British scientist David Kelly should be alive today. But like thousands of others, he has become a casualty of the American/British rush to make war on Iraq. The Defense ministry microbiologist and former United Nations weapons inspector killed himself last week after being sucked into a nasty fight between the government and the media.

Kelly committed suicide after being named as the source for a British Broadcasting Corp. report that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government had "sexed up" intelligence presented to Parliament to strengthen the case for war to a public that opposed it. The BBC reported that the government overplayed a claim that Saddam Hussein could launch chemical and biological weapons on just 45 minutes' notice. Kelly denied saying as much, but committed suicide after a parliamentary grilling.

Blair has ordered a judicial probe of this tragedy, seeking to absolve his government of blame. But he already has lost the public's confidence. Two in three Britons think he has not been trustworthy over the threat posed by Saddam. And there have been calls for him to resign, along with Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon and Blair's communications chief Alastair Campbell. The public feels duped and angry.

In Washington, U.S. President George Bush is also under siege for exaggerating Saddam's nuclear ambitions to justify war. His support is fading.

There is a savage irony in this postwar blame game. Tragic as his death is, Kelly is just one victim of Bush's obsession with "regime change" in Baghdad, and Blair's eager compliance. Some 275 American and British troops have also died, along with more than 8,500 Iraqi civilians and military. They are the other casualties in Bush's drive to "save" the world from weapons of mass destruction that Washington has yet to produce.

The American taxpayer, meanwhile, is on the hook for more than $60 billion for the war and $1 billion a week since. Some 150,000 U.S. troops are hunkering down for a long, shambolic occupation. And after going to war without U.N. sanction, Bush may now request a Security Council resolution authorizing peacekeepers to help stabilize the country.

This is a mess, and a fearsome price for a war that U.N. inspectors cautioned against from the start. They loathed Saddam's vicious regime. But they believed, rightly, that sanctions were working. That Baghdad was contained. That there was no need to rush to war. They were right.

Canada and most of the world chose not to support this folly. But Bush and Blair couldn't be reasoned with. Now they are paying the price in shattered credibility and public disaffection. Still, they are paying nothing like the price that Kelly and thousands of others have.

Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

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