Hearing Transcripts

99
1 Prime Minister's questions, which as you have just seen
2 he was.
3 Q. On 5th June you start drafting a letter that is sent on
4 6th June.
5 A. To Mr Sambrook?
6 Q. That is correct?
7 MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, perhaps this might be a convenient
8 moment.
9 LORD HUTTON: Yes. I will sit at 2.15.
10 (1.00 pm)
11 (The short adjournment)
12 (2.15 pm)
13 LORD HUTTON: Yes, Mr Dingemans.
14 MR DINGEMANS: My Lord, we were just turning to the letter
15 of 6th June. Mr Campbell, if you look on your screen
16 you will see the reference is CAB/1/244. You can see
17 there the letter you wrote to Mr Sambrook.
18 This was the first letter you addressed to
19 Mr Sambrook in relation to this matter, is that right?
20 A. That is true.
21 Q. In the first main paragraph, you report about what you
22 say is an "extraordinary ignorance about intelligence
23 issues" displayed by Mr Gilligan and you comment on
24 that. And what was the basis for this comment?
25 A. It was a report he had given on the Today Programme that
100 1 morning, where he described the Joint Intelligence
2 Committee as a No. 10 Committee on which the agencies
3 are represented and he described it as a kind of
4 refereeing agency to resolve disputes between No. 10 and
5 the agencies, which was a thoroughly absurd statement
6 I thought should be checked and corrected.
7 Q. On 245 you continue to say in the third paragraph down:
8 "The BBC's reporting on the WMD issue has been
9 driven for days now by the false claim of a single
10 uncorroborated source ..."
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. You ask about checks and balances and you draw attention
13 on page 246 to producer guidelines and:
14 "Programmes should be reluctant to rely on only one
15 source."
16 "The authority of programmes can be undermined by
17 the use of anonymous contributors ..." et cetera.
18 Then, 247, you suggest in reasonably strong language
19 why Clare Short and Robin Cook do not support
20 Mr Gilligan's claims.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Can you just tell us how you concluded the letter?
23 A. I predicted that he would seek to defend the story
24 because, in my experience, Mr Sambrook generally does.
25 He usually says that he will look into it thoroughly and
101 1 investigate it and then he usually comes back and tells
2 me he has investigated it thoroughly and there is
3 nothing wrong. So I was predicting that as a response.
4 I then concluded by saying that:
5 "On the word of a single, uncorroborated source, you
6 have allowed one reporter to drive the BBC's coverage.
7 We are left wondering why you have guidelines at all,
8 given that they are so persistently breached without any
9 comeback whatsoever."
10 Q. That seems a reasonably strong letter. Does that give
11 proper vent to your feelings at the time?
12 A. It does.
13 Q. On 6th June the FAC had announced that they would seek
14 to call you. Do you remember that?
15 A. I do not recall it being that day but I do --
16 Q. Can I take you to CAB/1/174. This is an extract from
17 the Prime Minister's official spokesman's briefing. It
18 is for a later date. If you look at the reference on
19 9th June, part way down:
20 "Asked if Alastair Campbell and the Prime Minister
21 would be appearing before the ISC and the Foreign
22 Affairs Select Committee, the PMOS confirmed that the
23 Government had received a request late last Friday ..."
24 If you go back, that is 6th June. Does that help
25 with the date?
102 1 A. Yes it does.
2 Q. So you received the requests for you to appear on
3 6th June?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Can I ask you also just to look at your diary for that
6 date or the extracts you have made from your diary for
7 that date? Was the Prime Minister hoping that the
8 Intelligence and Security Committee would do a report?
9 A. He was.
10 Q. What was he hoping?
11 A. He was hoping that the ISC would investigate this
12 particular issue, the issue of the 45 minute
13 intelligence.
14 Q. How would he arrange for that investigation to take
15 place?
16 A. I do not know where that comes in the chronology of the
17 ISC inquiry. I mean, I do not think the Prime Minister
18 can arrange for an ISC investigation to take place.
19 I think that is me observing that that is what the
20 Prime Minister wanted to happen as a result of this
21 continuing allegation being made against the Government.
22 Q. On 7th June, just remaining with your diary, if I may,
23 for the moment, what did you feel about the press
24 coverage for that day?
25 A. It was getting worse. It was a Sunday and the Sunday
103 1 papers often are even more difficult than the daily
2 papers, and there was an awful lot in the papers about
3 the dossier, about me, about my position and also
4 a story falsely claiming that I had sent a written
5 apology to the head of MI6 allegedly admitting that
6 I had abused intelligence.
7 Q. Sorry, that is 7th June or 8th June?
8 A. That is the 7th.
9 Q. The 7th is a Saturday.
10 A. I get the Sunday papers on a Saturday night.
11 Q. Oh, right. On 8th June what was your reaction to the
12 continuing press coverage?
13 A. The story of the so-called apology was leading the news,
14 leading the BBC News.
15 Q. This so-called apology related to?
16 A. It related to the fact that on the February briefing
17 paper, which I covered in my evidence to the Foreign
18 Affairs Committee, we had acknowledged mistakes were
19 made and we had put new procedures in place to ensure
20 they were not repeated. I at the time spoke to the head
21 of SIS, David Omand and John Scarlett and others, and
22 assured them those procedures were being put in place
23 and this would not happen again. Then, at this time,
24 and with an illusion it was actually about the WMD
25 dossier, the Sunday Telegraph led on a story that I had
104 1 sent a written apology to Sir Richard Dearlove about
2 that, which is not true. That led the BBC News through
3 the Sunday.
4 Q. So it would be fair to describe your impression of your
5 relationships with the media at this time as not very
6 good?
7 A. I do not think my relationships with the media have been
8 terribly good for some time but I would say at this time
9 in particular, over this issue, that I had a very strong
10 sense of the parts of the media, the BBC, parts of the
11 BBC, the Mail group and others driving in a very driven
12 way a particular agenda.
13 Q. Can I then take you to the 9th June? It appears on that
14 day the Intelligence and Security report is published --
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. -- and there is an extract from it set out at CAB/1/250
17 at the bottom of the page, which is part of your letter
18 of 12th June. I will come back to it. I am just
19 looking at the extract, if I may, at the moment.
20 A. Hmm, hmm.
21 Q. You say this:
22 "Furthermore, the Intelligence and Security
23 Committee report, published this week, also confirms
24 that Mr Gilligan's story was wrong.
25 "'In September 2002 some intelligence was
105 1 declassified and used to produce a dossier on the Iraqi
2 WMD programme. The Agencies were fully consulted in the
3 production of the dossier, which was assembled by the
4 Assessments Staff, endorsed by the JIC and issued by the
5 Prime Minister. The Committee supports the responsible
6 use of intelligence and material collected by the
7 Agencies to inform the public on matters such as
8 these'."
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. So that is 9th June. Was that enough, as it were, for
11 your purposes? You had wanted the ISC or the
12 Prime Minister had hoped the ISC would do a quick
13 investigation. They did a quick investigation and he
14 had issued the material part of the report in that
15 effect.
16 A. I was certainly pleased at the outcome of that report,
17 but then what happened was that the BBC and other parts
18 of the media chose to focus not on that part of their
19 report but on the part of the report which criticised
20 the Government over the February briefing paper.
21 Q. Yes.
22 A. So: no, is the answer.
23 Q. You then get, on 11th June, a reply at CAB/1/248 to your
24 letter of 6th June. I have taken you to the letter of
25 6th June. This is the reply. In the second paragraph:
106 1 "Much of what you write focuses on the question of
2 sources. You are wrong to suggest that our journalism
3 is being driven by a single source. Andrew Gilligan has
4 made it clear that one specific concern about the
5 September dossier's presentation derived from a single
6 source ..."
7 Continuing down the page:
8 "... if we had thought the single source incredible
9 we would not have reported the allegation..."
10 They, on page 249, identify a point at the bottom of
11 the page:
12 "We have not suggested that the 45 minute point was
13 invented by anyone in Downing Street against the wishes
14 of anyone in the intelligence community. We have
15 suggested that there are pertinent and serious questions
16 to be asked about the presentation of the intelligence
17 material..."
18 Were you happy with this response?
19 A. I thought that paragraph was utterly disingenuous.
20 Q. So the short answer is: no?
21 A. No.
22 LORD HUTTON: Could I just ask you, Mr Campbell: on the
23 question of a right to reply, did you have any view as
24 to whether the BBC should have given the Ministry of
25 Defence or some other Government body the opportunity to
107 1 tell them its views on Mr Gilligan's report of 29th May
2 before it was actually broadcast? You see Mr Sambrook
3 has told the Inquiry that I think the general approach
4 to the Today Programme is that they give a chance on the
5 programme for a minister to reply to some criticism that
6 has earlier been made in the broadcast. Do you have any
7 comments on that approach?
