LONDON, 13 August 2003 — A BBC journalist who claimed that London exaggerated the case for war in Iraq, leading to a political crisis for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, yesterday defended his controversial report before a judicial inquiry.
BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan read out interview notes backing his story in May which claimed that the government “sexed-up” a dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction published ahead of the conflict.
Gilligan was the star witness on the second day of the independent inquiry in London headed by senior judge Brian Hutton into the apparent suicide of government weapons expert David Kelly, a former United Nations arms inspector.
The probe was ordered by Blair, who has been falling in the polls and who is at risk of serious political damage if the investigation’s findings are negative.
The government’s 50-page dossier, published last September, included a headline-grabbing claim that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in as little as 45 minutes.
Gilligan, 34, told the inquiry he had three meetings with Kelly since 2001, and that during one encounter on May 22 this year the scientist had told him the dossier had been “transformed a week before publication to make it sexier.”
Kelly reportedly said that most claims in the official dossier were based on two sources, but the 45-minute claim was based only on a single source, implying it was less reliable. Gilligan, who is defense correspondent for BBC radio’s agenda-setting Today program, asked the scientist if the claim could have been made up.
Kelly reportedly replied: “No it was real information, but it was unreliable. It was in the dossier against our wishes.”
The BBC reporter used a newspaper article earlier this year to claim Blair’s key aide and media chief Alastair Campbell was the man responsible for ordering intelligence officers to beef up the dossier to make the case for war on Iraq more compelling.
Gilligan was yesterday asked if it was Kelly who first mentioned Campbell’s name.
Gilligan told the inquiry: “It was him, he raised the subject of 45 minutes and he raised the subject of Campbell.”
