GILLIGAN: CAMPBELL ORDERED DODGY DOSSIER SEXING UP
Aug 12 2003
By Naveed Raja
Alastair Campbell was accused of masterminding the sexing up of the Iraq "dodgy dossier" as the Hutton inquiry heard evidence from the BBC today.
BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan testified that scientist Dr David Kelly had told him the spin chief included claims of Iraqi military capabilities against experts' wishes and asked for extra information for the September dossier.
And Gilligan said that two senior Government sources did not reject Dr Kelly's analysis that the key 45-minute WMD deployment claim was unreliable. He added that Robin Cook's Cabinet resignation speech before the war on Iraq also backed up Dr Kelly's view.
Gilligan, who first met Dr Kelly in early 2001, said he held a second meeting with the scientist on April 11, 2002 where he was told the Government's original Iraq dossier was "unremarkable".
But then Gilligan read out his damning notes from one particular meeting held with Dr Kelly on May 22 this year, which produced the claims which ignited the dossier controversy.
Gilligan told the inquiry that Dr Kelly told him during that meeting that the dossier was "transformed a week before publication to make it sexier, a classic was the 45 minutes, most things in the dossier were double-sourced but that was single-sourced."
The Defence correspondent on BBC Radio's Today programme went on, saying that Dr Kelly had pointed the finger at the Prime Minister's most trusted advisor saying: "Campbell, real information but unreliable...included against our wishes."
Dr Kelly also said that Campbell "asked if anything else could go in" to further add to the impact to the September dossier.
And Gilligan stated that he did not lead Dr Kelly into making any of his claims saying: "Dr Kelly raised the subject of 45 minutes and he raised the subject of Campbell."
Lord Hutton also asked Gilligan about the "sexing up" phrase he used in his report saying: "You put the question 'Was it to make it sexier?' and Dr Kelly replied 'Yes, to make it sexier'."
Gilligan replied: "Yes."
Mr Gilligan went on: "Dr Kelly was in no doubt that there was, and he said this and it was one of the things he asked me to say, that there was a WMD programme of some sort, but he did not believe the level of threat to the West was as great as the dossier had said."
When Lord Hutton asked if Dr Kelly set out to challenge the Government Gilligan replied: "I don't think he set out to take on the Government in that sense, I just think he was expressing his professional opinion on the dossier."
Dr Kelly, who committed suicide last month, also told the reporter of his mistrust of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"He did not trust them at all," Mr Gilligan said. "He was extremely conscious of the deception and the manipulation which they practised on a whole series of weapons inspectors and the lies they had told."
The hearing continues. |
