Government's approach to Kelly "embarrassing"

Lord King has been critical of the handling of the David Kelly affair

In a HardTalk interview on September 16, 2003, Tim Sebastian talks to Lord King who has been strongly critical of the handling of the David Kelly affair

Former Conservative British Defence Secretary, Lord King, has strongly criticized the Ministry of Defence's 'naming strategy' toward the late Dr David Kelly.

Lord King says the MoD should have chosen either to publish Dr Kelly's name, or not to. Instead, he says the MoD chose a half-way option.

"The half-way house I find very unattractive indeed - of saying we won't actually name him but we'll give enough clues so people can find out who he is, and I think that is a pretty embarrassing and unattractive approach."

Battle for "president's ear"

Lord King also says the British method of presenting intelligence compares very poorly with the American approach, whereby multiple agencies present multiple viewpoints. The CIA, National Security Agency, State Department and other agencies can all argue their case.

"I call it the battle for the President's ear", says Lord King

In Britain, he says the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) reduces intelligence to the lowest common denominator, so that a single view emerges from the JIC.

"The problem is that you didn't know there was a minority report very often, and maybe on occasions you would have liked to have known it."

Lord King is critical of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FAC) inquiry into the September dossier on Weapons of Mass Destruction.

He says the FAC was "all over the place" and that it "totally failed to uncover a lot of stuff". By contrast, the Hutton Inquiry was able to immediately get access to sensitive emails.

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