Hearing Transcripts

1 Tuesday, 12th August 2003
2 (10.30 am)
3 LORD HUTTON: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I have
4 received a message from the members of the press that to
5 aid them in accurate reporting they would like to see
6 copies of the documents which are presented to
7 the Inquiry each day. I fully understand the reasons
8 for this request and I wish to give a little more
9 consideration to just the mechanics of doing that and
10 I will propose to say something about that when we sit
11 again after the luncheon adjournment. I am certainly
12 very well aware of the interests of the press and I will
13 try to facilitate them just as much as I possibly can.
14 Yes Mr Dingemans.
15 MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, Mr Gilligan please.
16 MR ANDREW GILLIGAN (called)
17 Examined by MR DINGEMANS
18 Q. Can you tell his Lordship your full name.
19 A. Yes, it is Andrew Paul Gilligan.
20 Q. What is your occupation?
21 A. I am a journalist.
22 Q. And who do you work for?
23 A. The BBC.
24 Q. In what capacity?
25 A. I am the defence and diplomatic correspondent of the

1
1 Today Programme on Radio 4.
2 Q. How long have you been employed in that capacity?
3 A. Just under four years now.
4 Q. What did you do before that?
5 A. I was the defence correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph.
6 Q. How long were you working there?
7 A. In that particular job about four years and then an
8 earlier year or so on the foreign desk.
9 Q. That is your journalistic experience, the
10 Daily Telegraph and Today?
11 A. The Sunday Telegraph.
12 Q. Sorry, the Sunday Telegraph.
13 A. I have also freelanced for a number of Fleet Street
14 publications, local newspapers, the Cambridge Evening
15 News, that kind of thing.
16 Q. You met Dr Kelly on a number of occasions?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Can you tell us when you first met Dr Kelly?
19 A. Yes, it was in the early months of 2001. I cannot tell
20 you exactly when because I have lost my appointments
21 diary for that year but it was probably in January or
22 February. I was going to Iraq and I wanted to speak to
23 him to discuss, you know, Iraqi related issues with him.
24 Q. How had you come on his name?
25 A. He had been initially recommended to me by a colleague

2
1 at the BBC, and I had then found his details in fact in
2 our central contacts database. There is a computer
3 database in the BBC system with a variety of contacts in
4 a number of fields. Dr Kelly has been on that since
5 1988 and all his numbers are in there. His description,
6 he was described as an MoD expert that journalists could
7 call on.
8 Q. Are you talking about the document BBC/7/33?
9 A. That is the one, yes.
10 Q. And that lists his London, New York and Porton Down
11 telephone numbers.
12 A. And his home number and indeed his address.
13 Q. Did you carry out any further research before you met
14 Dr Kelly?
15 A. Yes, I did. I looked him up in a cuttings database
16 called Neon which we have at the BBC. I found his name
17 had been mentioned several times. I looked him up in
18 some of the standard reference works on the subject. In
19 a book called Plague Wars for instance by Tom Mangold
20 and Jeff Goldberg I found quite a full description of
21 him which described him as the senior adviser to the MoD
22 on biological defence and one of the world's leading
23 experts in biological weapons, and described his track
24 record in some detail, which made me actually very
25 interested indeed in his potential as a contact.

3
1 Q. Is that a reference to BBC/7/45?
2 A. Yes, that is right. There is a sort of potted biography
3 of him and it starts by saying:
4 "If David Kelly were a tax inspector he would recoup
5 Britain's entire national debt."
6 Q. That is within the book Plague Wars written by
7 Tom Mangold?
8 A. Yes, it is, yes.
9 Q. Did you make any notes of your first meeting with
10 Dr Kelly?
11 A. Yes, I did.
12 Q. Can we look at BBC/7/36? Is this a transcript of those
13 notes?
14 A. Yes, it is. Yes.
15 Q. I think you have supplied the manuscript as well. What
16 was the nature of your discussion with him on that
17 occasion?
18 A. It was an introductory talk really. I wanted to get to
19 know him. I wanted to find out the extent of his
20 expertise. I was quite keen to glean any information he
21 could give to me from his knowledge about Iraq since
22 I was going to travel there in the future. It was
23 a kind of first meeting a journalist has with a contact.
24 You just want to kind of establish a relationship.
25 I was particularly interested in the issue of smuggling

4
1 of components for weapons of mass destruction, because
2 that was something I covered.
3 Q. Where did that meeting take place?
4 A. I am pretty sure it was in the Charing Cross Hotel.
5 I am pretty sure all my meetings with him were.
6 I certainly know the last two were.
7 Q. Did you make a report of any meeting -- of anything he
8 had said at that meeting?
9 A. Did it lead to a story on the programme?
10 Q. Yes.
11 A. Not directly. It did provide information, some quite
12 useful information actually about smuggling and some
13 further contacts and some quite useful background. But
14 there was no specific story involved. It just helped me
15 to flesh out a project I was already doing.
16 Q. How long did the meeting that took place last?
17 A. I am not quite sure but about maybe three quarters of an
18 hour or thereabouts. It is difficult to remember at
19 this juncture.
20 Q. And did you eat together or drink together?
21 A. We had a drink, yes. I cannot remember exactly what we
22 had.
23 Q. What was his manner to you?
24 A. He was really quite open and helpful and, you know,
25 often with officials they are rather cautious. Dr Kelly

5
1 struck me really as a sort of -- he wanted to share his
2 knowledge. In a funny way he was a sort of teacher
3 almost. He wanted to share what he knew about the
4 subject and he was interested in people who were
5 interested in it, and he was clearly very well informed.
6 I felt very glad to have begun a relationship with him.
7 I think he was pretty helpful.
8 Q. Did he say whether or not you could report his remarks
9 at that meeting?
10 A. I had said it was off the record. I said it was
11 unattributable because that is the way --
12 Q. Is there a difference between off the record and
13 unattributable?
14 A. Well, unattributable in strict terms means you can use
15 the words but not attribute them to a particular
16 individual. The terms are to some extent loose and
17 interchangeable.
18 Q. Right. Off the record does not mean you cannot use it
19 at all and unattributable means you can use it but not
20 attribute it; is that a distinction?
21 A. There is no set law of journalistic convention for this.
22 Generally a phrase somebody might use, or a journalist
23 might use to another person if they do not wish them to
24 be reported in any way, their views to be reported in
25 any way, would be deep background or background or

6
1 something like that. Off the record means that you can
2 report it but not attribute it to that person.
3 Q. But in any event you did not report anything that had
4 occurred that time, that was just a meeting?
5 A. No, I did not. No.
6 Q. When was your next meeting with Dr Kelly?
7 A. It was on the 11th April 2002.
8 Q. And if we look at BBC/7/49, is that your diary entry for
9 that date?
10 A. That is right. It has been redacted. There are some
11 other entries on those days and other days that are not
12 in there, but that is my entry for my meeting with
13 David.
14 Q. I was going to say it seemed a remarkably empty diary
15 but you have taken out the other references?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. If we turn to BBC/7/53, is this the note you made of
18 your meeting with him?
19 A. Yes, it is. Yes. Sorry, no, that is a transcript of
20 the handwritten note I made.
21 Q. Right.
22 A. There are a couple of mistakes in this transcript
23 actually.
24 Q. Perhaps if there are any material ones you can point
25 them out when we go through that. Who set up this

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1 meeting?
2 A. I did. I always initiated our meetings.
3 Q. You initiated all the meetings with Dr Kelly?
4 A. Yes. I would ring him and say, "Can we meet?"
5 Q. What was the reason for this meeting?
6 A. It was really a general sort of wrap up. The issue of
7 Iraq was moving up the agenda a little. Most of 2001 or
8 the latter half of 2001 had been spent on 9/11 and
9 Afghanistan, and a good deal of the first part of 2002,
10 but then in the sort of spring and summer we began to
11 get clearer signals that Iraq was moving up the agenda
12 of both us and the US Government. A dossier had been
13 promised for publication in the spring, for instance,
14 detailing Iraq's WMD threat, so it was a general meeting
15 to talk about that because I regarded him as one of my
16 main expert contacts on Iraq.
17 Q. We can see from the note that it appears you talked
18 about the Tareq missile plant, programmes continuing,
19 "quite ambitious". You did refer to the earlier dossier
20 or proposed dossier and that is about eight lines up
21 from the bottom. Can you tell us what that says?
22 A. It was rather uneventful. This is the Government's
23 proposed dossier which they had first -- I think
24 Alastair Campbell had briefed some American journalists
25 in March. We had seen things appearing about it in the

8
1 papers, in February of 2002 they were going to publish
2 a dossier. After about six weeks it seemed to transpire
3 they were not going to publish it then after all.
4 I asked him about that; you know, I asked him what was
5 in it, and he said essentially not really very much that
6 you as a relatively informed lay person would not know
7 already. I said was that the reason it was delayed, and
8 he said yes.
9 LORD HUTTON: So the reference to "rather uneventful" is to
10 the dossier, is it?
11 A. Yes indeed.
12 MR DINGEMANS: Did he describe his role in the April
13 dossier?
14 A. He did in outline terms. I said something like: what
15 was your involvement? He said it was to advise on all
16 claims relating to his expertise in the dossier.
17 Q. And what did you understand his expertise to be?
18 A. Chemical and biological weapons. He described himself
19 to me at our earlier meeting as the chief adviser on
20 biological weapons and also very knowledgeable about
21 chemical weapons. He had spent a great deal of time in
22 Iraq. He was pretty close to the subject.
23 Q. What view did he convey to you of the Iraqi regime?
24 A. He was extremely suspicious of them; and I mean he had
25 been involved in many confrontations with them when he

9
1 was an UNSCOM inspector. Again some of the open
2 literature, he would not say this himself, but some of
3 the open literature described him as the inspector that
4 the Iraqis most feared but at the same time respected.
5 He did not trust them at all. He was extremely
6 conscious of the deceit and manipulation which they
7 practised on the whole series of UN weapons inspectors
8 and all the lies that they had told.
9 He described some suspicious sights, and that things
10 had continued. They were not conclusive proof to his
11 mind, but he said people we were interested in were
12 maintained as teams, for instance, some equipment is
13 unaccounted for; the sort of thing that also appeared in
14 the UNMOVIC reports in the run-up to this year's war.
15 Q. Do you recall having any other face to face meetings
16 with Dr Kelly before you met on 22nd May?
17 A. No. I mean, I very much doubt I did. I have not noted
18 it in any of my diaries. I do not always note meetings
19 in my diaries but I do not recall any other meetings.
20 I cannot find any other notes. It is my belief I had
21 three face to face meetings with him.
22 Q. And how strong is your recollection on that?
23 A. Well, pretty strong. I mean, as I say I have looked
24 through all my diaries for the relevant years, apart
25 from 2001 which I have lost, and I am pretty sure that

10
1 I had no other face to face meetings with him. I had no
2 face to face meetings with him in 2002 other than this.
3 Q. Can I take you to a document where Dr Kelly recorded his
4 meetings with you. That is MoD/1/20 at the first
5 paragraph where he said this:
6 "I have not had extensive dealings with
7 Andrew Gilligan. As I recall I first met him at the
8 IISS 'Global Strategic Review' in September 2002 after
9 the IISS dossier was published but before the
10 UK Government dossier appeared. We would have discussed
11 the IISS dossier since it was at the forefront of
12 delegates' discussions but the detail is now forgotten."
13 A. I am not sure what that refers to at all. I mean, if it
14 is the event to launch the IISS dossier I can say
15 I certainly was not at that. I had already received
16 a copy of the dossier from the IISS and I had done it on
17 the programme as far as I was concerned. I had done it
18 on the programme that morning and as far as I was
19 concerned, the story of that particular dossier was over
20 and it was not worth going to the press conference.
21 I cannot recall meeting him at any IISS event. That
22 is not to say I might not have seen him across a room or
23 something. I am pretty sure I only went to one IISS
24 event on Iraq. It was less to do with WMD, it was more
25 to do with the prospects for Iraq after the regime

11
1 change. I am pretty sure I did not see or speak to him
2 there. I think it may be somebody else he is speaking
3 about there.
4 LORD HUTTON: Is this the letter of 3rd June?
5 MR DINGEMANS: I am pretty sure it is, yes.
6 LORD HUTTON: To his line manager in the MoD?
7 MR DINGEMANS: Yes.
8 Can I ask you about another document that impacts on
9 the number of meetings you had with him. That is
10 BBC/6/222. This is described as an Andrew Gilligan
11 debrief on 18th July 2003. If you look at the first
12 paragraph, it says this:
13 "Dr David Kelly was a well known contact on WMD for
14 journalists. I had four face to face meetings with him,
15 the first one about two years ago."
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. This was produced on 18th July. We are not much on in
18 August.
19 A. I think I am wrong about that. I think it was three.
20 I have checked my diaries and I have checked my
21 notebooks and I have checked my recollections and
22 I think it was three rather than four. I also note here
23 that I say:
24 "My second face to face meeting was about 18 months
25 ago, then again in May 2002."

