Campbell denies control over Iraqi weapons dossier
Alastair Campbell has defended his role in the so-called “dodgy dossier” affair before the Hutton Inquiry today.
The Downing Street communications chief claimed that he “had no input, output, influence upon them whatsoever at any stage” over the inclusion of a claim that Iraq had the capability to launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes in the final document.
He also stated that he had requested intelligence officials to tone down the dossier.
Mr Campbell told the inquiry that the credibility of the dossier was dependant upon it being the work of intelligence officials and stated that they, and not he, had been in complete charge of preparing the dossier.
An offer from the Foreign Office’s press chief to write the dossier had been rejected by John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), who took charge of writing the dossier, he said.
The press chief claimed that Mr Scarlett had wanted “ownership” of the document.
However, after a series of emails were produced from Downing Street staff, he said that some Number Ten officials had raised concerns that the dossier had a “long way to go”.
A week before the document was published, Downing Street chief of staff Jonathan Powell wrote in an email: “We need to do more to back up assertions… You need to make it clear that Saddam could not attack us at the moment.”
Mr Campbell insisted that any concerns raised had been taken into account and asked if there was any concern among intelligence officers about the dossier, Mr Campbell replied: “Not at that stage”.
He explained that Mr Scarlett had told him: “There may well be people down the ranks who are unhappy with this but you have to know this is not the view of people at the top.”
Mr Campbell has firmly denied that he or anyone employed at Downing Street had “sexed up” the weapons dossier, which were the allegations that had first came to light in a report by BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan.
He showed the inquiry a memo to Mr Scarlett on September 9th, in which Mr Campbell had written: “It goes without saying that nothing should be published that you and they are not 100 per cent happy with.”
Mr Campbell added:”I emphasised that the credibility of this document depended fundamentally on it being the work of the JIC.”
He also said he had suggested to Mr Scarlett in a meeting on September 11th that the dossier should be toned down.
He claimed, “I said ‘The drier the better, cut the rhetoric’.”
“That is raising the point … I think there were areas where the language was too colourful. I also said the more intelligence-based it was, the better.”
Mr Campbell is a key witness in the inquiry as he was implicated in the BBC’s story.
Mr Campbell also gave the inquiry today copies of his diary, written several times a week but not intended for publication.
Referring to the “ghastly Gilligan story”, the diary reads: “It was grim. Grim for me and grim for TB (Tony Blair) and there is huge stuff about trust”
Government scientist Dr David Kelly was later exposed as the “source” for Mr Gilligan’s report and he apparently committed suicide after his name was made public. The Hutton Inquiry was established to determine the events leading up to his death.
