UK News 28-08-2003 Don`t Blame Me who: Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon what: Tells Hutton Inquiry he played no part in leaking David Kelly`s name where: The High Court, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: Defence secretary Geoff Hoon yesterday "blamed Downing Street for masterminding the strategy of naming Dr David Kelly, the weapons expert, as a mole," reports The Scotsman, "and claimed his role was simply to implement decisions made by civil servants and No 10." He told the judicial inquiry that he had "played no part" in the leaking of clues to the identity of Dr Kelly, who apparently went on to commit suicide after being unmasked as the source of BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan`s claims that Downing Street had deliberately massaged evidence of an Iraq`s military power in order to justify a war. The defence secretary "appeared to undermine Downing Street`s carefully crafted defence," says The Guardian this morning, "when he insisted that key officials in No 10 were intimately involved in the `naming strategy` which led to the unmasking of David Kelly." Indeed, says The Scotsman`s Joe Murphy, the man who had been seen as the Cabinet`s fall guy or "sacrificial lamb" is a barrister by training and yesterday he showed the world "why Tony Blair promoted him in the first place". He "had no difficulty in taking the temperature of the Hutton hearings and no qualms about spreading responsibility for the Kelly tragedy away from his own desk". Tony Blair will effectively be in the dock today where he will be expected to tell Lord Hutton who made the final decision on the strategy for naming Dr Kelly. [... more]

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