12
1 Both of those are wrong as well. It is just that
2 that is something I wrote on the day that he died and it
3 was done from memory. I am pretty sure it was three
4 rather than four. I cannot be absolutely categoric. As
5 I say, at this time I had not gone through all my
6 diaries and I had not looked at all my notebooks.
7 Q. At that stage, before reference to your diaries, you
8 thought it was four, but now you think, having looked at
9 your diaries, it is three?
10 A. And as well essentially this is a typed up note of
11 something Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of news,
12 discussed with me on the day Dr Kelly died. I had
13 a good deal on my mind on that day. I was not very
14 happy.
15 Q. You have told us that your meeting in early 2001 did not
16 lead to any article. Did the meeting on 11th April 2002
17 lead to any article?
18 A. I think it may have been reflected in some of the sort
19 of two-way -- the general informative discussions that
20 we have on the programme between reporters and
21 presenters. To the best of my knowledge it did not lead
22 to a specific story. Again, I could be wrong about
23 that, but I have had a look. I think it is unlikely to
24 have led to a specific story. It would have been
25 reflected, you know, when the dossier came up and its

13
1 apparent delay came up. I might have said something
2 like: I have been talking to an expert within Government
3 or somebody within Government and he says there is not
4 very much in it. I do not think it would have led to
5 a special story about it.
6 Q. The Government's dossier was then published on
7 24th September 2002. You reported on that for the Today
8 Programme?
9 A. Yes, I did.
10 Q. And you I think suggested -- I am afraid we have not yet
11 got the material ready to pull up on the screen, but you
12 described some tabloid headlines and new, interesting,
13 sort of spicy angles; is that right?
14 A. Can I have a look at the transcript, is that possible?
15 Q. No, not until 11 o'clock. I am not being deliberately
16 awkward.
17 A. I think that is right. It would be nice to see the
18 context.
19 Q. Perhaps we can come back to that. BBC/4/74. I am
20 afraid it will not come up at the moment.
21 I will come back to the September dossier and your
22 comments on that. You reported, in February 2003, that
23 you had received a top secret document which related to
24 the absence of links between Osama Bin Laden and
25 Saddam Hussein; is that right?

14
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Did that have anything to do with Dr Kelly?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Did you meet Dr Kelly in 2003 before the meeting in
5 May 2003?
6 A. Not to the best of my knowledge, no. Again, I cannot be
7 absolutely categoric on this but I have checked the
8 diaries, there is nothing in the diaries. I do not have
9 any recollection or notes of such a meeting. I would
10 have spoken to him on the phone maybe but not met him
11 face to face.
12 Q. Can we go back to MoD/1/20. This is his letter to his
13 line manager about his meetings with you. The first
14 paragraph again, when he has discussed his meeting with
15 you in September 2002 and you can see about four lines
16 down:
17 "I next met him in February 2003 at his request
18 because he was about to depart to Iraq to cover the
19 forthcoming war. I cannot recall any contact in the
20 interim and do not believe that contact was made."
21 Does that help remind you of any meeting?
22 A. No. I mean, I have thought quite hard about this
23 because I saw his earlier evidence and I think -- I mean
24 February 2003 was an extremely busy month for me.
25 I spent just under a week in Munich at the Wehrkunde

15
1 Security Conference. That was around the weekend of the
2 6th. Then more or less straight after that I came back
3 to London for a couple of days, then went to New York
4 for 10 days to do the debates on Iraq in the Security
5 Council, and I think -- I mean I really was not even in
6 the country for most of February.
7 Q. Can I then turn to the meeting on 22nd May. You say you
8 had been in Iraq covering the war and you had returned
9 in April?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. When had you returned in April; do you recall?
12 A. I left Baghdad on I think Easter Monday or the day
13 after -- probably the day after Easter Monday, so
14 whatever that was. I then spent about 10 days on sort
15 of rest and recuperation in Jordan and then in Turkey.
16 I think I probably actually landed back in Britain on
17 either 30th April or 1st May.
18 Q. Then continued your normal duties in London?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Who was responsible for the meeting on 22nd May? Did
21 you contact him or did he contact you?
22 A. No, I contacted him.
23 LORD HUTTON: May I just ask you something, Mr Gilligan?
24 Where did you contact Dr Kelly? Did you telephone him?
25 A. Yes.

16
1 LORD HUTTON: To where?
2 A. I am not sure. I think I would have probably used his
3 home number, probably his mobile.
4 LORD HUTTON: That is his home number in Oxfordshire?
5 A. Yes.
6 LORD HUTTON: So you had both his home number in Oxfordshire
7 and his mobile?
8 A. Yes, I did.
9 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
10 MR DINGEMANS: What time did you meet, do you recall that?
11 A. 4 o'clock. It was fixed for 4 o'clock. I was slightly
12 late.
13 Q. Can I take you to diary entry BBC/7/55? You have
14 written 4 o'clock. Did you actually meet at 4 o'clock
15 or could it have been afterwards?
16 A. I was slightly after, you know maybe 10 or 15 minutes
17 late. He was waiting when I got there.
18 Q. I think you have seen his evidence where he said the
19 meeting was at 5. Does that accord with your
20 recollection?
21 A. No, I think it was at 4. It was certainly fixed for 4,
22 and I had another meeting after that, then I went on to
23 something else; and I am pretty sure, you know, it would
24 not have started later than about 4.10 or 4.15. I have
25 a drinks receipt, I bought drinks for us.

17
1 Q. We will come to that. Can we turn to BBC/7/56. You did
2 not have something to eat this time?
3 A. I do not think so. This might not have been the only
4 thing I bought. We might have had some sandwiches or
5 more drinks but that is the only thing I can find.
6 Q. That shows a bottle of coke and a bottle of Appletise.
7 That shows the time on that. Can you help me with the
8 time on that?
9 A. That says 4.15, 16.15. That is the time I went to the
10 bar to buy the drinks.
11 Q. That is the only receipt you had for the meeting?
12 A. Yes. It may be that I bought something else but
13 I cannot remember at this distance.
14 Q. You still have this receipt because I imagine you put
15 this through the BBC accounts, do you?
16 A. Yes, I need to claim it back for expenses.
17 Q. Is this right, it is a reasonable inference that you did
18 not buy anything else or you would have kept the
19 receipt?
20 A. I think that is right. It is possible I have lost the
21 receipt or not been able to find it.
22 Q. How long did the meeting last?
23 A. From my recollection probably about one and a half hours
24 or so.
25 Q. Dr Kelly's recollection, you have seen his evidence on

18
1 this, was more like 45 minutes.
2 A. I think it was longer than that.
3 Q. Did you make notes throughout the meeting?
4 A. No. It was like our other meetings, in that it was
5 intended as a general discussion of issues around Iraq.
6 I started out without taking notes actually and then
7 I asked to take notes when he got on to interesting
8 topics.
9 Q. So the meeting was intended as a general discussion
10 about Iraq?
11 A. Yes. I mean, I wanted to hear from him why he thought
12 no weapons of mass destruction had been found. You know
13 it was quite a salient issue by then. He was
14 actually -- he sounded anyway, maybe he was just being
15 polite -- quite keen to hear from me what my experience
16 had been. Obviously Iraq had been his profession
17 speciality. He had not been able to go there himself
18 for four or five years. You know he was always
19 interested in seeing people who had come from Iraq to,
20 you know, to get their impressions.
21 Q. So the meeting was as much for him to find out from you
22 as it was for you to find out from him?
23 A. No, I think -- I mean, I had a great deal less to tell
24 him than he could tell me. I would not put my --
25 I think perhaps he was just being polite in some ways.

19
1 He did seem genuinely interested as we talked.
2 Q. The notes you have produced of your earlier meetings,
3 and we have seen the transcripts of them, they were
4 handwritten. Perhaps we can look at BBC/7/51. In fact,
5 if you look at the top of the page, you can recognise
6 that passage that I pointed out on the earlier
7 typewritten bit: "Rather uneventful, not much in it so
8 delayed". Where did you make those notes?
9 A. I made them at the meeting.
10 Q. Pen, pencil?
11 A. Pen.
12 Q. Into a notebook?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Then we have seen the transcribed versions.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. The notes you made on 22nd May 2003, were those made
17 with a pen and pencil or with some other means?
18 A. They were made on my personal organiser.
19 Q. Can we turn to BBC/7/57? This is the printout from your
20 personal organiser?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Did you manage to make all the notes on one page?
23 A. No, I started a continuation file. I think either
24 I just saved it and that takes you out of it and
25 I decided to start a new file, or else this particular

20
1 one file was full so I started a continuation file.
2 Q. Can we look at BBC/7/58? Is that the continuation file?
3 A. Yes, it is. Yes.
4 Q. Can we go back, then, to BBC/7/57?
5 LORD HUTTON: I wonder, Mr Dingemans, would it be helpful if
6 you were to ask Mr Gilligan to read out the note in full
7 so that everyone is aware of its contents because it is
8 in a sort of shorthand. It certainly I think would help
9 me and no doubt others. Just do it at your own time
10 when you think it appropriate.
11 MR DINGEMANS: Mr Gilligan, whilst we are looking at the
12 note, would you mind reading that out to everyone, but
13 obviously where it has "wk" putting in "week".
14 A. Do you want me to include my questions as well?
15 Q. No, just the note at the moment.
16 LORD HUTTON: I think if you just read the note exactly as
17 it is without putting in any additions or insertions.
18 MR DINGEMANS: Then I will come back to you and ask you
19 about your questions.
20 A. The whole thing?
21 Q. Yes, just reading the note through, if that is all
22 right.
23 A. "Transformed week before publication to make it sexier.
24 The classic was the 45 minutes. Most things in dossier
25 were double source but that was single source. One

21
1 source said it took 4 [that should be 45] minutes to set
2 up a missile assembly, that was misinterpreted.
3 "Most people in intelligence weren't happy with it
4 because it didn't reflect the considered view they were
5 putting forward.
6 "Campbell: real information but unreliable, included
7 against our wishes. Not in original draft -- dull, he
8 asked if anything else could go in.
9 "Uranium from Africa -- not nuclear expert but was
10 very suspect, documents certainly forged or forgeries.
11 "10 to 15 years ago there was a lot of information.
12 With the concealment and deception operation there was
13 far less information.
14 "It was small ...", this is the programme, I think.
15 "It was small because you could not conceal a large
16 programme."
17 LORD HUTTON: Is it "you could not" or "you do not"?
18 A. "You could not".
19 "... you could not conceal a large programme and
20 because it was actually quite hard to import things.
21 The sanctions were effective. They did limit the
22 programme. No usable weapons.
23 "In one of the Jan", that is a reference to one of
24 the Blix reports by Hans Blix to the UN, it said there
25 were some "chemical reactors which had not been

22
1 destroyed by UNSCOM. Glass lined chambers to promote
2 chemical reactions. These were being used again by the
3 Iraqis. They were recovered, they were taken to [that
4 should be] Al-Munthanna [another plant] not properly
5 destroyed by the UN, recovered by the Iraqis, taken to
6 Fallujah and used for non-banned purposes."
7 This is him discussing another thing that Blix
8 overlooked.
9 "The 18 chemical missiles", these were missiles with
10 the potential for chemical tipped warheads although I do
11 not think they actually obtained chemicals, "were
12 reported by Blix but they were downplayed. Blix thought
13 they were leftovers."
14 I cannot read it, the type is a bit faint
15 LORD HUTTON: It looks like "thin". Is it "I think"?
16 A. "I think it is 30 per cent likely that Iraq had an
17 active chemical warfare programme in the six months to
18 a year and likelier that there was a biological warfare
19 programme."
20 LORD HUTTON: Is it "chemical warfare" or "chemical
21 weapons"?
22 A. Either really.
23 "There was not much coming out of the detainees
24 [these were the people being detained in Iraq since the
25 end of the war] despite financial incentives."