8 A. Well, I was for many years a journalist before I went
9 into working for the Prime Minister; and I worked on
10 a tabloid newspaper, and there is no way in the world
11 that a tabloid newspaper would have run a story like
12 that without putting the allegations to the people whom
13 they concerned, be that a government minister or, in the
14 case of the article in The Mail on Sunday, me.
15 LORD HUTTON: So given a chance to respond before it was
16 actually published?
17 A. Absolutely. I think an allegation as serious as that,
18 I find it unbelievable and found it at the time
19 unbelievable that those allegations were not put to us
20 in advance.
21 LORD HUTTON: Well, the view might be taken that if there is
22 some confidential source that gives an account to
23 a reporter, something that is critical of the
24 Government, and the reporter notes it down accurately
25 and then prepares a report, and then goes back to his
108 1 source and says: I am proposing to broadcast this or
2 I am proposing to write this, do you confirm this
3 accords with what you told me, there is at least the
4 possibility that the source may then draw back a little
5 and he may realise that: well, what he has said is
6 highly critical and is going to be given considerable
7 publicity and therefore in his own interests it might be
8 better for him to withdraw or to water down the
9 criticism he has made.
10 A. But that would be a point for the reporter, to go back
11 to the source. At this stage, I did not know who the
12 source was.
13 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
14 A. I was confident --
15 LORD HUTTON: I was speaking of just between the reporter
16 and his source. The reporter obviously knows his
17 source. He has met someone who has given him an account
18 of the record and he prepares his reports but before he
19 publishes it or before he broadcasts it he goes back to
20 a source and says: this is what I am proposing to say
21 about the discussion we had two days ago. But if he
22 does that, there is the possibility that the source may
23 appreciate that he has perhaps said more than it is wise
24 for him to say and may therefore, to some extent, water
25 down or withdraw what he has said to the reporter.
109 1 A. Hmm, hmm.
2 LORD HUTTON: That could be suggested as a reason why if the
3 reporter is confident of what he has been told he would
4 not necessarily go back to the source.
5 A. But I am not talking about him going back to the source.
6 I am talking about the --
7 LORD HUTTON: You are going to the subject of the criticism?
8 A. I am talking about the journalistic ethics or lack of
9 ethics of running an allegation as serious as that
10 without either checking it against other sources who may
11 genuinely have had access to the dossier or to the
12 discussions that took place around it, and certainly
13 running an allegation like that without putting it to
14 the people against whom the allegations were going to be
15 made. I still to this day find it extraordinary that
16 anybody in the BBC can defend that.
17 LORD HUTTON: As regards the reporter and his own source, is
18 there any practice which you think should be observed of
19 the reporter going back to his actual source before he
20 reports what the source has said to him?
21 A. I obviously talk to journalists in all sorts of
22 different situations about all sorts of different
23 stories, and regularly journalists will come back to me
24 and say: have I got this absolutely right? When you say
25 such and such is that what you mean? That is a common
110 1 practice of the ebb and flow of political and any
2 specialist journalism.
3 LORD HUTTON: Right.
4 A. And I do not know whether that happened in this case.
5 LORD HUTTON: Yes. Very well, thank you.
6 MR DINGEMANS: You now have your response on 11th June. You
7 are not very happy with it. Can I take you to CAB/1/250
8 which is your letter back of 12th June, part of which
9 I have referred to, which referred to the Intelligence
10 and Security Committee. You go on about the 45 minute
11 claim and it being -- produce a guideline in that
12 respect at paragraph 3. You refer to the Intelligence
13 and Security Committee over the page and you refer to
14 the coverage of the report and you suggest,
15 prepenultimate paragraph on 251, that there should be an
16 internal inquiry.
17 Did you see anyone from the BBC that day? Can
18 I take you to your diary for 12th June?
19 A. 12th June, yes we did.
20 Q. Where did you see them?
21 A. In Downing Street.
22 Q. Who was that?
23 A. It was a lunch hosted by the Prime Minister for senior
24 BBC executives.
25 Q. Who was there from the Government's side? You and the
111 1 Prime Minister?
2 A. The Prime Minister and I, yes -- I am sorry, one of the
3 two Prime Minister's official spokesmen, I think it was
4 Godric.
5 Q. That is Godric Smith?
6 A. Godric Smith, yes.
7 Q. From the BBC?
8 A. Most of the editors of most of the main programmes.
9 Q. Right. At that lunch was there any attempt made to
10 build bridges again?
11 A. The purpose of the lunch, originally envisaged, was
12 actually to have a discussion with some of them about
13 some of these issues pertaining to the coverage of Iraq
14 generally. In the event, I think I am right on this, it
15 was either the day before or during the reshuffle that
16 had been involving Alan Milburn. So I think there was
17 quite a lot of discussion of that. In the end, what the
18 Prime Minister -- and we discussed this in advance of
19 the lunch, what he wanted to do at the lunch was
20 actually to try to persuade some of the BBC executives
21 that there should be far greater focus currently on
22 domestic issues, not just foreign issues.
23 Q. He had his wishes because he had a Cabinet reshuffle?
24 A. I am not sure that is exactly what he meant.
25 Q. You get a response to the letter. Can I take you to
112 1 CAB/1/253, 16th June 2003. This is Mr Sambrook's reply.
2 for the reasons given -- and I have taken Mr Sambrook
3 through that, so may I take it shortly --
4 A. Hmm, hmm.
5 Q. -- he effectively rejects your complaints. Picking it
6 up at 255:
7 "I am sorry that we still seem far apart on the
8 validity of our reporting on the concerns about the
9 September dossier."
10 He reminds you there is a Programme Complaints Unit.
11 You did not use that Programme Complaints Unit. Can
12 you give us the explanation for that?
13 A. I did think about it, but then I asked for some research
14 to be done about how the process works, and also for
15 some figures about how many of these complaints are
16 upheld; and it was -- I cannot remember the exact figure
17 but it was minimal. And the final arbiters in the
18 process are the BBC governors. Given we already had the
19 FAC and the ISC looking at these issues I did not think
20 it was very fruitful.
21 Q. On 17th June we know Mr Lamb, who we have heard from, is
22 speaking to Mr Howard about the fact that Dr Kelly had
23 spoken to Mr Gilligan; and that is passed on to
24 Sir Kevin Tebbit.
25 A. On the 17th?
113 1 Q. Yes. Were you aware of anything in relation to that?
2 A. No. I did not -- that is the first time I have known
3 that.
4 Q. They were very broad discussions and they were not in
5 the same detail as the letter of 30th June?
6 A. Hmm, hmm.
7 Q. On 19th June, looking at your diary, do you have
8 anything relevant to say about what happened with the
9 Foreign Affairs Committee?
10 A. That they voted to summon me again.
11 Q. We see they had already voted to summon you on 6th June.
12 A. And the Prime Minister had instructed the Foreign
13 Secretary right back saying that he did not think
14 I should appear.
15 Q. Right.
16 A. Then they summoned me again. This as I understood it
17 was based on evidence given by Mr Gilligan on documents
18 he had seen allegedly.
19 Q. What was the view about the two Committees? Was there
20 a view about which Committee there should be cooperation
21 with and which there should not be?
22 A. The Prime Minister's view throughout was that the ISC
23 was the more appropriate Committee.
24 Q. Right. And as a result of that, cooperate with that and
25 not necessarily give the same cooperation to the FAC.
114 1 Is that a fair analysis?
2 A. After the FAC wrote to me summoning me again, I spoke to
3 the Prime Minister who was in Greece at a European
4 Council. He said I should ask Andrew Turnbull to reply
5 it was not appropriate for a civil servant from
6 Downing Street to give evidence about his work in
7 Downing Street to a Select Committee.
8 Q. On 21st and 22nd June 2003 you make some entries
9 relating to that. What was your view about whether you
10 should give evidence at this stage?
11 A. I felt that the dynamic of this particular issue was
12 such that I would end up going there, because the issues
13 that were being raised were all really related to issues
14 that I had been involved in, involved with in my
15 capacity as chair of that Iraq Communications Group.
16 And I sensed, over that weekend, through reading some of
17 the comments of Labour MPs in the Sunday press, that the
18 FAC was moving in a very, very bad direction for the
19 Government.
20 Q. Can I then take you to the morning of 23rd June? It is
21 CAB/1/176. Here is a note of the lobby briefing given
22 on 23rd June, at the bottom of the page:
23 "The Prime Minister's Official Spokesman informed
24 journalists that the Foreign Secretary had written this
25 morning to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select
115 1 Committee to inform him that the Prime Minister's
2 Director of Communications and Strategy,
3 Alastair Campbell, would give evidence to the Committee
4 at a time and place of their choosing."
5 I imagine that is the Committee's choosing?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. And so you had decided over the weekend with the
8 Prime Minister that you should give evidence to the
9 Committee?
10 A. That is right.
11 Q. And you produced a memo for the Committee. Can I take
12 you to CAB/1/256? Is this the first memorandum you
13 produced for the Committee?
