parliamentary committee two days before his death that he was not the source of that report.

Just days before his death, Mr. Kelly had been grilled by members of Parliament in a nasty shouting match about his possible role surrounding the intelligence report.

The political stakes are exceptionally high on both sides of the Atlantic because what was fact and what was not could dramatically affect the careers of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush. Prime Minister Blair called for an investigation into Dr. Kelly's death and said he would testify, if necessary. There is growing anger in Britain regarding the justification for sending troops into Iraq.

In America, the daily fatalities and injuries sustained by U.S. troops in their peacekeeping mission is arousing public discontent about whether the Bush administration delivered accurate information when calling for war against Mr. Hussein.

On Friday, the White House released parts of CIA reports in an attempt to demonstrate how apparently erroneous information was included in the State of the Union address, information that Iraq was negotiating to get uranium for nuclear weapons from an Africa country later identified as Niger.

The White House said the government's belief that Mr. Hussein was trying to assemble a nuclear weapons program was generally considered credible in the American intelligence community, a view that was not based exclusively on the report about Africa.

The CIA report noted that a State Department official called the uranium claim “highly dubious,” but also contained the admission that, “We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD (weapons of mass destruction) program.”

“Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them,” the intelligence report said.

There was sufficient reason to invade Iraq, the Bush administration claims, despite the fact that the U.S. has not found weapons of mass destruction and despite the acknowledgement that the American intelligence community had not found that Mr. Hussein had the ingredients to make nuclear weapons. The specifics, though, of what President Bush said are extremely important as Congress tries to determine whether there was a deliberate effort to mislead the American people.