23
1 I asked about what conditions they are in. He said:
2 "They are in quite good conditions" --
3 MR DINGEMANS: We will come back to the questions if you
4 just read the note.
5 A. Sure.
6 "They are in quite good conditions in the
7 Middle East.
8 "There has been proliferation -- not in terms of
9 people walking across the Iraqi border with 20 shells,
10 but supplying chain knowledge and plans."
11 Then we talked about the Iraq Survey Group, which is
12 the group that had been set up to look for weapons of
13 mass destruction in Iraq. We talked about that.
14 "ISG headed by a major general, below him two one
15 stars [that is an office of brigadier, air commodore or
16 commodore rank], British and Australian one stars.
17 "We do not have a great deal more knowledge than we
18 had before."
19 Again talking about the size of the ISG here, it was
20 going to be 1,500 strong, 100 British, 10 to 20
21 Australians.
22 "They are not all experts. About 20 of the Brits
23 are."
24 Then we talked about other nationalities. He said
25 it is a big handicap not to be able to draw on the

24
1 expertise of German and Russian experts. I do not know
2 what that last bit means, "isq ba".
3 Q. If we continue over to BBC/7/58, your continuation file,
4 perhaps you could again read that in as it were?
5 A. "There is real debate as to whether the mobile labs
6 [these are the mobile laboratories that were discovered
7 after the -- or the alleged mobile laboratories that
8 were discovered] are what they appear to be. It is an
9 odd piece of kit. Feeling is it could be made into
10 a fermenter but is it a fermenter?" Fermenter is an
11 important part of the biological weapons programme.
12 "There is an enormous quantity of documents to be
13 exploited."
14 Then we talk about some of the well known figures of
15 the Iraqi WMD programme like Am'r al Saadi and
16 Riab Taha.
17 "Saadi and Taha were taken out of the problem
18 because they interfaced with the UN.
19 "We have 10 to 20 in custody." These were people
20 who gave themselves up or were captured. Then we asked,
21 and this is something I asked him to repeat because he
22 said it in the unnoted part:
23 "Why didn't they use them?" Why did they not use
24 the weapons of mass destruction? "Because in the early
25 stages you just have to look at the weather conditions

25
1 [the weather was very poor]. By the end the commander
2 control [that should be C2, it is an abbreviation for
3 commander control] was in total disarray.
4 "His programme was small. He could not have killed
5 very many people even if everything had gone right for
6 him. Not really mass destruction in true meaning of the
7 word."
8 Then we just went back to the ISG and he said:
9 "The British one star, the British commander is
10 John Deverell and I will be the senior British inspector
11 in the group", which is something else that came from an
12 idea of (inaudible).
13 Q. You wanted to read into that your questions. Was there
14 any question that had provoked the first note on
15 BBC/7/57?
16 A. Yes. We started by talking about other things and then
17 we got on to the dossier; and I said: What happened to
18 it? When we last met you were saying it was not very
19 exciting. He said: Yes, that is right, until the last
20 week it was just as I told you. It was transformed in
21 the week before publication. I said: To make it sexier?
22 And he said: Yes, to make it sexier. Then I said: What
23 do you mean? Can you give me some examples? And he
24 said the classic -- he did not use the word example, he
25 said the classic was the 45 minutes, the statement that

26
1 WMD could be ready in 45 minutes, and most things in the
2 dossier were single source.
3 There is a bit more in there. These are notes.
4 They do not --
5 LORD HUTTON: Most things in the dossier were double
6 sourced, were they not?
7 A. Sorry, yes, most things in the dossier were double
8 sourced but that was single source. These are notes.
9 They do not note everything that was said. They are not
10 a verbatim transcript of the conversation. They are
11 only highlights. Some words are abbreviated, some
12 sentences are abbreviated. There are quite large
13 portions of the conversation which I have not noted at
14 all.
15 MR DINGEMANS: But those are the questions that you have
16 just related to his Lordship which gave rise to the
17 first paragraph, is that right?
18 A. That is right.
19 Q. Were there any questions giving rise to the next entry,
20 "Most people in intelligence ..."?
21 A. The question was something like: so how did people feel
22 about this transformation? And then that answer: this
23 transformed dossier, or something like that.
24 Q. Then there is the entry which is just a single word,
25 "Campbell". Was there any question that gave rise to

27
1 that entry?
2 A. Yes, it was something like: how did this transformation
3 happen?
4 Q. Right.
5 A. And then the answer was that, one word.
6 Q. He said just "Campbell"?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And what question led to the next entry?
9 A. Well I was surprised and I said: What, you know,
10 Campbell made it up? They made it up? And he said: No,
11 it was real information but it was unreliable and it was
12 in the dossier against our wishes.
13 LORD HUTTON: May I just ask you, Mr Gilligan, looking at
14 the first paragraph, you put the question: Was it to
15 make it sexier? And Dr Kelly replied: Yes, to make it
16 sexier?
17 A. Yes, to make it sexier, yes, so he adopted my words.
18 LORD HUTTON: Now are you clear in your recollection that
19 you asked how was it transformed, and that the name
20 Campbell was first spoken by Dr Kelly?
21 A. Yes, absolutely.
22 LORD HUTTON: It was not a question by you: was Campbell
23 involved in this?
24 A. No, it was him. He raised the subject of the 45 minutes
25 and he raised the subject of Campbell.

28
1 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
2 MR DINGEMANS: The questions that led to the later entries
3 I am not sure that I need to ask you for. But from the
4 best of your recollection, those are the questions
5 leading to the entries in the top four paragraphs on
6 page 57, is that right?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Can we then turn to look at what you first produced for
9 your Today broadcast. This is BBC/4/202. I hope now
10 that BBC/4/202 should be on-line. This is a log. It
11 says:
12 "Gilligan has a very good story. He has not stood
13 up yet. I will explain in the meeting."
14 That is ET and we are told somebody obviously has
15 made an annotation. Who is ET?
16 A. That is probably Eloise Twisk. She is one of the people
17 on the programme.
18 Q. That appears to have been made on May 24th, is that
19 right, from --
20 A. I think so. I mean it is difficult to tell with these
21 things. That is what it says. I have not any
22 recollection of this document, I would never have seen
23 this.
24 LORD HUTTON: May I just ask you, Mr Dingemans, I missed the
25 reference to that; BBC?

29
1 MR DINGEMANS: Sorry, my Lord, it is BBC/4/202.
2 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much.
3 A. I am not sure this refers to this story at all. I think
4 it is a different story. If it is from 24th May, I did
5 not tell anyone on the programme about this story
6 until -- at least I told one of the editors I met in an
7 awards ceremony it was not a formal conversation. I did
8 not tell anyone in the office about it until the
9 Wednesday. So I think this must be another story,
10 I think.
11 MR DINGEMANS: Right. Now what would have been the
12 Wednesday? That would have been Wednesday 28th May?
13 A. 28th, yes.
14 Q. Of May?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Which was some six days after the meeting?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. What were you doing in the interim in relation to this
19 story?
20 A. The first thing I did was I sat down and did a sort of
21 manuscript note of my full recollection of the
22 conversation, because the trouble with making notes on
23 one of these little keyboards is, as you see, they are
24 abbreviated, so while it was still in fresh in my mind
25 I actually sat down and did a full manuscript note of

30
1 what I remembered my questions had been and what his
2 answers had been; and the answers, the sentences are
3 slightly fleshed out a little. Some of the sentences in
4 the notes were abbreviated and these sentences fleshed
5 them out. So that was the first thing I did.
6 Then I basically sought to corroborate the story.
7 I went to see --
8 Q. How did you try to do that?
9 A. I went to see a couple of people. I saw the -- well,
10 I will call them senior contacts in Government; and
11 I asked them about this. I did not tell them obviously
12 that David Kelly had said it but I said I have been told
13 this and was there any truth in it. And neither of them
14 would confirm or deny --
15 Q. Sorry to interrupt. What did you say you had been told?
16 A. I said I had been told that the dossier had been
17 transformed the week before it was published and that
18 this was done at the behest of Alastair Campbell.
19 Q. So those two things were what you put to the two senior
20 Government contacts?
21 A. Yes, that is right.
22 Q. What did they say?
23 A. Neither of them denied it. One of them said something
24 I could not take as a confirmation but said, you know:
25 I think you should keep digging, something like that.

31
1 But when somebody says something like that, it is not
2 a confirmation and it cannot be taken as such but it is
3 obviously not a denial either. And then the others just
4 refused to talk about it.
5 I know both of these people -- I believe anyway both
6 of these people would have been in positions to know
7 about the dossier. In fact I also mentioned it to
8 a couple of sort of open source type people -- people
9 you can name openly. I mentioned it to Gary Samore at
10 the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He
11 said he had not heard this specifically but he had heard
12 similar things from counterparts on the other side of
13 the Atlantic. He is an American, he has quite good
14 contacts in the US intelligence world. I recorded
15 a clip with him, a short interview which I was planning
16 to use in the item broadcast on the Thursday, but in the
17 end it was dropped for reasons of space.
18 Q. Was there anything else that you did to confirm or deny
19 the story?
20 A. Well, I went to look at the dossier itself, and to sort
21 of do a sort of textual analysis of the dossier itself.
22 I looked at the language of the dossier and particularly
23 the sort of heart of the thing which is the chapter 3 on
24 Iraqi chemical and biological weapons programmes, which
25 is the main area of David Kelly's expertise.

32
1 Q. Yes.
2 A. And I looked at that and I thought -- you know, I really
3 did think that the language in that, there was evidence
4 that the language had been hardened.
5 Q. What, from the document itself?
6 A. From the document itself. You can see that the language
7 in the document is actually inconsistent.
8 Q. Is there any passage that you would like to refer us to?
9 A. There is a passage on page 18 --
10 LORD HUTTON: Would it help you to have a copy of the
11 dossier before you?
12 A. Could I please, yes.
13 MR DINGEMANS: Could we have DOS/1/55 plus 18.
14 LORD HUTTON: I do not know if there is a copy of the
15 document Mr Gilligan might like to look at.
16 MR DINGEMANS: DOS/1/73.
17 Is this the page to which you are referring?
18 A. Yes, yes. That is right.
19 LORD HUTTON: That is page?
20 MR DINGEMANS: It is page 18 of the dossier, DOS/1/73.
21 A. This is the right page. It starts off by saying:
22 "In mid-2001 the JIC assessed that Iraq retained
23 some chemical warfare agents, precursors, production
24 equipment and weapons from before the Gulf War. These
25 stocks would enable Iraq to produce significant

33
1 quantities of mustard gas within weeks and of nerve
2 agent within months."
3 "Would enable Iraq to produce".
4 "The JIC concluded that intelligence on Iraqi former
5 chemical and biological warfare facilities, their
6 limited reconstruction and civil production pointed to
7 a continuing research and development programme."
8 Again, "research and development programme".
9 "These chemical and biological capabilities
10 represented the most immediate threat from Iraqi WMD",
11 "the most immediate threat".
12 Then paragraph 4 says:
13 "In the last six months the JIC has confirmed its
14 earlier judgements on Iraqi chemical and biological
15 warfare capabilities ..."
16 So it has confirmed those judgments that it made in
17 2001.
18 Then you go down to paragraph 8, this is on the next
19 page, on page 19.
20 Q. DOS/1/74.
21 A. This is paragraph 8 now.
22 Q. At the bottom.
23 A. Then you see standing almost on its own a very bald
24 statement shows:
25 "... Iraq has continued to produce chemical agent."