14 A. It is.
15 Q. I am not, I am afraid, going to take you through the
16 whole of it but is this a reasonable summary, that you
17 effectively rebutted the allegations that you perceived
18 had been made against you?
19 A. I accepted some of the criticisms that were being made
20 in relation to the February briefing paper, and
21 forcefully rebutted the allegations made on the WMD
22 dossier of September.
23 Q. So the September dossier, which is obviously his
24 Lordship's only interest?
25 A. Yes.
116 1 Q. You rebutted those allegations?
2 A. I did.
3 Q. And is there any particular passage in that memorandum
4 that you want to refer to? It will be available and his
5 Lordship will be able to see the whole of it.
6 A. I think what I was trying to do, from memory, was to
7 persuade the Committee that our entire Iraq
8 communications strategy should not be judged upon the
9 basis of a single error by a single individual in
10 relation to a different document, and tried to persuade
11 them of the meticulousness and the seriousness with
12 which we had approached the September dossier and
13 specifically to deal with that central allegation that
14 we or I inserted false intelligence into the dossier
15 against the wishes of the agencies whilst probably
16 knowing it to be untrue. That was the purpose of me
17 going.
18 Q. Right. Can I take you to your diary on 24th June? Can
19 I just ask you whether or not there was any strategy
20 being developed for the Foreign Affairs Committee?
21 A. The strategy, and this is something I discussed with the
22 Prime Minister and others, my approach was going to be
23 acknowledge the mistakes that were made in relation to
24 the briefing paper, to forcefully defend the Government
25 and myself on the September dossier and to make public
117 1 the efforts that we had been making trying to get
2 redress from the BBC and to demand an apology.
3 Q. So make your own apology in relation to the February
4 briefing paper, dossier, call it what you will and
5 demand an apology from the BBC on their allegations
6 relating to the September dossier?
7 A. That is right.
8 Q. Turning to your diary on 25th June, I think you give
9 some details of the preparation you underwent for that,
10 and you refer to the experience of giving evidence
11 before the FAC.
12 You are obviously an extremely experienced media
13 person. You have worked in the media all your life and
14 now in communications. How did you find going before
15 the Foreign Affairs Committee?
16 A. I think in terms of the -- it was difficult and I took
17 an awful lot of time to prepare for it as I have
18 referred to earlier in the diaries, I spent hours and
19 hours going over the content and the questions that were
20 likely to come up; and I was fine because I felt
21 completely confident about the detail, but I cannot say
22 it was an experience I enjoyed. But I do not think that
23 is to do with it being a Select Committee. That was if
24 anything to do with the sense I had whilst giving
25 evidence that there were a small number of people on the
118 1 Committee who frankly it was not going to matter what
2 I said, they had already made their minds up, and
3 I found that quite difficult to deal with.
4 Q. And I think you conclude your entry on 25th June with
5 a comment about the BBC. What is the comment and what
6 do you mean by it?
7 A. What I said is that I felt that the hearing had gone
8 pretty well, I found it gruelling, I was exhausted but
9 I felt a lot better and I had opened a flank on the BBC.
10 Q. What do you mean by "opened a flank on the BBC"?
11 A. I felt that the dispute over these allegations which
12 I had been trying to resolve in a means of different
13 ways, namely privately in my exchanges with Mr Sambrook
14 and also publicly through the statements that were being
15 made by the Prime Minister and others, that this would
16 actually force them publicly to explain a story, a set
17 of allegations which I believed to be indefensible and
18 I felt they would find difficult to defend in public.
19 Q. Can I just take you to your concluding evidence in front
20 of the FAC? It is CAB/1/334. This is part way through
21 your final answer. If I can pick it up about five lines
22 down?
23 A. Hmm, hmm.
24 Q. "Now, the allegation that has been made by the BBC's
25 defence correspondent, repeated in large parts of the
119 1 media, as I say, here and around the world, is that the
2 Prime Minister did exactly that, he put to the country
3 and to Parliament a false basis for putting at risk the
4 lives of British servicemen. That is an accusation
5 against the Prime Minister, against the Foreign
6 Secretary, against the Cabinet, against the intelligence
7 services, against me and against the people who work
8 with me. Now that is why I take it so seriously, not
9 because of me because, as I say, I am absolutely used to
10 being described in all sorts of ways by journalists who,
11 frankly, I would match a politician's integrity against
12 theirs any day of the week. I simply say in relation to
13 the BBC story: it is a lie, it was a lie, it is a lie
14 that is continually repeated and until we get an apology
15 for it I will keep making sure that Parliament, people
16 like yourselves and the public know that it was a lie."
17 Is that what you considered to be, as it were,
18 opening up the flank on the BBC?
19 A. That is what I consider to be telling the truth about
20 what I felt about that situation at that time. I knew
21 that expressing myself as forcefully as I did would
22 force the BBC to have to defend itself in public.
23 Q. If we then go to 26th June, that is what Mr Sambrook
24 does on the Today Programme?
25 A. Yes.
120 1 Q. It is CAB/1/335. Obviously it is a long broadcast but
2 the middle paragraph gives, I hope, a reasonable
3 representation of what he was saying. He said this:
4 "I think Alastair Campbell yesterday seriously
5 misrepresented the BBC's journalism. I mean he said we
6 had accused him and the Prime Minister of lying, that's
7 not true, we haven't. He said we accused the Prime
8 Minister of misleading the Commons. We've never said
9 any such thing. He said we were trying to suggest the
10 Prime Minister had led the country in to war on a false
11 basis. We've never suggested that. He said the BBC had
12 an anti war agenda. It's untrue, we have no agenda.
13 And finally he said we've not apologised. Well that is
14 true because we have nothing to apologise for."
15 What was your reaction to that?
16 A. Can I just say I did not say they had an anti war
17 agenda, I said there were parts of the media that did.
18 My reaction to that was to scratch my head and
19 wonder what he thought putting something into a document
20 which was being presented to Parliament whilst knowing
21 it to be untrue was other than lying to Parliament.
22 Q. And did you write to him that day, CAB/1/352?
23 A. I did.
24 Q. This is your letter of 26th June?
25 A. It is, yes.
121 1 Q. Over the page, at 353, at the top, you identify a series
2 of questions:
3 "Does the BBC still stand by the allegation it made
4 on 29th May that No. 10 added in the 45 minute claim to
5 the dossier? Yes or no?
6 "Does it still stand by the allegation made on the
7 same day that we did so against the wishes of the
8 intelligence agencies? Yes or no?
9 "Does it still stand by the allegation made on that
10 day that both we and the intelligence services knew the
11 45 minute claim to be wrong and inserted it despite
12 knowing that? Yes or no?
13 "Does it still stand by the allegation, again on the
14 same day, that we ordered the September dossier to be
15 'sexed up' in the period leading up to its publication
16 and that Gilligan had found what Humphrys called
17 'evidence' that it was 'cobbled together at the last
18 minute with some unconfirmed material...'"
19 We can see the last two bullet points about the JIC
20 being part of the intelligence community and that the
21 JIC chairman had only "bureaucratically signed off his
22 report".
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And did you, at that stage, have any further discussions
25 or any discussions at all with Mr Sambrook? Was he at
122 1 the lunch that you have referred to on 12th June?
2 A. I honestly cannot remember. He should have been, in
3 that it was that kind of lunch. I think he was.
4 I think he was. I seem to remember that the political
5 editor did most of the talking.
6 Q. Can I take you to CAB/1/192? We are moving now on to
7 27th June. This is an extract from the lobby briefing.
8 If we look at about halfway down the page, the
9 Prime Minister's official spokesman is saying:
10 "No-one in Downing Street had inserted or
11 exaggerated it [that is the 45 minutes claim]. The
12 judgments that had been made had been taken by the JIC.
13 Asked when Mr Campbell had first seen the initial draft,
14 the PMOS said that as was well known, the JIC had taken
15 over the leadership of the production of the dossier
16 from the FCO after it had been decided that intelligence
17 should form the basis of it. The JIC chairman had taken
18 responsibility for drawing up the contents. Put to him
19 that Mr Straw had said this morning that the 45 minute
20 claim had not been included in the March version of the
21 dossier, the PMOS repeated that the first draft
22 presented by the JIC had included the 45 minute point.
23 It had not been inserted, exaggerated or put in at
24 Downing Street's request."
25 And in relation to that, it does seem, from the
123 1 dossiers that we have seen, that the 20th June certainly
2 does not have the 45 minute claim, and that is not
3 really the dossier. We can translate that and see it
4 turns out very broadly as a chapter of the final
5 dossier.
6 A. Hmm, hmm.
7 Q. But the 5th September, which is looking closer to
8 a dossier again, does not have the 45 minute claim, but
9 it rather seems you had seen that on 5th September.
10 That is right?
11 A. It may be but again to go back to a point we discussed
12 earlier, that is not what I define as the WMD dossier,
13 that led to the document, the assessment of the British
14 Government, because these were different products that
15 were being prepared in different parts of Government.
