PM’s aide pondered ‘mole’ tip off
The Prime Minister’s director of communication Alastair Campbell contemplated informing a newspaper that the “mole” in the Iraq dossier story had come forward, a government inquiry has learnt.
Yesterday, Lord Hutton’s judicial inquiry into the apparent suicide of Iraqi weapons expert Dr David Kelly heard evidence from Godric Smith, Tony Blair’s official spokesman.
On the seventh day of the inquiry, Mr Smith said he had discouraged Mr Campbell from executing the plan, saying it was a “bad idea.”
Mr Smith said he heard Mr Campbell floating the idea to Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon on Monday, July 7.
Mr Smith said: “I reflected on what I had heard and thought that it was a bad idea. I said as much to Tom Kelly and asked whether he agreed and he did, so I said that the best thing was to get Alastair Campbell on the phone so we could tell him.”
After discussions with colleagues, Mr Campbell eventually concurred and dropped the plan.
Mr Smith added that Downing Street had tried to strip out the “rhetoric” from the September dossier to concentrate on the facts, namely that Saddam Hussein was a major security risk in the Middle East.
The BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan had alleged that Mr Campbell personally intervened to doctor the dossier, to boost the case for war against Iraq.
The Hutton inquiry will hear today evidence from Donald Anderson, MP, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and a string of journalists including Nick Rufford, (Sunday Times), James Blitz, (Financial Times), Richard Norton-Taylor, (Guardian), Tom Baldwin, (Times).
Ambassador David Broucher, Permanent Representative to the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva, Foreign and Commonwealth Office will also give evidence, as will Lee Hughes of the Hutton Inquiry Secretariat.