34
1 That is not what the earlier bit says. It says it
2 could produce it within weeks. This says it has
3 continued to produce it.
4 Also there is another reference on I think it is
5 page 21 to "Iraq has continued to produce biological ...
6 agents". Neither of those references are backed up by
7 any further context. They are just statements, single
8 sentences on their own.
9 Paragraph 12.
10 Q. At the bottom of the page.
11 A. "We know from intelligence that Iraq has continued to
12 produce biological warfare agents."
13 You know I did look at this quite carefully. I went
14 back again over the chapter. Again if we go back now,
15 if we could, to page 19 --
16 Q. DOS/1/74.
17 A. -- there is a paragraph about recent intelligence
18 somewhere. I think it is the previous page, actually,
19 to this.
20 Q. The paragraph headed "Recent Intelligence" is
21 paragraph 5 on DOS/1/73.
22 A. I thought okay, maybe the difference between those two
23 statements was explainable by this recent intelligence.
24 If you look at what they say the recent intelligence
25 consists of, there is no recent intelligence about

35
1 production capabilities.
2 So there are inconsistencies in this document; and
3 in all cases it was the harder -- the firmer statement,
4 that they actually had weapons, rather than just the
5 ability to produce weapons or research and development
6 facilities, actual weapons, that is the statement, that
7 they had actual weapons deployable or ready within
8 45 minutes. Those are the statements that make it into
9 the executive summary, into the Prime Minister's
10 foreword, and there is no reference to this other stuff
11 about the JIC assessment, actually being it is only
12 about research and development.
13 I thought that was interesting and I thought that it
14 suggested that the foreword and the executive summary at
15 least were not completely accurate reflections of
16 everything that was in the dossier.
17 On the 45 minutes specifically, I also saw that the
18 language changed a bit. In the body of the dossier it
19 says that weapons of mass destruction could be "deployed
20 or deployable within 45 minutes". In the foreword it
21 says they could be "ready within 45 minutes". It may be
22 a semantic distinction but "ready" is a stronger word
23 I think than "deployable". That is a slightly more
24 debatable point, it is a semantic debate, but I think
25 "ready" is a stronger word. "Deployable" just means

36
1 moveable.
2 Q. When did you carry out this research or this analysis of
3 the dossier?
4 A. This is in the week between meeting Dr Kelly and the
5 broadcast. I did several other things as well. I mean,
6 I looked up to see what use had been made of this
7 45 minute claim. It did make a great deal of impact on
8 the days after the dossier's publication. It was the
9 main story in the Standard on the day the dossier was
10 published. The headline said something like "45 minutes
11 from attack". It made a big splash in a lot of the
12 other papers. Then it kind of seemed to have faded
13 away.
14 I did a cuttings check on Neon, this press cuttings
15 database we have, and also I did a Hansard check to see
16 whether it had been mentioned in the Commons by any
17 Ministers. I found one cutting on Neon, a speech by
18 Jack Straw in February 2003 which mentioned it, and
19 I found one reference by a Minister in the Commons which
20 is by Baroness Simons, a trade minister, again in
21 February.
22 So in all that time, in the six months between the
23 45 minutes making a big splash, it had almost
24 disappeared from view. Not quite, but almost. It was
25 never mentioned in any of the really big set piece

37
1 debates in the Commons even though the Government had
2 quite a lot of -- wanted to make the strongest possible
3 case for taking some form of action against Iraq. But
4 they did not mention it again. I sort of thought that
5 was probably an indication that they were suspicious of
6 it.
7 It was a good search of the Hansard and the press
8 cuttings. I cannot pretend it is an absolutely
9 exhaustive search. I mean the Government might be able
10 to turn up some other speech by some minister where he
11 said it. But I considered the way it had almost
12 disappeared from view for that six whole months was
13 suggestive.
14 Q. Notwithstanding that it had then been mentioned back in
15 February?
16 A. Absolutely, but it was one of the two main headlines
17 from the dossier in September; and if it was as good as
18 it seemed then I would have expected it to have been
19 mentioned a lot more often than twice in the six months
20 between the publication of the dossier and the outbreak
21 of war.
22 Q. So you have spoken to two contacts you have described,
23 you have looked at the language of the dossier and you
24 have done your research on the 45 minute claim. Was
25 there anything else you did?

38
1 A. I knew already that the Government had embellished
2 another dossier. They published a dossier in
3 February 2003 on Iraq's infrastructure of concealment,
4 deception and intimidation and it had come out -- I mean
5 the Prime Minister described it as further intelligence
6 and intelligence reports in the Commons in fact.
7 Actually I think the intelligence component of it was
8 quite small and most of it -- a good part of it anyway
9 was copied off the Internet. I knew also, and I had
10 seen reported, that it was copied almost word for word,
11 including the spelling mistakes actually in some cases,
12 but one of the figures was embellished, and a couple of
13 the claims, some of the language was embellished. In
14 the student's original PhD thesis, the wording --
15 Q. What student are you referring to?
16 A. This is Ibrahim al Marishi. He wrote the thesis which
17 was then copied into the February dossier by the
18 Government without acknowledgment. Marishi wrote the
19 Iraqi Mukhabarat had a role in aiding opposition groups
20 in hostile regimes, and that was changed in the February
21 dossier to supporting terrorist organisations in hostile
22 regimes, which is quite a substantial change.
23 Q. You relied on what had happened to the February dossier.
24 Was there anything else?
25 A. None of this evidence was conclusive of course. It just

39
1 went to -- it supported -- you know, I mean, it
2 helped -- it was context and background. It made the
3 claim seem more likely to be true. If they had done
4 this with this earlier dossier then perhaps they could
5 have done it -- if they had done it with the February
6 one then they could have done it with the earlier
7 dossier in September.
8 What else did I do? I looked at the uranium from
9 Africa claim. David Kelly had mentioned that. That was
10 never mentioned again by any Government minister, not
11 once as far as I could trace.
12 Q. On your searches?
13 A. Yes. I also knew, of course, that in March 2003 the
14 International Atomic Energy Authority had been very
15 critical of it and had described it as based on forged
16 documents.
17 What else did I do? I looked at -- I mean one of
18 the things the Government used to point -- some of the
19 independent evidence the Government used to justify
20 military action, the Prime Minister referred to this in
21 his speech on 18th March just before the war, he
22 referred to the UNSCOM report, unresolved disarmament
23 issues -- sorry UNMOVIC report, 173-page report. The
24 impression you would have got from listening to that
25 speech was that UNMOVIC inspectors had reported there

40
1 were actually weapons. Actually what the report says is
2 that there had been weapons and that stocks were
3 unaccounted for.
4 I looked to see if there was anything to support
5 what the dossier had said as well, to say, you know,
6 that David Kelly was wrong. I did not consider that
7 that, which was the main piece of independent evidence
8 produced by the Government in its support, I did not
9 consider it actually offered the support which the
10 Government said it offered.
11 I did a press cuttings search as well. I looked to
12 see if anyone had made any comments about the dossier
13 before it was published, and I knew what Dr Kelly had
14 said in April obviously and that it was not very
15 eventful. I also found a couple of clippings from more
16 recently. I found a clipping from The Times.
17 Mike Evans, the defence editor of The Times, quoted
18 a senior Whitehall official as saying that the dossier
19 was not revelatory, that was on 29th August.
20 Then Richard Norton-Taylor, the Guardian security
21 man, he quoted a Whitehall official on 5th September,
22 but it was a conversation which had taken place a few
23 days earlier, saying the dossier would no longer play
24 a role because there is nothing to put in it. Obviously
25 that was only three weeks before it was published. You

41
1 know, there was a reasonable amount -- there was
2 something, anyway, that was --
3 Q. So am I right in summarising the effect of your research
4 as this: that you had carried out a number of researches
5 and you have outlined them at some length and you
6 carried out this textual analysis of the dossier and you
7 have taken us through that, and that suggested to you
8 that there was no recent intelligence; is that what you
9 are saying? Because that is what is indicated by
10 the Times article and the textual analysis. You talked
11 about recent intelligence or the absence of recent
12 intelligence. Is that a fair analysis of what you were
13 finding?
14 A. I was fairly inclined to believe Dr Kelly anyway because
15 I knew of his standing and of his involvement, but it
16 made me even more inclined to believe him. I mean none
17 of it was of course directly corroborative evidence in
18 any way, but it did make the charges he was making more
19 credible.
20 There were other press articles. There was several
21 press articles I picked up in about February or March
22 time. One of those mentioned that there were rows
23 between Alastair Campbell and the intelligence agencies
24 over the September dossier. Another one had
25 Menzies Campbell, the foreign affairs spokesman of the

42
1 Liberal Democrats, he was saying he had been told by
2 intelligence agencies that they were unhappy about the
3 way the Government was using their intelligence, that
4 they were being selective and that context was being
5 removed, which is again exactly the substance of the
6 charge that Dr Kelly was making.
7 LORD HUTTON: You said that it made Dr Kelly's challenges
8 more credible.
9 A. Charges.
10 LORD HUTTON: Challenges?
11 A. Charges.
12 LORD HUTTON: Did you regard him in his conversation with
13 you on 22nd May as challenging the Government's claims?
14 A. With respect my Lord I said charges rather than
15 challenges. I do not think he set out to sort of take
16 on the Government in that sense. I just think he was
17 expressing his professional opinion of the dossier and
18 saying what he said.
19 LORD HUTTON: Yes. Yes.
20 MR DINGEMANS: But I think you have said the research you
21 carried out was suggesting that there was not new
22 intelligence. That was the gist of the Times article,
23 that was the gist of some of the analysis you found,
24 your textual analysis. But Dr Kelly had made it clear
25 to you, if we go to BBC/4/198, that there was real

43
1 information, if we look at the fourth paragraph on that.
2 BBC/4/198. Sorry, still not getting that. Well, we can
3 take that in BBC/7 -- I am sorry, you will have to bear
4 with me -- at 57.
5 If we look at the fourth paragraph --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- you were saying that your research was suggesting
8 there was no intelligence. Someone was writing in
9 The Times in August: nothing new. Indeed that is what
10 you said Dr Kelly had said. In your textual analysis,
11 recent intelligence, when you chased it through, did not
12 actually say this. Dr Kelly is telling you here it is
13 real information. Did you understand him to be talking
14 about real intelligence?
15 A. Yes, I mean --
16 Q. But his comment on it was that it was "unreliable and
17 included against our wishes".
18 A. Yes, I mean to say there was nothing new to put in it,
19 obviously there is new intelligence coming through all
20 the time, but in order to make it into a dossier, it is
21 or should have to be assessed as reliable. So I think
22 that was perhaps the import of the comment in The Times
23 that there was nothing that had been assessed as
24 sufficiently reliable to put in a dossier. Obviously
25 there was, they do get information in all the time; but,

44
1 you know, not all of it is particularly reliable.
2 I mean, Dr Kelly was in no doubt that there was -- and
3 he said this and it was one of the things he asked me to
4 say in the report -- that there was a WMD programme of
5 some sort but he did not believe the level of the threat
6 to the West was as great as the dossier had said.
7 LORD HUTTON: When you refer to intelligence having to be
8 sufficiently assessed to be reliable, what body has to
9 assess it? We have heard that there is the DIS which
10 considers information. It then passes it on to the
11 assessment group in the Cabinet Office and they then
12 pass it on to the Joint Intelligence Committee. Do you
13 have regard to which body assesses intelligence?
14 A. Yes, I mean, I knew roughly how the assessment system
15 worked.
16 LORD HUTTON: Did you know there was that sequence,
17 Mr Gilligan, which we heard described in some detail
18 yesterday?
19 A. Yes, I did. And I mean that applies to other agencies
20 as well.
21 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
22 A. And the assessments -- you know, the assessment staff
23 and the Cabinet Office and the JIC are areas in which
24 the intelligence is assessed and subsequent reports are
25 produced. I mean, one other thing about the dossier

45
1 that struck me was that it did not look like a JIC
2 report. It was described as largely the product of the
3 Joint Intelligence Committee but it really did not
4 look -- the language did not look like a JIC report
5 I have seen historical ones and I have seen one current
6 one and they are a great deal less assertive in their
7 language than the dossier. They are usually more sort
8 of caveated in tone and more cautious. I know a couple
9 of other people who have seen them and have said similar
10 things.
11 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
12 MR DINGEMANS: That was the research. Was there any other
13 research that you carried out before you prepared the
14 piece for broadcast?
15 A. I did -- again, I mean, I did look to find other
16 contexts and I saw a speech by Robin Cook, Robin Cook's
17 resignation speech in March 2003. He said something
18 like: Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction
19 in the commonly understood use of the term. And he
20 would have been --
21 Q. And how did he define the commonly understood use of the
22 term?
23 A. A strategic device capable of hitting a -- a device
24 capable of hitting a strategic sitting target, something
25 like that. He would have been privy, certainly until he