16 The one that mattered was the one that John Scarlett was
17 putting together.
18 LORD HUTTON: Was there any understanding that the dossier
19 of 5th September might be made public?
20 A. I think parts of it probably were incorporated in some
21 form into John Scarlett's but that meeting was not
22 a textual discussion of any document that had been put
23 forward by any part of Government. It was, in a sense,
24 taking everything that there was. I had not been very
25 closely involved in the four country dossier. This was
124 1 the start of a process that John Scarlett was taking
2 over; and I think in my mind, certainly, they were
3 always separate.
4 MR DINGEMANS: Just before we move on from that, can I take
5 you to your diary entry of 26th June? You refer,
6 I think, to the coverage in the papers. There is an
7 entry four lines down which I have some difficulty with.
8 First of all, can you explain that to me?
9 LORD HUTTON: What date was this?
10 MR DINGEMANS: 26th June, my Lord.
11 LORD HUTTON: Thank you.
12 A. About a letter --
13 MR DINGEMANS: Yes.
14 A. -- which --
15 Q. What are you recording there?
16 A. That I wrote a letter --
17 Q. Right.
18 A. -- which I presume is one of those to which you
19 referred; and also Clive Soley, who is a Labour MP, who
20 had phoned me up and basically said he wanted to get
21 active in this, that he wrote a letter, I cannot
22 remember if it was to the governors or to Mr Sambrook or
23 whoever. So Clive Soley was protesting to the BBC as
24 well.
25 Q. Suggesting what?
125 1 A. I do not know because I do not have the letter here.
2 Q. From your diary entry you are suggesting that some --
3 A. I beg your pardon, this was the point about -- that is
4 right, Clive Soley proposed that he should publicly say
5 that the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman
6 Donald Anderson suggests that he, Donald Anderson, see
7 the source privately, in other words if the source is
8 out there somewhere, that that person see
9 Donald Anderson and if that does not happen that
10 Mr Gilligan be recalled to give evidence. But that is
11 my recollection of what it was about. I do not recall
12 whether that letter was sent.
13 Q. As at 26th June you still had no clue as to Dr Kelly's
14 identity, is that right?
15 A. That is correct.
16 Q. The BBC reply on 27th June, CAB/1/355. We have seen
17 this with Mr Sambrook so I will not take you through all
18 this, but it is a detailed letter rebutting your claims
19 and effectively turning, at the end, to the points that
20 you asked him to answer and effectively saying that the
21 BBC stood by its story.
22 A. I think it is a long letter but I did not think it was
23 a detailed letter rebutting my claims at all.
24 Q. But, for example, if we look at page 362, page 8 of the
25 letter:
126 1 "How many sources was the original '45 minute'
2 allegation being added in based on?" et cetera, and at
3 least he answers that point.
4 A. Yes, he does.
5 Q. You know, relating to that. Over the page, at page 9:
6 "Is that source on the JIC and do you agree that any
7 source not on the JIC did not have the full picture?"
8 "I do not intend to say anything more about our
9 source", et cetera. Then you can see:
10 "Was the source, as Mr Gilligan has said, 'a senior
11 official involved in drawing up the dossier' ...?"
12 "I refer you to my previous answer."
13 That is why you say it is not a complete answer to
14 your claims, is that right?
15 A. The reason I say it is not an answer is that I asked
16 a series of specific questions and a good half to two
17 thirds of the letter was actually raising issues that
18 I had not raised. But, again, I felt it did not really
19 accept our basic case. He was rejecting the idea there
20 was anything wrong with their reporting and it led,
21 within me, to a real mounting sense of anger and
22 frustration at how it was becoming impossible to deal
23 with this.
24 Q. Right. Turning to your diary on 27th June, were you
25 doing anything further in relation to the FAC?
127 1 A. I spent most of the morning having to work with
2 John Scarlett and others putting together
3 a supplementary memo to the FAC that had to be in by
4 lunchtime.
5 Q. Can we see that at CAB/1/264? That is your
6 supplementary memorandum?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. I do not propose, if that is all right, to take you
9 through that. What else were you dealing with on
10 27th June?
11 A. I took my son to Wimbledon.
12 Q. Right. Did you have any other meetings with anyone else
13 relating to the dossier issues and Mr Sambrook's reply?
14 (Pause). Looking towards the bottom of your entry.
15 A. I beg your pardon, was this at Wimbledon?
16 Q. Yes.
17 A. I received his reply or the office received his reply
18 whilst I was at the tennis and it was read to me.
19 Q. How did that make you feel?
20 A. Not best pleased.
21 Q. Well, I am not intending to read out extracts from your
22 diary, but how would you describe your response?
23 A. I felt that it was sophistry.
24 Q. No, that is his response.
25 A. I felt my response was angry and probably too angry, but
128 1 I did feel at that point, as I say, the sense of
2 frustration when I knew the story was wrong. I had
3 a very strong sense that most people at the BBC were
4 admitting privately they knew the story was wrong but
5 I could not get any form of public redress at all.
6 Q. You issued a statement, we see that at CAB/1/367. Now
7 you can describe Mr Sambrook's reply.
8 A. I think that was a softer version. That is my reply,
9 yes.
10 Q. In the second paragraph the language being used here
11 makes it fairly clear that the dispute has escalated.
12 Is that a fair summary?
13 A. It is.
14 Q. And in the third paragraph you say:
15 "The allegations were outrageous, so is
16 Mr Sambrook's reply."
17 In fact later on that evening you appeared on
18 Channel 4, is that right?
19 A. That is correct.
20 Q. What were the circumstances leading up to that?
21 A. I left Wimbledon just before 6 o'clock. I drove back to
22 Downing Street. I listened to the BBC 6 o'clock news
23 bulletin, which was like listening to a press release
24 against the Government on this issue. I got back to the
25 office and one of the press officers told me that
129 1 Jon Snow from Channel 4 had called to ask me to go on
2 the programme. The press officer said: you know he does
3 not do television interviews so it is a no. She told me
4 this conversation had taken place.
5 I said -- sorry, I beg your pardon, Mr Snow had also
6 said: if he does not come on, we would like a minister.
7 I felt that I was on top of the detail, it would take
8 some time to brief a minister so I felt maybe I should
9 go on. I phoned the Prime Minister and discussed it
10 with him. He gave his consent for me to do that and
11 I also phoned Donald Anderson to make sure that he was
12 happy that I should do it and I made clear to him
13 I would not go into the issues that were covered in my
14 FAC supplemental memorandum and I then went to the
15 studio.
16 Q. I think at CAB/1/368 we have a transcript from the media
17 monitoring unit, where Jon Snow says:
18 "Well, now we are joined by Alastair Campbell..."
19 There have been suggestions, so you will understand
20 why I need to ask you about this, that you had stormed
21 into the studio of Channel 4. Is that fair or unfair?
22 A. Well it does not fit with the description I have just
23 given you. They invited me, initially the invitation
24 was refused, I reconsidered, discussed it with the
25 Prime Minister and Donald Anderson and then was driven
130 1 to the studio.
2 Q. You make a comment in your diary about whether you
3 thought Mr Snow was expecting you or his appearance.
4 What were you saying there?
5 A. He did appear surprised that I was there.
6 Q. Right.
7 A. But I think that is more to do with communication within
8 Channel 4 than anything to do with me.
9 Q. Moving on, then, to 28th June, in the morning
10 Ben Bradshaw MP appeared on the Today Programme.
11 A. Hmm, hmm.
12 Q. And what did you think of his performance?
13 A. I thought he did exceptionally well.
14 Q. And he was discussing effectively whether or not the
15 Government had been given notice of this?
16 A. No, he was discussing the issue generally, during which
17 he, Mr Bradshaw, made the assertion that these
18 allegations were put to nobody in Government and
19 John Humphrys replied to the effect of: oh yes, they
20 were, they were put to the MoD, which did not accord
21 with what had actually happened. That was something
22 that Mr Bradshaw duly took up I think with Mr Sambrook.
23 Q. Did you speak with Mr Bradshaw after his appearance on
24 the programme?
25 A. I did.
131 1 Q. Did you also speak with the Prime Minister that day
2 about the dispute with the BBC?
3 A. (Pause). The 28th?
4 Q. Yes.
5 A. Yes. Yes, I did.
6 Q. And what was the gist of that discussion?
7 A. At that stage, the Prime Minister was saying to me:
8 look, this is clearly quite an intense row that is going
9 on. It is fine, keep going, but then we have to just
10 after a day or two just leave this to the Committee.
11 Q. If we look at CAB/1/373, we can see this is part of
12 a letter --
13 A. The following day.
14 Q. -- dated 29th June. If we look at the bottom:
15 "I respect, however, the BBC's independence, if not
16 in this instance its competence. Given how far apart we
17 remain, I see little purpose in continuing our exchanges
18 in advance of the Foreign Affairs Committee report..."
