London, Aug 10: Britain's Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is being lined up as the government's "fall guy" over the apparent suicide of 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 Kelly'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 "outing" 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.

"Hoon will be the fall guy for the whole government," ‘The Sunday Express’ quoted a government source as saying. "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."
The source added: "nobody believes that Hoon was the one behind the leaking of Dr Kelly's name, that would never have been done without downing street's say-so, but Hoon is expendable while the prime minister isn't."
Meanwhile, the defence ministry's most senior civil servant is said to have told the BBC that his department had deliberately "outed" Kelly.

According to a report in ‘The Sunday Telegraph’, the ministry's permanent secretary sir Kevin Tebbit, also allegedly branded Kelly an "eccentric" shortly before he died.
Both revelations may be used by the BBC in evidence to the inquiry, the paper said.
Bureau Report