Hoon is govt 145;fall guy146;: Report

Britain's Defence secretary Geoff Hoon is being lined up as the government8217;s 8216;8216;fall guy8217;8217; over the apparent suicide...

Britain8217;s Defence secretary Geoff Hoon is being lined up as the government8217;s 8216;8216;fall guy8217;8217; over the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, the weapons expert at the centre of an uproar over the way Britain was led into the Iraq war, a British newspaper reported today.

As a judicial inquiry into Kelly8217;s death prepares to begin hearing testimonies tomorrow, the Sunday Express said Hoon would resign once presiding Judge Lord Brian Hutton delivers his concluding report into the affair.

The Ministry of Defence was responsible for 8216;8216;outing8217;8217; Kelly as the source of a BBC report that alleged the government beefed up a dossier on Iraq ahead of the US-led war in March.

8216;8216;Hoon will be the fall guy for the whole government,8217;8217; the Sunday Express quoted a government source as saying. 8216;8216;He is going to be hung out to dry in the hope that his resignation will get British Prime Minister Tony Blair off the hook.8217;8217;

The source added: 8216;8216;Nobody believes that Hoon was the one behind the leaking of Dr Kelly8217;s name, that would never have been done without Downing Street8217;s say-so, but Hoon is expendable while the Prime Minister isn8217;t.8217;8217;

Meanwhile, the Defence Ministry8217;s most senior civil servant is said to have told the BBC that his department had deliberately 8216;8216;outed8217;8217; Kelly.

According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, the Ministry8217;s permanent secretary Sir Kevin Tebbit, also allegedly branded Kelly an 8216;8216;eccentric8217;8217; shortly before he died. Both revelations may be used by the BBC in evidence to the inquiry, the paper said.

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Meanwhile, the leader of Britain8217;s main Opposition Conservative Party said today that Blair must personally apologise for attempts by his officials to smear the name of Dr Kelly.

The comments by Iain Duncan Smith 8212; who alleged Blair8217;s spin doctors had tried to 8216;8216;cheapen8217;8217; kelly8217;s reputation 8212; ratchets up the political pressure a day before an official inquiry begins into the weapons expert8217;s apparent suicide.

The official probe, led by Judge Lord Brian Hutton, will investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Kelly, who was found dead with a slit wrist near his home in Oxfordshire, southern England just over three weeks ago.

The row took a new twist just before Kelly8217;s funeral last week when Blair8217;s official spokesman, the unrelated Tom Kelly, compared the scientist to fictional fantasist Walter Mitty while talking to a journalist.