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13-8-2003 Scotsman Gilligan report 'flawed' but Campbell back in firing line By Gethin Chamberlain Defence Correspondent at the Royal Courts of Justice THE BBC conceded yesterday that its explosive report at the centre of the row with the government over the dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been flawed. Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist and author of the report, faced a torrid time in the witness box at the Hutton inquiry as he was read internal BBC memos criticising his "loose use of language and lack of judgment". However, he was bolstered in his central allegation that the Iraq dossier was doctored at the command of Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's communications director. Susan Watts, BBC Newsnight's science editor, produced notes saying Dr David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence weapons expert, had told her the same thing three weeks earlier. The third day of Lord Hutton's inquiry into the apparent suicide of Dr Kelly was dominated by Mr Gilligan's 29 May report where he said the Iraq dossier had been "sexed up" by the insertion of a claim that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction could be fired at 45 minutes' notice. Mr Gilligan was forced to apologise for saying No 10 "probably" knew this to be untrue before it was inserted in the dossier - a claim he made in his 6.07am report but did not repeat in 18 subsequent broadcasts on the same story. "I think, on reflection, I did not use exactly the right language. It was not wrong, but it was not perfect either," he told the inquiry. "It was not my intention to give anyone the impression that the government had lied or made up its intelligence. "It seems that some people got that impression." Ms Watts, who is using her own lawyers at the inquiry rather than the BBC's team, later backed Mr Gilligan's main claim, saying Dr Kelly had also singled out his concerns about the dossier when she spoke to him. Referring to Dr Kelly's comments on the 45-minute allegation in the dossier, she read out the scientist's comments taken in her shorthand notes: "It was a mistake to put in. Alastair Campbell seeing something in there. Single source, not corroborated. Sounded good." Ms Watts said she had initially treated his remark as a piece of gossip not suitable or backed by enough evidence for publication. "I felt it was a glib statement. He appeared to be speculating in a way that he didn't generally," she said. But she said that she later considered it was an indication of Dr Kelly's "extraordinary access" to the official information behind the dossier. "With hindsight, he was passing on that information three weeks before it became public, which does indicate he had extraordinary access to the information in that dossier." Earlier in the inquiry, the accuracy of Mr Gilligan's reports for the Today programme on Radio 4 - and in an article he wrote for the Mail on Sunday - had been called into question by James Dingemans, counsel to the inquiry. Asked by Mr Dingemans about a claim in one of his reports that the government probably knew the 45 minute claim was wrong at the time it published the dossier, Mr Gilligan said there was no basis in anything Dr Kelly had told him for making such a statement. The BBC has stood by Mr Gilligan's reporting throughout the row with Downing Street but yesterday, the inquiry heard there had been concerns within the corporation about the standard of Mr Gilligan's work. The BBC produced an e-mail which Kevin Marsh, the editor of the Today programme, had written two days after hearing Mr Campbell tell a televised foreign affairs committee meeting that Mr Gilligan's story was "a lie". Mr Marsh said he intended to meet intelligence officers to discuss the story and warned: "I hope my worst fears based on what I heard from the spooks this afternoon are not realised. "This story was a good piece of journalism marred by flawed reporting. The biggest millstone has been the loose use of language and lack of judgment in some of the phraseology." Another document presented to the inquiry, from the BBC board of governors, also noted: "Careful language had not been applied by Andrew Gilligan throughout." Mr Dingemans suggested the reason Mr Gilligan had decided to name Mr Campbell was the frosty relationship between the two men, but Mr Gilligan replied: "I had a difficult relationship with Mr Campbell. "I think he had an issue about some of my reporting. I didn't want to name him in that context." There was further bad news for Mr Gilligan later in the form of previously-unpublished transcripts of his appearance before the Commons foreign affairs select committee on 17 July. Mr Gilligan is shown to confine his allegations against the Downing Street communications chief to the alleged overall transformation of the September 2002 dossier before its publication. According to a transcript, Mr Gilligan told the committee: "The only point at which my source mentioned the name 'Campbell' was in respect of the transformation of the dossier, not in respect of the insertion of the 45-minute claim. "I am pretty sure that is right." But, minutes later, he directly contradicted himself. "I am happy to make clear that my source believed that the 45-minute claim had been inserted by Alastair Campbell," he told MPs. Mr Gilligan's evidence prompted Sir John Stanley, a Conservative member of the committee, to tell the journalist he had "completely transformed the nature of your evidence to this committee". Ms Watts is due to return to the Hutton inquiry at 10:30am this morning, where she may produce a tape of a conversation she held with Dr Kelly the day after Mr Gilligan's report came out.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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