46
1 left the job of Foreign Secretary in May 2001 he would
2 have been privy to the intelligence on that. That sort
3 of coincided with Dr Kelly's view that any weapons that
4 there were were very small and very crude.
5 LORD HUTTON: Would this be an appropriate time to give the
6 stenographers a short break?
7 MR DINGEMANS: It certainly would.
8 (11.40 am)
9 (Short Break)
10 (11.45 am)
11 LORD HUTTON: During the brief adjournment I have had
12 a discussion with Mr Lee Hughes, the Secretary to
13 the Inquiry, and with Mr Dingemans about the enquiry of
14 the press and their wish to see the documents referred
15 to in evidence. As I stated when I first sat, it is our
16 intention to have the documents referred to shown on the
17 website at the end of the day. Now, I understand that
18 at the end of the first day of evidence there were some
19 technical difficulties which made it not possible to
20 achieve that objective. We hope that will be achieved
21 today and that the documents will be available to ladies
22 and gentlemen on the website. If that is not possible
23 at the end of the day, I will certainly give careful
24 thought to some other method whereby you can see copies
25 of the documents. We will proceed, I think, on that

47
1 basis today. Yes, Mr Dingemans.
2 MR DINGEMANS: Mr Gilligan, I think you had concluded
3 telling us about the research you carried out for this
4 broadcast. Can I then take you to BBC/4/205? This is
5 a typewritten version of some manuscript notes prepared
6 by Miranda Holt. First of all, who is Miranda Holt?
7 A. She is one of the assistant editors of the Today
8 Programme. She was the day editor who was on duty that
9 day. Each edition of the programme is produced by two
10 different teams of people, a day team and night team.
11 They change over at 8 o'clock in the evening, overlap
12 for an hour between 8 and 9. She was the editor of the
13 day team on the Wednesday preparing for the Thursday
14 programme on which this was broadcast.
15 Q. And do the first four lines of that note refer to what
16 you discussed with her? Perhaps you can read them out.
17 A. "WMD -- weapons of mass destruction. Gary Samore.
18 "AG meeting ..."
19 Q. AG is you, is it not, Andrew Gilligan?
20 A. Yes:
21 "Chief British weapons inspector. 24/9 dossier
22 45 minutes.
23 "Until the week before -- nothing significant in the
24 dossier.
25 "'Sexed up' 45 minutes -- added at Campbell's

48
1 behest.
2 "MI6 -- defector. 'To set up missile'."
3 Q. That did not refer to anything you were dealing with,
4 did it?
5 A. No. Well "to set up missile" did, he said that.
6 Q. And then 1, 2 and 3.
7 A. "1. IISS (International Institute for Strategic
8 Studies) -- Chipman."
9 Q. Who is Chipman?
10 A. He is a director of it. John Chipman is the director of
11 the IISS. Gary Samore, he works for the IISS.
12 "2. British Government dossier 24/9/02.
13 "3. Dodgy dossier February 2003."
14 Do you want me to read the rest?
15 Q. Then the rest.
16 A. "Seriously angry ... British inspector UNSCOM, Iraq
17 survey team 1500 US/UK.
18 "History was OTG info." On the ground information
19 I think that means. Yes, on the ground information.
20 "African uranium -- obvious -- cut and paste job --
21 Niger government letterhead.
22 "Bid for: John Denholm, Chris Smith, Robin Cook,
23 Clare", which is probably Clare Short.
24 Q. In terms of who they were hoping to have on the
25 programme?

49
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Do you know how that came into existence, that note?
3 A. No, I do not. I have spoken to Miranda about the story.
4 It might be a note of my first meeting, but I do not
5 know. It might be a note of the first phone call.
6 LORD HUTTON: What is the reference to "seriously angry"?
7 A. I do not know. I mean I might have said something in
8 the phone call that the agencies were unhappy or angry
9 or something like that which is based on what
10 David Kelly had told me. But he did not use the words
11 "seriously angry".
12 MR DINGEMANS: You mentioned producing a manuscript version
13 of your meeting with him after you had produced your
14 Palm Pilot version. Do you still have that?
15 A. No, I do not. At least I do not believe I do. I have
16 looked quite hard for it but I cannot find it.
17 Q. You have looked everywhere but you cannot find that?
18 A. No.
19 Q. You did produce something. Can we look at BBC/4/203?
20 I think we will have to try that in another file.
21 BBC/7/61. What is this document?
22 A. This is an EMPS message. EMPS is our internal computer
23 message system at the BBC, which I sent to Miranda. She
24 asked for the fuller details of what he had said. It is
25 a summary of the main quotes I was proposing to use. It

50
1 is not a verbatim transcript, it was based on the
2 manuscript note that I just described to you.
3 Q. Because in inverted commas, if you look at the question
4 and answer, you have:
5 "Question: What about the Blair dossier (Sept
6 2002)? When we last met (in spring 2002) you said the
7 dossier wouldn't tell us anything we didn't already
8 know.
9 "Answer: Until the week before it was just the same
10 as I told you. It was transformed in the week before it
11 was published, to make it sexier."
12 I thought you said you were the person who first
13 suggested to make it sexier.
14 A. Yes, I said sexier and he said yes, to make it sexier.
15 This does not purport to be a verbatim transcript, it is
16 a note of the main quotes I was proposing to use on the
17 programme.
18 Q. Even though you had put it, as it were, in inverted
19 commas?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Was there anything else that you produced in writing for
22 the broadcast?
23 A. Once the story had been accepted and, you know, they had
24 decided to do it, I produced -- among other things I did
25 a -- there were going to be two appearances of the story

51
1 on the programme the next day in the main body of the
2 programme. The main appearance was at 7.30 and
3 I produced a script for that which I then sent over to
4 the -- by that time they had changed over to the night
5 team. I sent that over to the night team.
6 Q. Is that the document we see at BBC/4/215?
7 A. No. This is a separate thing.
8 Q. What is this?
9 A. The other thing I produced was a script for a bulletins
10 piece. There are news bulletins in Today at 6, 7 and
11 8 am. They are under separate editorial control but
12 they are part of the programme in the sense they fall
13 within the programme time. This is the script for
14 a short voice piece for the news bulletins that I sent
15 to the editor of the news bulletins. You have to send
16 them a script to get it approved before you broadcast
17 your piece and before you record your piece. I sent the
18 news bulletin editor this script and his assistant then
19 replied back saying: yes, it is all right apart from one
20 thing which is the "infamous". Can you take out the
21 "infamous"?
22 Q. Do we see that on BBC/4/214?
23 A. Yes, it is there, it is underlined.
24 Q. It appears to be an exchange of e-mail traffic.
25 A. Yes, these are EMPS messages. I have access to EMPS

52
1 wherever I am and I can send messages on it and I sent
2 this as a message to the bulletin editor saying this is
3 a piece I would like you to consider for the morning
4 bulletins. He said fine. His assistant replied saying:
5 Fine, yes, we like your piece, send us the script. So
6 I sent him the script and his assistant replied saying
7 "infamous" is a bit strong. I said I would delete that.
8 Once I had done that then I recorded the voice piece for
9 the bulletins and then sent it over to the BBC and it
10 was played in the bulletins the next day.
11 So there were two things that were scripted. There
12 was the main item on Today itself at 7.30 and there were
13 bulletin pieces for 6, 7 and 8. I think they played it
14 at all those points.
15 Q. There is a document at BBC/4/213 headed "Master
16 Prospects for Thursday, 29th May". Is this the document
17 to which you were referring?
18 A. No, this is something else again. This is produced by
19 the programme team. This is by way of a briefing
20 between the two teams, the day team and the night team,
21 that I have described. The day team produces this to
22 give the night team an idea of what they have been
23 working on during the day and what bids for Ministers
24 and for other people have been put in and what is the
25 progress on stories we have been chasing. They hand

53
1 over this to the night team at their handover meeting at
2 8 o'clock and they discuss it as well. So this is on
3 the story -- this is their entry for the story I did.
4 Q. We can see halfway down the story they were looking at
5 was this:
6 "The dossier on Iraq which the Government produced
7 last September (24th) was jazzed up at the last minute
8 to include new information based on dubious sources --
9 including the claim that chemical and biological weapons
10 could be deployed at 45 minutes notice. LIVE 0700-0730
11 Andrew Gilligan illustrated two ways. Gilligan has got
12 this from a senior source who shall remain anonymous --
13 his interview is with Gary Samore from IISS who backs up
14 the line that intelligence sources weren't happy about
15 this."
16 That was the gist of the story you were proposing to
17 run, is that right?
18 A. Yes, I mean Samore did not back up the story that
19 David Kelly gave me; as I say, he told me about
20 unhappiness in the American intelligence community.
21 These things do sometimes get translated when they are
22 the results of phone conversations. That is essentially
23 it, yes.
24 Q. That then prepares you for the publication the next day,
25 the broadcast the next day?

54
1 A. How it worked on that day was that there were a series
2 of phone calls with Miranda Holt. The first one was
3 I described the story to her. I think that is probably
4 the note you flashed up a few documents ago. She then
5 said: Okay, sounds like quite a good story, I will
6 discuss it with Kevin, who is the overall editor of the
7 programme. Then she came back asking for more
8 information and a summary of what the guy had said; and
9 then they wanted to know who the source was; and I told
10 her -- I did not tell her his name, I told her his
11 position; and then they said: right, well, Kevin has
12 agreed to do the story. How should we handle the
13 Government response? We discussed that for a bit.
14 I mean there was a series of phone calls.
15 Q. What was the gist of your discussion in relation to
16 that?
17 A. There was already another story, another reporter's
18 story on cluster bombs on the programme for the next
19 day. We had invited Adam Ingram, who is the defence
20 minister, on to discuss that. Their decision was that
21 we should "extend the bid" in the jargon -- the bid is
22 a request for Government Ministers or anybody -- we
23 should extend that to cover the dossier; and that was
24 what we decided. They said they would make calls to the
25 Ministry of Defence to that effect. I think they did.

55
1 I said I would also speak to the MoD, tell them
2 a bit about the story so Ingram was prepared to answer
3 on it. So that was the sort of MoD side of things.
4 Then, as I say, once we had done that I then spoke to
5 the night editor Chris Howard once he had taken over and
6 I told him more about the story and I said I would
7 script the main item because it was to include voiced up
8 clips of David Kelly, obviously anonymous, which would
9 need to be voiced up in the office by one of the
10 production team, and I would need to write a script
11 because they would need to know when to play the clips
12 in.
13 So once I did that, and once I had also spoken to
14 the bulletins people, I wrote the script for the 7.30
15 item, I sent that to Chris Howard -- this would have
16 been in the early hours of the morning by now -- for his
17 approval, he approved it and got the clips voiced up and
18 then we were ready to go the next morning. They told me
19 also that Adam Ingram had accepted or the Ministry of
20 Defence had accepted on Ingram's behalf the bid to talk
21 about WMD.
22 Q. So who was the person who had contacted someone to talk
23 from the Government side about this story?
24 A. Well, the contact with -- deciding how the programme
25 should get a Government response is the responsibility

56
1 of the office team. They said they would speak to the
2 MoD about Ingram. Now I think one of the producers on
3 the team -- each item is assigned a producer and the
4 assigned producer spoke to the Ministry of Defence and
5 told them about the story. As I say, I also spoke to
6 the MoD. I spoke to Kate Wilson, who is the chief press
7 office at the MoD, on my mobile phone about 7.30 and
8 I told her.
9 Q. And what did you tell her?
10 A. I cannot remember exactly what I told her because it was
11 a mobile phone and I did not take notes of my
12 conversation.
13 Q. You have no notes of that conversation?
14 A. No, but I took her through the story in outline.
15 Q. And what was the gist of the outline that you gave to
16 her?
17 A. I cannot remember the exact words I used, to be
18 absolutely honest, because so much has happened since
19 then and it was one of dozens and dozens of calls I made
20 that day to MoD press officers. I know I took her
21 through the outline of the story. I said that Ingram
22 would be asked about it the next day.
23 LORD HUTTON: May I just ask you this, Mr Gilligan: when you
24 refer to the Government response, this is a response
25 after your report has been broadcast; is that correct?