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. So in some respects the Foreign Affairs Committee had
21 been appointed whether they liked it or not as a sort of
22 form of referee, is that right?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. We know that on 30th June, over that weekend, Dr Kelly
25 is writing his letter that we have all seen to Dr Wells.
132 1 A. Hmm, hmm.
2 Q. On 1st July Mr Sambrook writes to Mr Bradshaw who has
3 complained that there was no notice, and that is
4 CAB/1/392. He is suggesting similarly that matters are
5 left to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. In fact, just to complete the picture, Mr Bradshaw said
8 that point did not need to be dealt with by the Foreign
9 Affairs Committee because the question of notice was
10 something they were not going to deal with?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Turning back to your diary, if I may, on 1st July were
13 you discussing writing letters to the BBC?
14 A. Where is this?
15 Q. It is about six lines down on your entry of 1st July.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. What were you saying in that respect?
18 A. There had been some letters and also a speech that
19 Greg Dyke had made in which he had said -- I have the
20 exact words here somewhere -- if we make mistakes we
21 will admit we are wrong and apologise. I wondered
22 whether to make something of that on that day but in the
23 end I did not.
24 Q. You say somebody mentioned the day before had been
25 a defeat for the BBC. Who was that?
133 1 A. John Birt. No, he had not said the day before. The
2 Prime Minister asked me where this was going. I had
3 spoken to John Birt the day before and John had said he
4 thought this thing was terrible for the BBC because
5 everybody knew the story was wrong.
6 Q. What did you consider part of the answer to be?
7 A. Part of the answer to?
8 Q. Well, I mean, was the issue raised about how you were
9 going to get back to domestic politics?
10 A. During that discussion the Prime Minister was saying to
11 me: how on earth are we going to get back on to
12 a domestic political agenda? I said that until we could
13 somehow change this dynamic that was currently prevalent
14 in the media, it was going to be very difficult, and
15 I thought this was part of it, and over time persuade
16 the BBC that their public service broadcasting
17 obligations were part of that answer.
18 Q. Did you have a meeting later on that day with Sir David
19 Omand?
20 A. I did.
21 Q. And was anything said in relation to Mr Gilligan?
22 A. It was actually a meeting about something else and we
23 just briefly discussed it at the end, but he was
24 reflecting, as indeed others were at that time, that
25 because the BBC were defending this thing so vigorously
134 1 that obviously it was giving rise to concern that maybe
2 there was somebody quite high up in the Intelligence
3 Services who was making these false allegations against
4 the Government and that was giving a general sense of
5 unease to people at the top.
6 Q. Right. The next day, how do matters progress?
7 A. What I said was "BBC row lower in temperature".
8 Q. And do you hear anything further about the Foreign
9 Affairs Committee report?
10 A. Well, I think I started to get calls from journalists
11 and also from MPs around Westminster that there had been
12 what was described as a very difficult and bloody
13 meeting of the FAC where it became clear the
14 Conservative MPs said they did not intend to endorse
15 anything that exonerated me in relation to the
16 45 minutes.
17 Q. Later on in the day was anything suggested about
18 possible ways out of this? You know, deals with the BBC
19 or anything like that?
20 A. That was unrelated. We could not get as it were
21 a "deal" with the BBC in relation to what the FAC were
22 doing because that is a matter for them.
23 Q. Certainly not.
24 A. I did have a discussion with and I had been talking to
25 John Birt about this. I also had a discussion with
135 1 Peter Mandelson about whether there was some way of
2 trying to get ourselves into a better position on
3 a dispute which had become clearly quite difficult.
4 Q. The 3rd July is the Thursday night and we know that
5 there is contact between Mr Hoon and Mr Powell in
6 relation to the letter that Dr Kelly has written.
7 A. This is now Thursday?
8 Q. Yes. 3rd July.
9 A. I did not know that at that time, but I did
10 subsequently.
11 Q. No. But on 3rd July did you get any further contacts
12 from the FAC about possible outcomes, as it were?
13 Because 3rd July, the report is going to be printed on
14 the 4th and published on the 7th.
15 A. That is right.
16 Q. Did you have any further contact from persons relating
17 to the FAC?
18 A. Not on the FAC. There were people who were phoning --
19 there were different stories going around as to what
20 they had agreed but the general sense seemed to be that
21 the report was going to exonerate me in relation to the
22 45 minutes, that the Conservatives were putting down an
23 awful lot of amendments, possibly trying for a minority
24 report but that was unlikely to be granted. But it
25 remained unclear. And actually the entry I have
136 1 recorded there does not actually accord with what
2 subsequently happened.
3 Q. Then what was your perception of the BBC at this stage
4 and what were you being told about them?
5 A. Well, as the word started to get out that maybe I was
6 being cleared then there were reports on the BBC that
7 day that effectively were suggesting that this was an
8 inquiry into the February briefing paper and then there
9 were also reports about whether the Select Committee
10 system could ever be fair because it is run by the
11 parties. So in a sense the goalposts were being moved.
12 Q. What was your feeling about the BBC and what story you
13 ought to be concentrating on?
14 A. The reason why I was at the Select Committee in the
15 first place was because of the Today Programme
16 allegations on May 29th. As far as I was concerned,
17 that was the beginning and end of it.
18 Q. Can I take you, now, to 4th July?
19 A. Hmm, hmm.
20 Q. I think there is a bit in relation to Mr Bradshaw's
21 further correspondence to Mr Sambrook. We know as far
22 as Dr Kelly is concerned he has written his letter on
23 30th June. It has got to Dr Wells on 3rd July. He is
24 getting his interview on 4th July.
25 A. Hmm, hmm.
137 1 Q. Are you told anything about these developments?
2 A. On the Friday?
3 Q. Yes.
4 A. I was telephoned by Geoff Hoon about a different matter.
5 He was actually just phoning up to offer his support and
6 solidarity in advance of Monday. He asked me whether
7 Jonathan Powell had mentioned I think from memory he
8 thought the source issue. I said: no he had not, what
9 is that? He explained somebody had come forward, that
10 this person had admitted meeting Mr Gilligan in I think
11 he said at that time in a hotel, that the person had
12 acknowledged saying some of the things that had been
13 reported by Mr Gilligan but had insisted that he had not
14 said other things. Again, I cannot remember if this was
15 what Mr Hoon said to me but certainly then or
16 subsequently I was told that related specifically to
17 this person, saying they had never said anything in
18 relation to me.
19 Q. Right. And did Mr Hoon share what his initial instinct
20 was in relation to this matter?
21 A. His initial instinct was I think he felt this was
22 serious and this was a serious disciplinary matter and
23 this person, if it was the source, had clearly caused
24 the Government considerable difficulty and embarrassment
25 by saying something to a reporter that was not true, but
138 1 then went on to say -- and this, I think, accorded with
2 my instinct at the time -- that he was in all
3 probability telling the truth in saying that he did not
4 say all of these things.
5 If I can just explain why I felt that. I had always
6 felt about this story that Mr Gilligan probably did have
7 a source, but that he exaggerated the source and he
8 exaggerated what the source said. So it kind of fitted
9 with the feeling I had had about this. I think what
10 Mr Hoon was saying was his initial instinct was this
11 person has to be dealt with severely but then actually
12 thought: well, he has come forward, he has come forward
13 in the spirit of openness and honesty and he is claiming
14 he has been misrepresented if he is the source.
15 Q. You use a specific phrase in your diary. I am going to
16 have to ask you just to relate that and explain it.
17 A. I have used in my diary -- the reason I did not use it
18 in answer to you now is I think it does risk being
19 unfair to Mr Hoon. He actually said his initial
20 instinct was, as I say, to be severe in this regard but
21 there was a case for trying get some kind of plea
22 bargain. That is what I recorded.
23 Q. A plea bargain with?
24 A. In relation to the person who had come forward. In
25 other words, the person had been honest and open in
139 1 coming forward, had acknowledged some of the, if you
2 like, offences that were being described, but was
3 adamant he had not been responsible for others.
4 Q. Why do you say that is likely to be misinterpreted or
5 unfair?
6 A. Because I think it carries a suggestion that Mr Hoon was
7 saying to me: I think we can do some kind of deal with
8 this guy, and that is not what he was saying.
9 Q. Did you have any view about what this was likely to do
10 to Mr Gilligan?
11 A. I felt that if this person was the source, and Mr Hoon
12 had explained to me that the person was not a member of
13 the Intelligence Services, was not centrally involved in
14 the drawing up of the dossier, I therefore felt that if
15 this person was the source then it was probably the only
16 way that we were actually going to be able to establish
17 the truth, namely that the allegations of May 29th were
18 false, because of course Mr Gilligan had told the Select
19 Committee they were based on a single source.
20 Q. That is the Friday. When does this conversation take
21 place? Do you recollect?
22 A. I do not, no. Some time during Friday.
23 Q. Some time during Friday. Can I take you to CAB/1/487?
24 This is an article by Tom Baldwin in The Times on
25 5th July 2003.
140 1 A. Yes.
