BRITAIN: Mr Tony Blair's official spokesman, Mr Tom Kelly, distanced himself from the Prime Minister's outgoing communications director, Mr Alastair Campbell, yesterday, telling the Hutton Inquiry he had wanted to protect Dr David Kelly's identity.
During a tough cross-examination, Mr Kelly - best known for having described the former government scientist and weapons expert as possibly a "Walter Mitty character" - denied any knowledge of, or participation in, a government campaign "to belittle, demean or slur" Dr Kelly.
And he rejected a suggestion that his Walter Mitty remark - for which he again apologised to Dr Kelly's family - was part of "a scene-setting exercise" to cast doubt on Dr Kelly's reputation ahead of the Hutton inquiry into the events leading to his death.
Extracts from Mr Campbell's private diary released on Monday confirmed the communication director's belief that "the biggest thing" was to "out" the suspected source for the BBC's claim that Number 10 and Mr Campbell had "sexed-up" the Iraqi weapons dossier because Dr Kelly had reportedly told his MoD line managers that BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan had misrepresented their conversation.
However, Mr Tom Kelly maintained he had not wanted Dr Kelly's name to come out in the open as late as July 9th, the day when it was being confirmed by the Ministry of Defence.
Asked by Mr Jeremy Gompertz QC, for the Kelly family, if he had wanted the name out, Mr Kelly replied: "The short answer is no. I did not want any of this to be happening."
Mr Kelly regretted that the BBC had not taken the opportunity to retract and enable the matter to be resolved privately.
Mr Gompertz suggested Mr Campbell's diary entry, together with the original MoD statement confirming that an official had admitted unauthorised contact with Mr Gilligan, the MoD's question and answer naming process, and Mr Kelly's own briefings of the press lobby on the same day revealed the "whole purpose", namely "that there was a strategy to reveal Dr Kelly's name without appearing to do so".
Mr Kelly replied: "Categorically not."
Mr Kelly told the inquiry he had not consulted Mr Campbell about his lobby briefings of July 9th, and accepted full responsibility for what he had said. He also denied that information he gave that day had helped newspapers establish who was the unidentified official mentioned in the MoD press statement of the previous day.
Mr Kelly explained that he had had no choice but to provide further information because of a conflict between the MoD statement and the terms of the BBC's reply, suggesting that the person identified by the MoD was not the source for Mr Gilligan's story.
Pressed if he wanted to name the source on July 9th, he said he believed there was "a logic to events which was unfolding" and that he "did not see any reason for us to escalate it".
Asked to clarify this, Mr Kelly told Lord Hutton he believed the chain of events would continue to a point where the issue could only be resolved in a public way.