Media Disinformation regarding the Death of David Kelly

Xymphora
Oct. 25, 2007

Be careful of a clever disinformation campaign being created around the murder of David Kelly. From The Independent, on Norman Baker’s recent revelations:

"The MP alleges that opponents of Saddam Hussein feared Dr Kelly would 'discredit’ them by revealing 'misinformation’ they had planted to bolster the case for British and American intervention in Iraq."

From the Scotsman:

"WEAPONS scientist Dr David Kelly was assassinated to stop him making further comments about Saddam's nuclear arsenal, according to new claims.

In a book about Kelly's death, Liberal Democrat Norman Baker says the assassins may have been anti-Saddam Iraqis and suggests their crime was covered up by the British establishment.

He says the British security services found out about the plot but were too late to stop it."

This makes no sense, as Kelly was murdered after the American attack on Iraq. Iraqi opponents of Saddam had no reason to fear discrediting, as they were not the ones identified with the lying campaign of the British and American governments (and why would they care about discrediting anyway, especially after they got their war?). The only people who would be directly affected by anything that Kelly might have said would be the parties who crafted the lies used to justify the attack, those two governments. That’s where the motive for murder lies, and that’s where we should be looking for suspects. The idea that British security services couldn’t stop the murder in time seems to be a hint of who is behind the latest disinformation cover-up, the kind of over-egging that spreaders of disinformation often seem to be incapable of avoiding. Baker’s secret informant may be an attempt to undermine his investigation.

Kelly seemed to share his deepest thoughts with Judy Miller. You have to wonder whether those thoughts were transmitted by Miller to somebody in the Bush Administration who decided it would be wise to neutralize a potential embarrassment.