Dead government scientist David Kelly wrote ahead of the Iraq war that although the threat posed by Baghdad was "modest", only regime change could avert the long-term threat of its development of weapons of mass destruction, a British newspaper revealed yesterday.
The day before Kelly's widow would testify before a judicial inquiry into her husband's presumed suicide, The Observer weekly published an article penned by the arms expert on Iraq ahead of the US-led war.
The article was written as part of a major report on Iraq in the weeks leading up to war, but one of the reasons it was not published was because Kelly did not want to be revealed as the source, the editor of the report, Julie Flint, said.
"Iraq has spent the past 30 years building up an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction," Kelly wrote.
"Although the current threat presented by Iraq militarily is modest, both in terms of conventional and unconventional weapons, it has never given up its intent to develop and stockpile such weapons for both military and terrorist use."
He added: "War may now be inevitable. The proportionality and intensity of the conflict will depend on whether regime change or disarmament is the true objective.
"The US, and whoever willingly assists it, should ensure that the force, strength and strategy used is appropriate to the modest threat that Iraq now poses."
The article continued: "The threat from Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is, however, unlikely to substantially affect the operational capabilities of US and British troops. Nor is it likely to create massive casualties in adjacent countries.
"Perhaps the real threat from Iraq today comes from covert use of such weapons against troops or by terrorists against civilian targets worldwide.
"The long-term threat, however, remains Iraq's development to military maturity of weapons of mass destruction -- something that only regime change will avert."
The Observer said Kelly's article would be presented as evidence to the inquiry into his death, which enters a fourth week today.
Kelly, a former UN arms inspector, was the alleged source of a BBC report that British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office had embellished an intelligence dossier on Baghdad's capability to launch weapons of mass destruction in order to boost the case for joining the war in March.
The 50-page document -- which notably claimed that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45 minutes -- was a key part of Blair's attempts to persuade a skeptical British public to back the war.
Kelly's body was found with a slit wrist in woods near his home close to London on July 18, a week after the Ministry of Defence said he was the source of the BBC report.
The row over the way Blair led Britain to war and the death of Kelly has left the prime minister facing his gravest political crisis.
On Friday Blair's top aide, director of communications and strategy Alastair Campbell, announced his intention to resign. Campbell was directly accused by a BBC reporter of "sexing up" the controversial dossier.
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