Analysis: Hoon puts up fight

By Nick Assinder
BBC News Online political correspondent at the Hutton inquiry

Hoon: Putting up a fight

If Geoff Hoon is going down, he is not going down without a fight.

The man long seen as the most likely government victim of the Kelly affair still has the look of a fall guy.

But he is clearly not as reconciled to that fate as it may sometimes have appeared in the past.

In some of the most ill-tempered exchanges yet seen at the Hutton Inquiry, he constantly challenged claims about his role in the affair - notably the naming of David Kelly.

But he also confessed that he had sanctioned the process that ultimately led to Dr Kelly being named.

He also later admitted he did nothing to correct newspaper reports claiming the government's dossier on Iraq's ability to deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes referred to strategic weapons, not battlefield ones.

The defence secretary was subjected to fierce cross examination by representatives of both Dr Kelly's family and the BBC.

And he certainly looked like he knew this was his last hope of getting out from under.

Different approach

At his last performance he was widely criticised for having adopted a "not me, guv" approach to the affair.

He suggested he had not been involved in key decisions over the way Dr Kelly was finally named.

That led to suggestions he was attempting to point the finger at Downing Street. This time around things were a bit different.

He faced challenges on two main areas - the naming of Dr Kelly and the handling of the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The thrust of the examinations were pretty straightforward and went to the heart of the allegations rocking the government.

First there was the suggestion, bluntly put by counsel for the Kelly family Jeremy Gompertz, that there had been a government conspiracy, of which Mr Hoon had been part, to "out" Dr Kelly.

Secondly, as counsel for the BBC Andrew Coldecott suggested, the government allowed misleading claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to be widely publicised.

Name to Davies

On the first, Mr Hoon was defiant and even aggressive. There was no conspiracy and he had done everything possible to protect Dr Kelly, he insisted.

But he could not escape the fact that he had sanctioned a process which had the effect of naming Dr Kelly.

He added that he had spoken to the prime minister's official spokesman Alastair Campbell about the process.

And it is the consequences of those claims which still leaves the defence secretary looking vulnerable BBC's Nick Assinder

And he said he later got a note from Jonathan Powell, the prime minister's chief of staff and which he assumed was from the prime minister, saying that as far as they were concerned "it was now appropriate" for him to name Dr Kelly in a private letter to BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies.

But he angrily denied suggestions he had leaked Dr Kelly's name - even demanding that his questioner should provide evidence to the inquiry.

He was more uncomfortable when quizzed about the government dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

He denied some of the contents - particularly the claim Saddam could launch WMD within 45 minutes - was an attempt to sex it up, or that it was a deliberate attempt to mislead the public.

This, of course, is the real issue at the heart of this row. It was claims about the alleged "sexing up" of this dossier which sparked the affair.

And it is the consequences of those claims which still leaves the defence secretary looking vulnerable.