http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1039694,00.htmlThursday September 11, 2003
Lord Hutton's journey into the heart of Britain's secret government is about to resume. The recall of witnesses to his inquiry into Dr David Kelly's death will be announced tomorrow, following today's report by the parliamentary intelligence committee into how the spooks appear to have blundered in their assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons programme.
Hutton's main concern is the treatment of Kelly and the way he was used by Downing Street in its fight with the BBC. Leaks yesterday suggested that the beleaguered defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, may be the intelligence committee's principal target - rather than the way intelligence was distorted about the supposed threat from Iraq.
But both divert us from a much more significant, sinister and dangerous development behind the political point-scoring and Whitehall's self-serving blame culture. What has already emerged - but been largely ignored - from the Hutton inquiry is the existence of a dark, almost Jacobean, cabal at the core of the Blair administration.
It is a group of powerful, unelected people few would have heard of were it not for the evidence given to Hutton: Sir David Manning, the prime minister's foreign policy adviser; Sir David Omand, his security coordinator; and John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. Until he resigned, the group also included Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications director. Indeed, he was a prime mover in establishing this inner circle.
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