57
1 A. Yes, that is right. I mean, the way Today works is that
2 typically -- and this is like this for a number of
3 programmes, Newsnight is quite similar -- they will do
4 a report and then have a minister on straight afterwards
5 to give the Government response to it. That is quite
6 common on our programme and on other sort of programmes
7 like Newsnight.
8 In this case Ingram was not on straight after, he
9 came on at 8.10 because he was discussing something else
10 as well, and he was on about 40 minutes after the
11 original broadcast of my piece.
12 LORD HUTTON: Suppose the report on the Today Programme
13 could be viewed as being a serious criticism of the
14 Government or some other body or a person, is the person
15 who is going to be criticised given a chance to point
16 out what they might regard as inaccuracies or
17 unfairnesss in the report before the report is broadcast
18 at all?
19 A. We did not name a particular individual.
20 LORD HUTTON: You did not?
21 A. We did not name a particular individual in this report;
22 but I think had we named a particular individual I think
23 we would have. But we regarded this I think as
24 a development of a story that we had been pursuing for
25 some time anyway, and we did ensure that the Government

58
1 view was very fully reflected, and the Government did
2 have the opportunity, several times, to get its views
3 across. We started the main item with a Government
4 denial saying nothing in this was not the work of the
5 intelligence agencies, and then we had Adam Ingram on
6 for probably about 15 minutes, of which half of that was
7 on this. So the Government did get its views across --
8 LORD HUTTON: When you say you started with a Government
9 denial or a Government explanation, at what time was
10 that broadcast?
11 A. This is at 7.30. We started the main item at 7.30 with
12 a Government denial.
13 LORD HUTTON: But your first broadcast was at 6 or 7 am, was
14 it?
15 A. That is right.
16 MR DINGEMANS: Can I return to the contacts before I ask you
17 to deal with the broadcast itself?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Can I ask you to look at CAB/1/390.
20 This is a letter written by Richard Sambrook dated
21 29th June to Ben Bradshaw, MP for Wrexham. He said
22 this:
23 "Thank for your letter yesterday asking for
24 a correction to our assertion that the MoD were
25 forewarned of the WMD story we broadcast on 29th May.

59
1 My understanding, from contemporaneous programme notes,
2 is as follows:
3 "At 5 pm on May 28th the Today Programme put in
4 a bid to the MoD for an interview on cluster bombs
5 [which I think you told us about].
6 "At 6.30 pm Andrew Gilligan spoke to Kate O'Connor,
7 the MoD press officer, about the cluster bomb interview
8 and added there would be another story running on WMD."
9 Is that the gist of your conversation?
10 A. Well, no, I did not say -- I cannot remember exactly
11 what I said but I am pretty sure I did not speak mainly
12 about the cluster bomb story because it was not my
13 story, you see. I did not know about it. It was
14 another reporter's story, and I would not discuss
15 another reporter's story with the MoD.
16 Q. Although in some of the correspondence it suggested you
17 have a particular interest in cluster bombs, is that
18 right?
19 A. Only in as much as it is a defence issue and I am
20 interested in all defence issues. I do not how much of
21 the conversation we spoke about cluster bombs. It was
22 a seven and a half minute conversation and I would not
23 have spoken about it for that whole time because it was
24 not my story.
25 Q. To conclude the bullet points:

60
1 "Between 6.30 pm and 7 pm producer Martha Findlay
2 spoke to MoD press officer Richard Walley and confirms
3 the bid has widened from cluster bombs to include WMD.
4 "Between 8 and 8.30 pm the MoD calls the Today
5 Programme and confirms an interview with Adam Ingram on
6 cluster bombs but does not confirm that he will speak
7 about WMD.
8 "At 9.45 pm the MoD press office rings the Today
9 Programme to confirm Mr Ingram will speak about WMD as
10 well."
11 Then can I take you to the next letter at CAB/1/403.
12 This is the first page of a three-page letter written by
13 Geoff Hoon, Secretary of State, to Richard Sambrook. He
14 says he has seen the letter in paragraph 1, and it says:
15 "During his interview on the Today Programme with
16 Ben Bradshaw on 28 June John Humphreys said that
17 Andrew Gilligan 'checked with the Ministry of Defence'
18 before broadcasting his story. This is simply not true,
19 as the record below makes clear.
20 "Shortly after that interview was broadcast, at 8.50
21 am, Andrew Gilligan called the MoD duty press officer.
22 Two press officers were present as this was during the
23 handover period. Mr Gilligan said he was calling to
24 'note that he had spoken to the Chief Press Officer
25 before the programme was broadcast and that was what he

61
1 had said'. He then rang off without offering any
2 explanation.
3 "I deduce from this call that the basis for John
4 Humphreys' claim that the story was 'checked with the
5 MoD' is the conversation Mr Gilligan had with the Chief
6 Press Officer at approximately 6.30 pm on 28 May."
7 Continuing on page 404, their note is this:
8 "As we have already made clear, the conversation on
9 28 May was actually about a piece on the use of cluster
10 bombs in Iraq and a possible interview bid for
11 Adam Ingram. Mr Gilligan did not discuss any other
12 story. He was asked whether he was working on anything
13 else for the programme. He then mentioned that he was
14 working on something else about WMD. He did not discuss
15 any detail of this story, he did not put any questions
16 about it to the MoD and most importantly, he said that
17 this was not a story for the MoD. By his own admission
18 he did not regard MoD as the relevant Government
19 department. I cannot see how this can be described as
20 'checking the story'."
21 Is that a fair analysis of the conversation?
22 A. No, I do not believe so. I mean, as I said, I would not
23 have spent seven and a half minutes discussing another
24 reporter's story. I did not know what the cluster bomb
25 story was; and I would not have done it anyway. You

62
1 know, it would have been a breach of protocol to talk to
2 a Government press officer about another reporter's
3 story. I think it is correct to say -- I did not ask
4 the MoD press office to go away and seek specific
5 responses to these specific points. I simply wanted to
6 forewarn them about what was going to be in the
7 broadcast so that Adam Ingram was equipped to discuss it
8 the following day. But I certainly did not spend the
9 whole time talking about cluster bombs.
10 Q. Did you put some of the specific allegations that you
11 made in the broadcast? In the early morning broadcast,
12 the 6 o'clock broadcast, you have referred to the
13 Government knowing that the 45 minute claim was wrong
14 before it was put in. Did you put that allegation to
15 the Ministry of Defence press officer?
16 A. I do not believe I did put those specific words, no. As
17 I say, I cannot remember exactly what I said. I gave
18 them an outline of the story, a summary of the story.
19 But I cannot remember exactly what I said to them.
20 Q. Did you put the other perhaps major allegation, that
21 Downing Street had ordered the dossier to be sexed up
22 and more facts to be discovered as broadcast; did you
23 put that to the MoD press officer?
24 A. Yes, again I may not have used those exact words because
25 I cannot remember which words I used. But I put the

63
1 gist of the story, which was that the dossier had been
2 exaggerated at Downing Street's behest.
3 Q. Can I complete the correspondence on this issue. At
4 CAB/1/409 Richard Sambrook replied to Mr Hoon:
5 "Dear Geoff, I am now in a position to respond to
6 your letter of 2 July.
7 "As you know, I asked Stephen Whittle, Controller,
8 Editorial Policy, to look at what happened on the night
9 of may 28th. The Today Programme team again made clear
10 to him that it is their belief that at least three calls
11 were made to MoD press officers. They believe that
12 between them those calls covered sufficiently both the
13 allegations made by the source about WMD, as well as the
14 extension of the bid for the interview with Adam Ingram.
15 However, we acknowledge that it would have been better
16 if our logs about this were more specific as there is
17 a clear conflict over exactly what was said."
18 And there was then subsequently a meeting between
19 Mr Hoon and Mr Sambrook on 8th July, but if that is
20 right, I would propose to deal with Mr Sambrook and
21 Mr Hoon on that.
22 Can we then turn to the broadcast itself? I think
23 we have this on tape. What you are going to hear is
24 your broadcast at about 7.40 and your subsequent
25 broadcast on Radio 5 Live which I hope is a fair

64
1 analysis of what was broadcast.
2 (Broadcast played)
3 MR DINGEMANS: I think now we are going to hear the next
4 version at 7.40.
5 (Broadcast played)
6 A. This is the wrong report actually. This is not the
7 right report. This is the wrong report.
8 Q. Sorry, you were saying something?
9 A. The one you just played there was two days after, that
10 was on 31st May.
11 MR DINGEMANS: That was on 31st May. Do you have the second
12 broadcast on 28th May?
13 That was the broadcast I think you put out on
14 31st May, was it not?
15 A. That is right, that one you just heard.
16 LORD HUTTON: It begins I think with Mr Humphreys saying "28
17 minutes to 8 ..."
18 MR DINGEMANS: Can we look at BBC/1/5. Slightly less
19 dramatically, could you be Andrew Gilligan at the bottom
20 and I will be Mr Humphreys. If we pick it up halfway
21 down the page:
22 "Mr Humphreys: 28 minutes to 8. Tony Blair had
23 quite a job persuading the country and indeed his own
24 MPs to support the invasion of Iraq; his main argument
25 was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that

65
1 threatened us all. None of those weapons has been
2 found. Now our defence correspondent, Andrew Gilligan,
3 has found evidence that the government's dossier on Iraq
4 that was produced last September was cobbled together at
5 the last minute with some unconfirmed material that had
6 not been approved by the Security Services. Now you
7 told us about this earlier on the programme Andy, and
8 we've had a statement from 10 Downing Street that says
9 it's not true, and let me just quote what they said to
10 you: 'Not one word of the dossier was not entirely the
11 work of the intelligence agencies'. Sorry to submit you
12 to this sort of English but there we are. I think we
13 know what they mean. Are you suggesting, let's be very
14 clear about this, that it was not the work of the
15 intelligence agencies?"
16 A. "No, the information which I'm told was dubious did come
17 from the agencies, but they were unhappy about it,
18 because they didn't think it should have been in there.
19 They thought it was -- it was not corroborated
20 sufficiently, and they actually thought it was wrong,
21 they thought the informant concerned had got it wrong,
22 they thought he'd misunderstood what was happening."
23 Q. At the top of page 6 you continue.
24 A. "I mean let's go through this. This is the dossier that
25 was published in September last year, probably the most

66
1 substantial statement of the government's case against
2 Iraq. You'll remember that the Commons was recalled to
3 debate it, Tony Blair made the opening speech. It is
4 not the same as the famous dodgy dossier, the one that
5 was copied off the internet, that came later. This is
6 quite a serious document. It dominated the news that
7 day and you open up the dossier and the first thing you
8 see is a preface written by Tony Blair that includes the
9 following words."
10 Then the words in quotes were voiced up,
11 Tony Blair's words were voiced up by somebody on the
12 production team. Those words were:
13 "Saddam's military planning allows for some weapons
14 of mass destruction to be ready within forty five
15 minutes of an order to deploy them."
16 Then it is back to me again:
17 "Now that claim has come back to haunt Mr Blair
18 because if the weapons had been that readily to hand,
19 they probably would have been found by now. But you
20 know, it could have been an honest mistake, but what
21 I have been told is that the Government knew that claim
22 was questionable, even before the war, even before they
23 wrote it in their dossier.
24 "I have spoken to a British official who was
25 involved in the preparation of the dossier, and he told

67
1 me that until the week before it was published, the
2 draft dossier produced by the Intelligence Services,
3 added little to what was already publicly known. He
4 said ..."
5 Again, this is a voice up. This is a different
6 person saying these words, but I will say them:
7 "It was transformed in the week before it was
8 published, to make it sexier. The classic example was
9 the statement that weapons of mass destruction were
10 ready for use within forty five minutes. That
11 information was not in the original draft. It was
12 included in the dossier against our wishes, because it
13 wasn't reliable. Most things in the dossier were double
14 source, but that was single source, and we believe that
15 the source was wrong."
16 That is the end of David Kelly's first quote. Then
17 it is me again:
18 "Now this official told us that the transformation
19 of the dossier took place at the behest of
20 Downing Street, and he added ..."
21 Again, this is a voice up. Again, this is
22 David Kelly's quote:
23 "Most people in intelligence weren't happy with the
24 dossier, because it didn't reflect the considered view
25 they were putting forward."