2 Q. We can see that in paragraph 1 it said:
3 "The source for bitterly contested allegations that
4 Downing Street 'sexed up' its dossier on
5 Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is
6 a military expert who is now based in Iraq, BBC insiders
7 are claiming."
8 A. Hmm, hmm.
9 Q. Mr Powell told us yesterday that you had told him that
10 Mr Baldwin had told you that the person who told him
11 this information was Mr Sambrook.
12 A. Well, I am quite keen to correct what Mr Powell said
13 because in fact I knew in advance of the lunch with
14 Mr Sambrook, from somebody else on The Times, an
15 executive on The Times who I was talking to about
16 something completely different in the morning who just
17 happened to mention that the BBC were having a lunch
18 with The Times. In fact it was not Mr Baldwin who told
19 me about that lunch. But it is true that I knew that
20 The Times and the BBC were having a lunch.
21 LORD HUTTON: Sorry, what did the executive from The Times
22 tell you?
23 A. What did what, sorry?
24 LORD HUTTON: What did the executive from The Times tell
25 you?
141 1 A. That they, The Times were having a lunch with the BBC
2 team who I think at that point were doing the rounds of
3 some of the newspapers to try to persuade them of their
4 case in relation to this story.
5 MR DINGEMANS: Did you speak with Mr Baldwin on the Friday?
6 A. I did, yes.
7 Q. What did you tell him?
8 A. What did I tell him?
9 Q. Yes, what were you talking to him about in relation to
10 the story, as it were?
11 A. I honestly cannot remember what we were talking about in
12 terms of what I was saying and I do not know if there is
13 anything in that story that came from what I was talking
14 to him about.
15 Q. Right. Did you at this stage know the identity of
16 Dr Kelly?
17 A. No. No, I did not.
18 Q. Had you been given any descriptions by Mr Hoon about who
19 Dr Kelly was and what he was doing?
20 A. I knew he was not a member of the Intelligence Services
21 and I knew he was not centrally involved in the dossier,
22 but I would not have been talking about the issue at
23 that point at all.
24 Q. Can I take you to CAB/1/488. This is about four
25 paragraphs down. Apparently a report -- Mr Baldwin
142 1 reports you as saying:
2 "Mr Campbell yesterday insisted that he respected
3 the BBC as an institution, indicating that his problem
4 was with a minority of its journalists and executives."
5 Do you recollect any of that aspect of it?
6 A. I mean, it is and was my view at that time, but whether
7 I was saying that to him at that time, I just do not
8 recall that conversation. But certainly that -- I was,
9 at that time, because of course what the BBC were saying
10 about me was that -- and they were saying this as part
11 of their briefing operation, and it may be that
12 Mr Baldwin was raising something that had been said at
13 this lunch, I do not know. I just do not know the
14 context there. But I was trying to make the point that
15 what I was engaged in here was not an attack on the BBC
16 or its independence but a continuing attempt to get
17 redress for a set of allegations which we viewed as
18 being beyond the pale.
19 Q. Did you, on the Friday, see the letter from
20 Sir Kevin Tebbit to Sir David Omand, the first letter?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Did you, on the Saturday, see the letter, the second
23 letter he had written after the article by Mr Baldwin?
24 A. I do not think I saw any correspondence over the
25 weekend.
143 1 Q. Right. Can I just take you to MoD/1/38? I do not
2 propose to spend long on this, but you have seen, no
3 doubt, this correspondence now?
4 A. I have, yes.
5 Q. Subsequently have you?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Do you know when you first saw it?
8 A. Probably Monday, but I do not -- I do not know for sure,
9 but I do not -- even if it was sent to me, it is
10 unlikely I would have seen it over the weekend. I am
11 afraid I do not use a computer, so I would not have
12 looked at home.
13 Q. 5th July, turning to your diary. You make a comment
14 about the BBC story. What was your perception at this
15 stage?
16 A. I felt, at this stage, wrongly, and based upon a false
17 assumption at the time, that it was moving our way,
18 because the papers were full of briefings from the BBC
19 about a governors' meeting which I had not been aware
20 of; and I, perhaps naively, thought this was going to be
21 the dispassionate investigation of the story that we had
22 been asking for.
23 Q. Right. I think on that day you wrote to the governors,
24 is that right?
25 A. I -- when we saw that story in the newspapers I spoke to
144 1 the Prime Minister, and we agreed that I would write
2 a letter to all the governors individually, privately,
3 not for public release to the press, and attach to it
4 the relevant transcripts, correspondence and a lot of
5 the material that we have been going through.
6 Q. Can I just take you to CAB/1/23? I hope you will see
7 here -- you wrote, I think, to every single governor?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. We can see to Mr Gleeson, who was one of the governors,
10 you send them some enclosed material. Effectively at
11 the end of the letter, the penultimate paragraph on 24:
12 "At issue here is one of the specific set of
13 allegations, profoundly damaging to the Prime Minister,
14 the Government and our Intelligence Agencies, which we
15 know to be false and we have sought, first privately and
16 then publicly, to have corrected."
17 Is that really the extent of your involvement in
18 this matter on 5th July?
19 A. It is, although then we had to -- we had a flurry with
20 the Sunday papers again over a story that turned out to
21 be false about an interpretation being put on a meeting
22 that the head of the SIS had had with John Humphrys and
23 Kevin Marsh.
24 Q. Can I then turn to 6th July, which is the Sunday? How
25 would you describe you spent most of this particular
145 1 weekend? Who were you speaking to over this particular
2 weekend?
3 A. Well, I was -- the FAC was due to report on Monday and
4 so I was working on that, and certainly talking to
5 Jack Straw, I think, at some point during the day on
6 that. I also spoke, over that weekend, to the
7 Prime Minister, Geoff Hoon and Jonathan Powell about the
8 issue of the source.
9 Q. And what was your view about the matter?
10 A. My view was that, as I said earlier, it was probably --
11 if this person was the source, it was probably the only
12 way that this issue was going to be properly bottomed
13 out. I suggested to the Prime Minister two proposals --
14 I cannot remember exactly when these were, but the
15 first -- my first instinct, and I think Geoff Hoon's as
16 well, was that if this development came out over that
17 weekend the Foreign Affairs Committee were going to
18 accuse us of having covered it up. And I was suggesting
19 that, in confidence, not the name and I did not know the
20 name at that point, but that Donald Anderson possibly be
21 informed that there had been this development and that
22 it might be relevant to the way that he framed his
23 report on Monday which, as you say, had already gone to
24 the printers by then.
25 And the second proposal I made was that the BBC
146 1 governors be told in advance of their meeting on the
2 Sunday evening.
3 Q. And why were you keen, as it were, to get the fact that
4 a source or a possible source had come forward out to
5 either the FAC or the BBC?
6 A. Because I thought that that development ought to have
7 a material effect upon the outcome of those two events
8 on the assumption that this was the source.
9 Q. And did the Prime Minister accept your advice in that
10 respect, or yours and Mr Hoon's views in that respect?
11 A. No. No, he did not.
12 Q. What was his view?
13 A. His view -- he could see the point and we had
14 a discussion about it; and he said: I hear what you say,
15 I can see that if it comes out -- and the thing to
16 understand about this, is that these -- I mean,
17 Government departments do leak and these kind of things
18 can get out and he was worried that that might happen
19 there over that weekend. So the Prime Minister said: I
20 hear what you say about the cover-up point, I hear what
21 you say about the BBC, but you have to leave this to
22 Sir Kevin Tebbit and David Omand to handle. And I was
23 guided by that instruction.
24 Q. Did you think that was the right approach?
25 A. I felt -- at the time I am not sure that I did, but
147 1 I think I do now.
2 Q. Did Mr Hoon think that was the right approach?
3 A. I think he felt, like I did, that the -- this was
4 a development that could, at that time, possibly have
5 been communicated to these bodies. But he too --
6 I think he discussed it -- he certainly discussed it
7 with Jonathan Powell. He may well have discussed it
8 with it the Prime Minister as well. The
9 Prime Minister's view was very, very clear and everybody
10 understood it from the word go.
11 LORD HUTTON: This might be a convenient moment. I will
12 rise now just for five minutes.
13 (3.20 pm)
14 (Short Break)
15 (3.25 pm)
16 LORD HUTTON: Yes Mr Dingemans.
17 MR DINGEMANS: Mr Campbell, still on your diary on 6th July,
18 can you just say what your approach in relation to the
19 source was, yours and Mr Hoon's approach was, whether
20 you wanted the name out or not at this stage?
21 A. Not. The approach, at this stage, related to the -- are
22 we now on the Monday?
23 Q. No, on the Sunday.
24 A. On the Sunday, what I was proposing was that the fact of
25 the development be communicated to the BBC governors for
148 1 their meeting and the chairman of the FAC who, on
2 Monday, was publishing his report. But as I explained,
3 the Prime Minister rejected that approach.
