Monday 9 May 2011

The Death of David Kelly - His street cred in international intelligence circles

One of the characterisations of David Kelly that a number of witnesses seemed keen to portray at the Hutton Inquiry was that he was merely a middle-ranking official.

In a recent post, The Death of David Kelly - David Kelly's security clearance, I drew attention to the impressive range of classified documents he was cleared to see, both in the UK and internationally.

In this post, I'm going to list some of the agencies he worked with.

The source of the information is this document, Letter Dr Kelly/ Richard Scott annual review April 200 to March 2001, on the Hutton Inquiry web site.

David Kelly was said to work with the following organisations in relation to Iraq:


  • DIS - The Defence Intelligence Staff of the UK Ministry of Defence

  • "Box 850", a synonym for MI6 or SIS.

  • CIA - The United States Central Intelligence Agency

  • AFMIC - The United States Armed Forces Medical Ingelligecne Center at Fort Detrick, a part of the United States Defence Intelligence Agency.

  • ACDA - The United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency



The listed agencies correspond closely to aspects of David Kelly's security clearance to which I referred earlier in this post.

I hope to add further detail as to David Kelly's role(s) with these various agencies in a future post.

3 comments:

  1. Andrew,
    there is a strange exchange between Dingemans and Richard Hatfield involving the first page of this document:
    First of all, is that, as far as you have been able to ascertain, an accurate analysis of why he ended up with PACS?
    A. I am not sure whether it is completely accurate.
    Q. Do you know of anything to suggest it is inaccurate
    A. No, but I do not know his personnel career in sufficient detail to comment.


    Dr Kelly writes to Porton Down that his secondment to PACS "Hastily arranged in 1996", i.e. around the time of his CMG.

    Kelly advises Porton Down to contact three individuals who can advise on his work. One is Paul Hatt's successor as PACS Director Paul Schulte, another is Dr Amanda Wedge who has an FCO phone no. and is probably the Amanda who appears several times in Dr Kelly's diary. The third is a Steve Warburton who seems to have an MoD phone no.
    The last two seem to leave no internet trace.

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  2. Another confirmatory detail about David Kelly and his access to intelligence is to be found in his notebook, Contents of notebook, on the Hutton Inquiry web site.

    On page 1 (TVP/3/0116) he mentions in his speaking notes for his appearance at the Intelligence and Security Committee that he has acess to CX and Step 2 intelligence. (He omits the specific terms when he describes himself to the ISC, Dr Kelly’s evidence to ISC 16/07/03 on page ISC/1/004.)

    CX is s term used to describe intelligence by MI6. See Glossary - SIS(MI6).

    Step 2 is a US intelligence term which is explained on Page 3-2 (Page 25 of 212) of the United States Army's Intelligence Officer's Handbook, FM34-8-2: .

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  3. Oh dear, Bryan Wells won't like seeing his Y exchanged for an I in the ISC transcript.

    My name is Dr Bryan Harry Wells. I should say for the avoidance of confusion I spell my first name with a Y, not an I.

    Confusion with what or whom?

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