Civil servant dealt biggest blow to Blair

Sir Kevin Tebbit delivered the biggest blow to Tony Blair's credibility over the David Kelly affair in a dramatic and belated appearance before the inquiry.

The permanent undersecretary at the Ministry of Defence revealed that the crucial meeting which decided the media strategy for the scientist took place at Downing Street, with the Prime Minister in the chair. Sir Kevin said, until then, he and his Whitehall colleagues had thought that no useful purpose could be served by Dr Kelly's identity being disclosed. But he stated that the MoD "concurred" with No 10's plan.

Sir Kevin knew that Dr Kelly had come forward revealing his contact with Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist, who had alleged that the Government had sexed up the Iraq weapons dossier on 3 July. But he did not reveal the scientist's name to his boss, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, during a conversation, merely saying that a possible source had been found. He took the same stance with Sir David Omand, the permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office, at a meeting the following day.

Sir Kevin, the highest ranking civil servant in the MoD, told the inquiry he "did not want Dr Kelly's name being bandied around" and stressed to colleagues there should be "some degree of consideration for Dr Kelly". But, by 7 January, he had also learned that the Prime Minister was following the situation "very closely indeed".

Sir Kevin urged Mr Hoon three days later that Dr Kelly should be spared the ordeal of a televised hearing before the Commons' Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FAC) hearing into the Iraq war. He wrote a memo saying: "The man came forward voluntarily - he is not on trial," and that an appearance before the FAC would give "disproportionate importance to his evidence".

The Defence Secretary insisted that Dr Kelly should appear, saying that not putting him forward would be difficult "presentationally", a word much used by Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's director of communications, during his evidence before the inquiry.

Sir Kevin told Lord Hutton that he had "glanced at" a question-and-answer crib sheet for MoD press officers - drawn up by Pam Teare, the director of news at the MoD, and Martin Howard, the deputy chief of defence intelligence - as part of the strategy to confirm Dr Kelly's name to journalists, but he maintained that he had played no part in formulating it.