4 LORD HUTTON: What did you think might be communicated to
5 the chairman of the FAC and to the board of governors?
6 What details would be given to that?
7 A. That a person had come forward who had volunteered the
8 information that he had had a meeting with Mr Gilligan
9 and that there were some aspects of what he said that
10 tallied with Mr Gilligan's account but others that did
11 not; and also that if this was the person, then
12 Mr Gilligan had embellished his story in relation to his
13 source.
14 LORD HUTTON: I think you said a little earlier in your
15 evidence that this would be a way of establishing the
16 truth, and that Mr Gilligan's serious allegations were
17 false.
18 A. That is true.
19 LORD HUTTON: If that was your view, why did you confine
20 your consideration of making this known to the chairman
21 of the FAC and to the board of governors? A possible
22 approach might have been, on the basis of what you have
23 stated, that you here had a person who said he had
24 spoken to Mr Gilligan, he had given him some information
25 but he had not stated to him the things that formed the
149 1 basis of Mr Gilligan's most serious criticisms. Did it
2 occur to you that one method of dealing with the matter
3 would be to ask that person to make a statement and
4 naming him and saying what had happened, and putting
5 that into the public arena perhaps with the anticipation
6 that that person would be interviewed both on television
7 and on radio and would give his account?
8 A. Well, that is the view that I came to later. At this
9 stage, it was being emphasised to me -- both these
10 proposals, both in relation to informing the BBC
11 governors and the FAC, they were, if you like, immediate
12 reactions, which I communicated to the Prime Minister,
13 who rejected them both based upon a discussion with
14 Sir David Omand who told him that the Government simply
15 was not in a position to act in any way upon this
16 information at this stage because it simply was not
17 clear enough.
18 LORD HUTTON: What, on the basis that they were not sure
19 this person who had come forward actually was the
20 source?
21 A. That is right, because the person was continuing to say:
22 I cannot possibly be the source because I did not say
23 these other things.
24 LORD HUTTON: Yes, quite.
25 A. So what resulted from those discussions on the Sunday
150 1 was Sir David saying to the Prime Minister: we are going
2 to need more time to establish whether this in all
3 likelihood is the source.
4 On Lord Hutton's point though, that actually is the
5 position that I believe should have been adopted once it
6 was established -- once it became clear to Martin Howard
7 and others that this person probably was, in all
8 likelihood, the source.
9 MR DINGEMANS: What are you saying should have been adopted?
10 A. I have to admit this is, in part, a hindsight point.
11 Q. Yes.
12 A. But it is a thought that I had at the time, which
13 I probably did not articulate as forcefully as
14 I normally do articulate proposals that I have, because
15 I was being instructed by the Prime Minister just to
16 stay a little bit distant from this, because I was so
17 centrally involved in relation to the events concerning
18 the Foreign Affairs Committee.
19 I feel, and I think this is something Godric Smith
20 in his own way did articulate at the time but again
21 maybe we did not push this in the way that we should,
22 but in these difficult situations where you are dealing
23 with individuals as well as institutions and individuals
24 who are not necessarily, as Mr Dingemans said, used to
25 dealing with some of the things that we are used to
151 1 dealing with all the time, then clarity is always best,
2 and I completely understand why the Ministry of Defence
3 had the strategy that they had in relation to if you
4 like the two stage statement because Dr Kelly had said
5 he did not want to be in that first wave, he had made
6 that clear, we were told.
7 But I think again, and I emphasise this is with an
8 element of hindsight, that probably what I feel I maybe
9 should have expressed more forcefully at that time is:
10 look, if you are in this kind of situation you do have
11 to have some element of control over the process here.
12 You cannot just let this sort of dribble out in a way
13 that you are not clear how it is then going to unfold.
14 So I think the desired outcome, given that
15 everybody, including it seems Dr Kelly, understood that
16 it is likely because of the importance of this
17 development he was likely to be identified, he was
18 likely to have to appear at one or both Select
19 Committees, far better it would have been for that to be
20 announced properly, cleanly, straightforwardly and then
21 you can actually put in place all the proper support
22 that somebody who is not used to this kind of pressure
23 can then maybe better deal with.
24 LORD HUTTON: But that is going to subject the individual to
25 very great pressure. He is going to be put into the
152 1 full glare of the media.
2 A. I accept that, but I think the judgment that was being
3 reached by everybody involved in these discussions is
4 that was going to happen because since Dr Kelly's death,
5 I mean, parts of the media have been trying to give the
6 impression: you know they would never have been
7 interested in this issue if it had not been for this
8 clue, that clue and all the rest of it. The media were
9 in full pursuit of this story and it was going to
10 happen. I am afraid it is just the way of the world
11 that we are in that the -- I do not know if -- I saw an
12 interview Tom Mangold did after Dr Kelly's death where
13 he said Dr Kelly understood this. Maybe he did
14 understand it but maybe he did not understand the
15 ramifications of it, that it was going to happen.
16 LORD HUTTON: If you thought this was going to happen, both
17 Mr Powell and Sir David Manning told the Inquiry that
18 the view was taken that Dr Kelly's discussions with
19 Mr Gilligan should be investigated either by the FAC or
20 the ISC or by both.
21 A. Hmm, hmm.
22 LORD HUTTON: And I asked them why they took that view. It
23 is returning to the question I have already put to you:
24 if Dr Kelly's name was going to come out, and if part of
25 the purpose of his evidence, certainly in the minds of
153 1 the Government, was to refute Mr Gilligan's claims, why
2 was such emphasis placed on placing Dr Kelly before the
3 FAC and the ISC? Why not do it in the more direct way
4 I suggested, particularly after the FAC had already
5 furnished their report on the Monday?
6 A. Because both of those inquiries, and this duly happened,
7 were likely to call Dr Kelly and it would have been
8 difficult, given the Parliamentary focus that there now
9 was on these issues, it would have been difficult for
10 the Government to resist those calls. I think it is
11 probably true that the Government could have resisted
12 them in the same way as prior to my eventually appearing
13 the Government did resist my attendance.
14 I think that this had, I suppose, become the issue
15 that went to the heart of these allegations, because the
16 BBC -- I mean, I can recall at some point, I cannot
17 remember which day, but I saw a newspaper article based
18 upon a briefing from the BBC which said words to the
19 effect, you know: we really wish we could tell the
20 public who the source is because if they knew it would
21 transform the nature of the debate. I read that and
22 I thought -- you start to worry about your own judgment
23 and your own relationships. You think: it is not
24 John Scarlett, is it? It is not the head of SIS? And
25 you start to think they must have somebody really senior
154 1 in the Intelligence Services.
2 So this, I think, became the issue. I felt, in some
3 of those discussions that we were having, during that
4 period, that there was an element of unreality about
5 them; that any second there could have been a phone
6 call.
7 Indeed, it seems that the report of Mr Rufford --
8 the reporter Mr Rufford from the Sunday Times was
9 already on to this. It was going to happen. I think
10 what we -- again, I say with the benefit of hindsight
11 what we did not do was actually just acknowledge that
12 and I think maybe more time could then have been taken
13 with Dr Kelly to sit down and say: look, this is
14 virtually inevitable, it is going to have to happen and
15 therefore let us work out exactly all the steps that
16 then have to be taken.
17 As I say, it is easy in a sense to -- and I do not
18 want to feel that I am criticising others in this,
19 because I understand how these strategies can get drawn
20 up in very difficult, fast moving situations. But
21 I think that would have been a better approach.
22 MR DINGEMANS: Can I just ask you why Dr Kelly was really
23 going to have to give evidence to the FAC? His Lordship
24 has already noted, and you are here on 6th July waiting
25 for their report. They have reported. It has been with
155 1 the publishers and it is all waiting to be distributed
2 on the Monday. We know the ISC have already cleared
3 you. You have quoted that passage to Mr Sambrook in
4 your letter. So what is the point of putting Dr~Kelly
5 before the FAC and ISC?
6 A. Is that a question though for me or for the FAC?
7 Q. You I think suggest that the discussions were he was
8 likely to end up in front of the FAC and ISC. Were you
9 party to any of these discussions?
10 A. I was present at discussions where this issue was being
11 addressed.
12 Q. Did you say: what is the point? The ISC has already
13 cleared us, the FAC has already reported. Did anyone
14 say that?
15 A. I did not. I cannot recall what others said.
16 Q. Was that not a point to be taken on either side?
17 A. I think that the point here is that I just ... I think
18 these Committees were -- this is what happened in the
19 end. I mean they called him. As I say, I suppose the
20 Government could have said: well, thank you very much
21 but no thank you, he is not appearing. But this, in
22 a sense, had become the issue that went to the heart of
23 this, and that is why it became so difficult.
24 Q. Can I just test that last proposition, that it had
25 become an issue that went to the heart of it? Let us
156 1 look at the FAC report which comes out on the Monday.