68
1 Then me again:
2 "Now I want to stress that this official and others
3 I've spoken to, do still believe that Iraq did have some
4 sort of weapons of mass destruction programme."
5 Another quote from David Kelly voiced up:
6 "I believe it is about 30 per cent likely there was
7 a chemical weapons programme in the six months before
8 the war and considerably more likely, that there was a
9 biological weapons programme. We think Hans Blix
10 downplayed a couple of potentially interesting pieces of
11 evidence, but the weapons programmes were
12 small: sanctions did limit the programmes."
13 That is the end of David Kelly's quote. Then it is
14 me again:
15 "The official also added quite an interesting note
16 about what has happened as a result, since the war, of
17 the capture of some Iraqi WMD scientists."
18 And him again:
19 "We don't have a great deal more information yet
20 than we had before. We have not got very much out of
21 the detainees yet."
22 That is the end of his quote. It is back to me:
23 "Now the forty five minutes really is not just a
24 detail, it did go to the heart of the Government's case
25 that Saddam was an imminent threat, and it was repeated

69
1 a further three times in the body of the dossier, and
2 I understand that the Parliamentary Intelligence and
3 Security Committee is going to conduct an Inquiry into
4 the claims made by the British Government about Iraq,
5 and it is obviously exactly this kind of issue that will
6 be at the heart of their investigation."
7 Q. "Mr Humphreys: Andrew Gilligan, many thanks."
8 That concluded the second broadcast.
9 A. That is right.
10 Q. I think we do have Radio 5 Live.
11 (Broadcast played)
12 Q. That concluded, effectively, your contribution to the
13 BBC Radio 5 Live?
14 A. No, I mean those three pieces were -- I have gone back
15 through the files and as far as I can tell, and it is
16 difficult to tell at this distance, but I can trace at
17 least 19 items I did on this story --
18 Q. Yes.
19 A. -- between 29th May and 5th June, and there were several
20 more on that day as well on all the various BBC
21 networks, News 24, the World Service, Radio 2, Radio 5
22 bulletins, the news bulletins on Radio 4. So those were
23 three of 19 that you heard.
24 Q. But those were the broadcasts that started the story
25 going?

70
1 A. The very first one that we heard was the first -- no it
2 was not actually. There was another one, a news
3 bulletin piece at 6 which we have not heard. So the
4 first one you heard in the court today was the second
5 and then the principal one was the one we had not found
6 the tape of that I had to read. That was the principal
7 appearance of that story on Today that morning.
8 Q. The 7.40 one?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Can we go back to BBC/1/4, which is the transcript for
11 your first broadcast which I think took place shortly
12 after 6 in the morning, is that right?
13 A. Yes, this is in fact the second appearance of the story
14 in the programme. There had already been an appearance
15 in the news bulletin on the programme. This was
16 immediately afterwards at 6.07.
17 Q. Was this contribution to the programme scripted?
18 A. No, it was not.
19 Q. So this was you speaking from the studio or from home?
20 A. From home. I have an ISDN line at home because it is an
21 early morning programme. This is me speaking live and
22 unscripted.
23 LORD HUTTON: You are speaking?
24 A. Speaking live and unscripted.
25 MR DINGEMANS: Live and unscripted.

71
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Can I take you to five lines down on your AG which was
3 this:
4 "... and what we've been told by one of the senior
5 officials in charge of drawing up that dossier was that,
6 actually the Government probably, erm, knew that that
7 forty five minute figure was wrong, even before it
8 decided to put it in."
9 Now, we have all been through the note you say you
10 made of Dr Kelly's meeting; it does not appear to be in
11 that note.
12 A. No, I mean the word "wrong" appears in the manuscript
13 note that I did on the day after and that formed the
14 basis of the note to Miranda Holt. This is not intended
15 to be a direct quote from David Kelly. I make it clear
16 that on one occasion when I do quote him directly in
17 this piece, I make it clear by bracketing him with the
18 words something like -- where are we? Where is it?
19 Yes, here we are: "because to quote the source, he said"
20 and then at the end I say, "that is a quote from our
21 source".
22 That is the only time in the broadcast when I am
23 actually quoting directly from the source. I was trying
24 to make a distinction by using those forms -- it is
25 obviously more difficult on radio because you cannot put

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1 quote marks on a page. It was trying to make
2 a distinction between areas where we were trying to
3 convey the essence of what the source had said and
4 trying to convey a direct quotation from him.
5 Q. So it was not a direct quotation from the source and you
6 did not portray it as a direct quotation. Was it
7 supported by what Dr Kelly had told you?
8 A. I believe so. He had said that the 45 minute point had
9 been included against our wishes. This inclusion was
10 the classic example of how the dossier had been
11 transformed. The transformation had been done at the
12 behest of Campbell or the transformation was the work of
13 Campbell. He also said it was real information. The
14 probable conclusion was that the Government had been
15 made aware that the agencies believed it was wrong.
16 Q. Well, Dr Kelly, in that passage to which you refer of
17 your note of what he said, says:
18 "It was real information but included against our
19 wishes because they considered it unreliable."
20 A. That is right.
21 Q. Does that support the reporting that you have set out at
22 page 4?
23 A. Well, I think it is a reasonable conclusion to draw from
24 what he said. But I have to say that with the benefit
25 of hindsight, looking at it now with a fine toothcomb,

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1 I think it was not wrong, what I said, but it was not
2 perfect either, and in hindsight I should have scripted
3 that too.
4 Q. And if it was not entirely supported by what Dr Kelly
5 had said but your inference that you had drawn from what
6 he had said to you, why did you not go back and check it
7 with him?
8 A. As I say, what this was was a product of a live
9 broadcast. It was, I do believe, a fair conclusion to
10 draw from what he said to me. But I think, on
11 reflection, I did not use exactly the right language.
12 It was not wrong, but it was not perfect either.
13 Q. Was this allegation ever withdrawn at any time before
14 Dr Kelly died?
15 A. Well, I never returned to the form of words I used in
16 the 6.07 broadcast. Subsequent broadcasts were
17 scripted. The word I used in the 7.32 broadcast, the
18 scripted one, was "questionable", which I was happier
19 with.
20 Q. If we turn to BBC/1/5, you concluded the piece in the
21 morning by making the point which is obvious, common
22 sense, that there is a world of difference between
23 people getting things wrong innocently and people
24 getting things wrong knowingly. The lawyers have
25 a distinction between mistakes and fraud, and this was

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1 effectively a charge of fraud, was it not?
2 A. Well, I mean the word "if" appears there:
3 "If it was, if it was wrong, things do, things are,
4 got wrong in good faith but if they knew it was wrong
5 before they actually made the claim, that's perhaps
6 a bit more serious."
7 So I was not making a charge, I was simply reporting
8 what I believed Dr Kelly had meant when he said what he
9 said, and I was not making the judgment that the
10 Government had got it wrong in bad faith. That is why
11 I used the words: "... if they knew it was wrong before
12 they actually made the claim, that's perhaps a bit more
13 serious."
14 Q. This story was picked up and reported worldwide. You
15 have I think seen a lot of those clippings. What was
16 picked up and reported worldwide in some of the reports
17 was the allegation of express bad faith, was it not?
18 A. Yes, but that was not an allegation I would necessarily
19 support. You see, the reason why I say that my
20 phraseology in that first two-way was not perfect was
21 that it was not my intention to give anyone the
22 impression that the Government had lied or that it had
23 made up this intelligence. It was real intelligence.
24 I always wanted to make that clear.
25 But it seems that some people did get that

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1 impression; and I did not return to that form of words
2 that I used at 6.07 and I specifically corrected that
3 impression with the first thing I did at 7.32. I said
4 it was real information but the intelligence agencies
5 were not happy with it.
6 Q. I think we are scrolling down to it at the bottom of
7 page 5.
8 A. Yes. I mean I also made it clear in that latest
9 broadcast, in that one we played a little bit of, in my
10 31st May one and also in my writings in this that we did
11 not allege that anything had not been real intelligence
12 or that anything had been fabricated and that was never
13 my intention. On a close reading of this, I do not
14 think it quite supports that interpretation but
15 obviously these words are not meant to be read, they are
16 meant to be heard.
17 I think their impact was not carefully enough
18 considered by me in that one two-way. But I want also
19 to stress that one 6.07 item was not I believe
20 representative of all the items I did, you know, on the
21 programme alone let alone across the whole of the rest
22 of the BBC output. That is something that is quite
23 important. It did not represent the overall effect of
24 our coverage, that one item.
25 Q. There is no doubt, is there, that part of the reason

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1 that the dispute between No. 10 broadly and the BBC
2 broadly became so heated was because of the perception
3 that there had been the allegation of conscious
4 wrongdoing, is that right?
5 A. As I say, it was not a perception that I intended to
6 come across as strongly as it did in that 6.07 two-way.
7 That is why I say that the words, in hindsight, were not
8 perfect, and I think also why I say it would be better
9 if I had scripted that item, and that the impact of the
10 words was not carefully enough considered in that one
11 item.
12 The Government has used on occasions in the past
13 a particular technique where it quotes selectively from
14 a particular detail of a report that it believes is the
15 weakest detail and then uses it to discredit the whole
16 report. I believe that was what was going on on this
17 occasion. The Government actually wanted to put the
18 most extreme interpretation on it.
19 There is one occasion, in fact, in our documents in
20 which Ben Bradshaw brings up and complains that we are
21 not putting the most extreme interpretation on it, and
22 I think it would be unrepresentative to hold that 6.07
23 broadcast as representative of all my output on the
24 story. I must say I really did not intend to give that
25 impression, and I corrected it, that the 45 minute claim

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1 was invented or fabricated and that it was not the work
2 of the intelligence agencies.
3 Q. There is an e-mail that has been shown to us at
4 BBC/5/118. Can you tell us who this e-mail is from and
5 to?
6 A. Yes, it is from my editor, Kevin Marsh, on 27th June
7 which is about a month after they had broadcast to
8 Stephen Mitchell.
9 Q. Who is Stephen Mitchell?
10 A. He is Kevin's boss, essentially, he is the head of radio
11 news programmes.
12 Q. He says:
13 "Some thoughts... clearly I have to talk to AG early
14 next week: I hope that by then my worst fears -- based
15 on what I'm hearing from the spooks this afternoon --
16 aren't realised. Assuming not, the guts of what I would
17 say are:
18 "This story was a good piece of investigative
19 journalism, marred by flawed reporting -- our biggest
20 millstone has been his loose use of language and lack of
21 judgment in some of his phraseology.
22 "It was marred also by the quantity of writing for
23 other outlets that varied what was said or was loose
24 with the terms of the story.
25 "That it is in many ways a result of the loose and

78
1 in some ways distant relationship he [which I assume to
2 be you] has been allowed to have with Today."
3 Then some changes are proposed which I do not
4 propose to read.
5 Is that a fair analysis of your reporting that
6 morning?
7 A. No, I do not think that an entirely fair analysis. It
8 was written, as I say, a month after the broadcast.
9 That is the only time in all the correspondence I see
10 where Kevin expresses any kind of concern about the
11 reporting of that story. And he never expressed it to
12 me. It was written at a time of maximum pressure. This
13 was just after Alastair Campbell's appearance on the
14 Select Committee and you know about the sort of volley
15 of complaints that followed.
16 I do not think it is necessarily representative of
17 his broad views. I mean, I have an e-mail from him to
18 me on 30th May which is the day after the story.
19 Q. Can I just take you to that e-mail?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. In fact it has literally just been handed to me, as
22 I think you know, so it is I am afraid not in any
23 document reference. Would you mind telling me who the
24 e-mail is from and to?
25 A. From Kevin Marsh to me.

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1 Q. What is the date?
2 A. 30th May.
3 Q. So how long after the broadcast is this?
4 A. 24 hours, just over 24 hours.
5 Q. Can you just read what it says?
6 A. "Statement of the obvious I guess but it's really good
7 to have you back here in the UK. Great week, great
8 stories, well handled and well told. Course it's meant
9 Today has had a great week too, and that has lifted
10 everyone. We still have to have that conversation
11 [which is my annual appraisal] but since you are
12 entirely nocturnal while I'm a normal human being we
13 don't seem to meet too often. Maybe you could creak the
14 coffin lid open next week during daylight hours.
15 Anyway, it's great to have you back on your beat. Talk
16 soon."
17 So that I mean arguably perhaps supports the other
18 thing, that I did not have enough contact with him, but
19 it completely contradicts it in the other respect, on
20 the ...
21 Q. Were you aware of what had been said in the discussion
22 that the governors had about this matter, BBC/6/102?
23 Here there is part of the minute that the governors made
24 at their meeting on 6th July, and it deals with
25 a proposed public statement and coverage in the war on

80
1 Iraq at (a) and produces guidelines I think we can see,
2 scrolling down. Towards the bottom it says this:
3 "On the guidelines more generally, the board might
4 consider commenting publicly that these were re-examined
5 in the light of this episode not least because the
6 intelligence service is now operated in a more open
7 fashion. Also there has been management activity since
8 the broadcast that required examination [I am continuing
9 reading over the page], for example careful language had
10 not been applied by Andrew Gilligan throughout".
11 You can see that concludes right at the top of the
12 page. Were you aware of what the governors had at least
13 discussed? I think this was before the management had
14 joined.
15 A. No, I was not; and, I mean, it would not be made aware
16 to me, and as I say, I was not aware of Kevin's thoughts
17 on this either.
18 Q. Would you agree with the governors' provisional analysis
19 that careful language had not been applied by
20 Andrew Gilligan throughout?
21 A. I think in hindsight as I say, particularly that 6.07,
22 quite unwittingly and unintentionally but I did give
23 people the wrong impression about whether this was real
24 intelligence or whether it was made up or not; and
25 I never intended to give anyone the impression that it

81
1 was not real intelligence or that it had been
2 fabricated, but I think I must have done; and so in that
3 sense I agree to that, I think.
4 Q. Can I now turn, before I take you to your evidence to
5 the Foreign Affairs Committee, to Dr Kelly's evidence of
6 the meeting that he says he had with you. Can I start
7 at MoD/1/20. Just so that you know and everyone knows
8 what this is, this is an extract from his letter to the
9 line manager. We have seen part of the second
10 paragraph, but he then says this:
11 "I next met him in February 2003 at his request."
12 He deals with that. He talks about other contact he
13 has had with members of the BBC. The next paragraph he
14 begins with this:
15 "I met with Gilligan in London on 22nd May for
16 45 minutes in the evening to privately discuss his Iraq
17 experiences and definitely not to discuss the dossier
18 (I would not have met with him had it been the case)."
19 Is that right, that at the start of the meeting it
20 was not the intention to discuss the dossier?
21 A. Well, I mean the dossier was bound to come up in any
22 discussion on Iraq, but the conversation began as
23 a general conversation about Iraq. But there was no --
24 I mean he did not say anything like: I cannot discuss
25 the dossier. He was quite willing to discuss the

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1 dossier.
2 Q. I think you have told us that it came up in conversation
3 but the question was whether or not you had met to
4 discuss the dossier?
5 A. Well, that among other things, not that alone. But that
6 among other things.
7 Q. Had you mentioned that when you discussed -- I think you
8 told us you contacted him?
9 A. I am not sure, to be honest; I do not recall the content
10 of that phone conversation.
11 Q. Then he says this:
12 "As I recall, we discussed his ability to report
13 before, during, and after the war in the presence of
14 minders and freedom to move around Baghdad;
15 accommodation of the Palestine Hotel; his impression of
16 the coalition attacks; US military protection of
17 journalists; the revelations likely to be made by Amer
18 Al-Sa'adi, Huda Amash, Rihab Taha, Tariq Aziz and Ahmed
19 Murtadda who are individuals associated with Iraq's
20 'past' programme."
21 Is that right? You did discuss those matters, did
22 you?
23 A. Yes, we did. Yes.
24 Q. "He was particularly intrigued by Huda since he visited
25 her home and met her husband but not Huda after the war

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1 and found her home guarded by 'regime' Iraqis."
2 Is that correct?
3 A. Yes, I believe we discussed that. That is certainly
4 what I found.
5 Q. "We also discussed the failure of Iraq to use WMD and
6 the inability to find them. I offered my usual and
7 standard explanations (conditions early in the war not
8 favourable to CB use and lack of command and control
9 late in the war; that the small arsenal of weapons (or
10 its destroyed remnants) compared to 1991 would be
11 difficult to find without human information)."
12 I think we have already heard from you that that was
13 discussed and we can see that in your note; is that
14 right?
15 A. Yes, and I mean -- I am not quite sure what he said
16 about the human information part but everything else
17 I certainly remember saying to him.
18 Q. Then he says this:
19 "The issue of 45 minutes arose in terms of the
20 threat (aerial versus land launch) and I stated that
21 I did not know what it refers to (which I do not)."
22 Is that accurate?
23 A. No, I think -- the conversation is as I described to
24 you. The part of the conversation that related to
25 45 minutes is as I have described to you.

84
1 Q. "He asked why it should be in the dossier and I replied
2 probably for impact."
3 Do you recall him using those words?
4 A. No, again he raised -- he brought up the 45 minutes, it
5 was not me who brought it up. He gave it as the classic
6 example of the way in which the dossier had been
7 transformed.
8 Q. "He raised the issue of Alastair Campbell and since
9 I was not involved in the process (not stated by me)
10 I was unable to comment. This issue was not discussed
11 at any length and was essentially an aside."
12 Is that accurate?
13 A. No. It was he who brought up Alastair Campbell.
14 I asked him: how does this transformation come about?
15 And he said: Campbell.
16 Q. "I made no allegations or accusations about any issue
17 related to the dossier or the Government's case for war
18 concentrating on his account of his stay in Iraq. I did
19 not discuss the 'immediacy' of the threat. The
20 discussion was not about the dossier."
21 Is that accurate?
22 A. Well it was not entirely about the dossier but it did
23 include a reasonably large section devoted to the
24 dossier, so it is not entirely accurate.
25 Q. "Had it been so then I would have indicated that from my

85
1 extensive and authoritative knowledge of Iraq's WMD
2 programme, notably its biological programme, that the
3 dossier was a fair reflection of open source information
4 (i.e. UNSCOM/UNMOVIC) and appreciations."
5 Did he make it clear that he was broadly supportive
6 of the dossier?
7 A. No. I mean, as I say, he expressed his belief to me
8 that Iraq had had a weapons of mass destruction
9 programme, but he did not believe that there were usable
10 weapons in any great number. He did not say the whole
11 dossier was wrong or anything like that but he raised
12 significant concerns about the dossier. And it is also
13 wrong, I think, to say the dossier was a fair reflection
14 of open source information. It was explicitly described
15 as a reflection of intelligence information by its own
16 publishers.
17 Q. He says this:
18 "I most certainly have never attempted to undermine
19 Government policy in any way especially since I was
20 personally sympathetic to the war because I recognised
21 from a decade's work [and I am afraid we will have to go
22 to 21 at the top] the menace of Iraq's ability to
23 further develop its non-conventional weapons programmes.
24 "I have had no further contact with Andrew Gilligan
25 since 22nd May."

86
1 A. I do not think -- he did not say what his views on the
2 war were. I mean, he certainly did not say he was
3 against the war. One of the things he had been at all
4 our meetings convinced of was the potential threat from
5 Iraq, but he did not believe the actual threat as it
6 existed in September 2002 was particularly great.
7 Q. Can I next turn to a document MoD/1/25 and just so that
8 you know where this comes from, this is a note of
9 Dr Kelly's interview with Dr Wells on 4th July. Then it
10 is the third paragraph down:
11 "Dr Kelly said his next contact with Gilligan was in
12 May. Gilligan rang him to offer feedback from his
13 experiences in Iraq."
14 Is that accurate?
15 A. Well, it is partly accurate. I mean that certainly was
16 part of the purposes of our discussion as I described
17 earlier. But I do think that it was more me wanting to
18 pick his brains than he pick mine because he had so much
19 more knowledge than I did about the subject.
20 Q. I am not worried about what actually transpired once you
21 had met, but he says the phone call was you ringing up
22 saying -- did you call him David?
23 A. I called him David.
24 Q. "David, I have just got back from Iraq, I can tell you
25 what is happening out there."

87
1 A. No, I wanted to discuss issues relating to the
2 non-discovery of Iraqi WMD with him. I wanted to
3 discuss reasons why they had not been found. I wanted
4 to discuss what happened next about finding them. It
5 was two-way information. But to be honest, the
6 information I had I cannot imagine would have been
7 a huge amount of use to him because I am not a trained
8 scientist.
9 Q. Then it says:
10 "He had accepted, for the reasons set out in his
11 letter. They met on 22nd May in the Charing Cross
12 Hotel. (Dr Kelly later said that the meeting took place
13 at about 1745 and lasted until approx 1830)."
14 I have already asked you about time so I am not
15 going to waste time on that.
16 "Gilligan took notes but did not appear to have a
17 tape recorder ..."
18 You did not appear to have a tape recorder.
19 A. No, I did not have a tape recorder.
20 Q. "... (although Kelly did not ask and there was no
21 discussion of the basis of the meeting)", is that right?
22 A. No. As I say, when I got out my organiser he said
23 "unattributable". So that was the discussion we had
24 then. And I would have said in the phone conversation
25 "on the usual terms" or something like that meaning off

88
1 the record.
2 Q. Meaning?
3 A. Unattributable or off the record.
4 Q. "The vast bulk of the conversation was about Iraqi
5 individuals associated with WMD programmes, the course
6 of the war, and why WMD had not been used."
7 Is that fair?
8 A. Part of the conversation certainly did talk about Iraqi
9 individuals. I have read this part to you and he
10 described some of the well known scientists and said
11 that he believed that he had been taken out of the
12 programme because he had contact with the UN. But that
13 was only a relatively small part of the discussion. The
14 course of the war, certainly that was another part of
15 the discussion and certainly why WMD had not had been
16 used. That is reflected in my notes. They are
17 relatively -- I would not describe them as the vast
18 bulk. They were parts of the conversation but not the
19 vast bulk.
20 Q. Then:
21 "In the course of the latter, as recorded in his
22 letter, Gilligan had raised the reference in the
23 September dossier to the possibility of weapons being
24 deployed in 45 minutes. Kelly had commented that this
25 did not correspond with any weapon system that he knew".

89
1 I think you have already told us that did not form
2 part of the conversation; is that right?
3 A. Well, as I say it was David Kelly that raised the issue
4 of 45 minutes. He described it as a classic example of
5 how the dossier had been transformed. I mean the second
6 sentence in that:
7 "Kelly had commented that this did not correspond
8 with any weapon system that he knew".
9 If you read the notes I sent to Miranda Holt, he is
10 talking about there being conventional weapons in that
11 time but not weapons of mass destruction, so that could
12 be -- you know, there is something in that sentence of
13 what we said certainly.
14 Q. Right.
15 A. But again I must stress it was he who brought up the
16 45 minutes.
17 Q. "Gilligan had asked why he thought the claim had been
18 included in the dossier. Kelly had said that he had
19 assumed that it was for impact. Although he did not
20 know what the claim was based on, it emphasised the
21 immediacy of the threat."
22 Does that accord with your recollection?
23 A. No, I do not remember hearing the word "impact".
24 Clearly, I mean part of that is the sort of import of
25 what he said, if he said it was merely included for

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1 impact rather than because it was true, but I mean again
2 that is not really an accurate reflection of the
3 conversation we had.
4 Q. Right. After lunch I will take you through what he said
5 about your conversation to the FAC.
6 LORD HUTTON: Thank you very much. We will rise now and sit
7 again at 2 o'clock.
8 (1.05 pm)
9 (The short adjournment)
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