2 A. Hmm, hmm.
3 Q. You had various briefing papers. We are now on
4 7th July. FAC/3/6. This is the summary of conclusions
5 and recommendations. At paragraph 11:
6 "We conclude that Alastair Campbell did not play any
7 role in the inclusion of the 45 minutes claim in
8 the September dossier."
9 The allegation reported by Mr Gilligan, rejected by
10 the FAC. So really Dr Kelly's role now was historic.
11 If he had said that to Mr Gilligan, the FAC had decided
12 against it. What more was there for Dr Kelly to do in
13 relation to this matter?
14 A. I am not making a point here about Dr Kelly, but it is
15 important to remember that that was part of a report
16 that almost half of the Committee did not sign up to,
17 and they claimed that they could not reach that judgment
18 because they had not had access to all the papers that
19 could prove it. And the BBC, they had said that had
20 there been a unanimous verdict of the FAC, they would
21 have accepted that their story was wrong, but because
22 the Committee was split, they did not accept the story
23 was wrong and it justified the broadcast of the story.
24 The reality is that it was not clear and certainly the
25 coverage was not clear at the time.
157 1 Q. Was that your concern, to get clear coverage?
2 A. I wanted -- it is absolutely true, I do not deny this,
3 I would have preferred that the Foreign Affairs
4 Committee had been clear about me and about the
5 Government in relation to the most serious allegations
6 that were made. I do not deny that.
7 Q. Because there is a passage in the evidence, I will not
8 take your time to take you to it, but where the FAC
9 said: look, we have managed to avoid getting dragged
10 into the dispute between Mr Gilligan and Mr Campbell.
11 A. In the evidence to you, or?
12 Q. No, in part of their briefing notes that we have seen;
13 and you, I think you have said fairly in your letter,
14 you had appointed them this informal referee between you
15 and the BBC. Was this what it had now become, the FAC
16 was the tribunal that was going to determine it and that
17 is why you wanted Dr Kelly there?
18 A. It is -- I was at the FAC because of that story.
19 Donald Anderson, the chairman of the FAC, I think when
20 he was taking Mr Gilligan's evidence, he said something
21 to the effect of: look, you know, it is largely because
22 of you that we are here. So I do not really accept that
23 the FAC was not already looking into this. And
24 I described to you a little bit about how it felt being
25 at the FAC and I had gone along hoping that I could
158 1 persuade people based on fact; and I failed to do that.
2 And I found that very, very dispiriting. It was very
3 dispiriting.
4 Q. One of the points you make, which is clear if you read
5 the later parts of the FAC report, is that the division
6 on political lines was partly explained by some saying
7 that they did not have all the documents.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Documents that would have explained how the claim came
10 to be made and the circumstances in which the 45 minutes
11 as a matter of sequence arrived into the final
12 dossier --
13 A. Hmm.
14 Q. -- we have now seen. I have shown you some of those
15 this morning. Would not the FAC have been in a much
16 better position to deal with the matters if they had had
17 those dossiers?
18 A. Well, I have said once or twice that the Prime Minister
19 had expressed the view throughout this process that the
20 ISC was the better Committee to look into this; and
21 I can recall one exchange that I had when I was giving
22 evidence at the FAC with one of the Labour members about
23 some of the issues under discussion, where I could see
24 how, if some member of the Intelligence Services was
25 watching that exchange, they would have felt
159 1 uncomfortable about that person's understanding of what
2 I was trying to say about why some material could be put
3 into the public domain and other material could not. The
4 ISC has access -- it is a relatively new innovation but
5 it has access to intelligence material that its members
6 are cleared to see.
7 I think throughout this process a part of the
8 backdrop to it has been, if you like, a bit of a turf
9 war between two Select Committees that are trying to
10 investigate the same thing at the same time.
11 Q. We are now on 7th July. The FAC report is published and
12 you issue a press statement and so do the BBC. I will
13 not take you to those, if I can be forgiven for that.
14 Both effectively claim victory as a result of the
15 publication. Is that a fair analysis of the press
16 statements?
17 A. I am not sure that anybody claimed victory. I think we
18 expressed satisfaction that the Government had been
19 exonerated on the main points, but some sadness and
20 disappointment that it had been split; and the BBC said
21 that the report justified their broadcasting of the
22 story.
23 Q. And there had been the meetings at Downing Street that
24 we have heard from others that I think you were at,
25 where discussion about a further interview for Dr Kelly
160 1 took place. It was decided that he should have the
2 further interview.
3 A. Hmm, hmm.
4 Q. You were then involved, were you, in drafting the press
5 statements? Could I take you to CAB/1/50.
6 If we go down to the bottom of the page we can see
7 a passage:
8 "We assume the Intelligence Service Committee will
9 take this into account in their enquiry should they so
10 wish."
11 It seems that was not put in by the Ministry of
12 Defence side. Do you know how that got in there?
13 A. That final paragraph?
14 Q. Yes.
15 A. I do not, no.
16 Q. That is nothing to do with you?
17 A. I do not believe so, no.
18 Q. And the drafting on the side of the Ministry of Defence
19 statement?
20 A. That, on the left there, is Jonathan Powell's
21 handwriting and so is that at the bottom.
22 Q. Right. Did you have any part in the --
23 A. I think if you move up there is a mark that I did make
24 somewhere -- no, no. None of that is mine. There is
25 another document that looks like that which I did mark.
161 1 Q. Right. Can you look at CAB/1/52? Do you recognise any
2 of the marks on that document?
3 A. Yes. The one on the left there, "As the BBC's Director
4 of News has said."
5 Q. That was your marking?
6 A. That was not as I understand incorporated because in
7 fact it did not make sense because of course it suggests
8 that the BBC director of news has said he is not
9 a member of the Intelligence Services, so that was not
10 incorporated. And there is, I think -- there is a "PTO"
11 on here which I wrote. You see at the bottom there is
12 a "PTO"?
13 Q. Yes. If we go to 53 we might see it.
14 A. Not that one, that is Jonathan:
15 "We understand that Mr Gilligan has given his
16 employers the name of his source. We have in confidence
17 given the name of the individual to the chairman of the
18 BBC, who we trust will investigate whether they are the
19 same individual. The official has said he is willing to
20 be interviewed by the ISC."
21 I think Jonathan and I, from memory, were making
22 those comments as a result of the discussion we were
23 privy to in the Prime Minister's Office.
24 Q. Is this a reasonable summary: that everyone was driven
25 by the concern to ensure that the ISC, if they wanted
162 1 Dr Kelly, should have Dr Kelly; and the FAC, if they
2 wanted Dr Kelly, should have Dr Kelly?
3 A. I think the view -- the dominant view clearly was that
4 the ISC was the more appropriate Committee to look at
5 this, but it would be unlikely that the Government could
6 resist if the FAC called him as well.
7 Q. Right. Can I take you to a document, CAB/11/134? It is
8 7th July, so the same day, Monday, 10 to 7. It is from
9 Clare Sumner to you asking -- "Subject: Your attendance
10 to the ISC. I'm being chased by the Clerk on this.
11 What's the view?"
12 In fact, there is a reply sent on behalf of David
13 Manning saying:
14 "I see no reason for Alastair to do this. He has
15 been exonerated by the FAC. ISC should concentrate on
16 intelligence issues."
17 That looks like -- I hope this is a reasonable
18 summary -- No. 10 standing up to the Committee
19 as.it.were. in relation to these matters.
20 A. It is David Manning. David felt very strongly
21 throughout this that it was unfair on any of us to have
22 to appear at any of these Select Committees,
23 particularly as the inquiry arose from a story that was
24 completely false. I know David felt that very, very
25 strongly and expressed that to me many times.
163 1 LORD HUTTON: The reference to the Clerk, this is the Clerk
2 of the ISC, is it?
3 A. Yes, but the problem with David's sentiment there is the
4 Prime Minister had already indicated that we would
5 cooperate in this way and that I would attend.
6 MR DINGEMANS: Right.
7 A. So I think that was, whilst well meant, I think quite
8 difficult to carry out.
9 Q. We then come on to the 8th July. The Prime Minister is
10 prepared, in the morning, for the Liaison Committee.
11 I think we have heard from Mr Powell about that
12 yesterday. Then at 11.30 am he returns from the Liaison
13 Committee and there is a discussion about whether or not
14 Dr Kelly's name should be made public. Were you party
15 to that discussion?
16 A. I was party to parts of that discussion.
17 Q. What was the gist of it, as far as you can recollect?
18 A. This is the meeting after the Liaison Committee?
19 Q. Yes.
20 A. I think it was at this meeting that Sir David Omand
21 suggested that this development be communicated to
22 Ann Taylor and I cannot remember, at that stage, whether
23 it was with or without the name but certainly indicating
24 that Dr Kelly was willing to be interviewed by the
25 Committee.
164 1 Q. And that was the decision that was made then?
2 A. That is the decision that was made, yes.
3 Q. And in the press statement we have seen which is
4 released later on that night, there was some defensive
5 Q and A material that we have also seen. Did you have
6 any part in the drafting of that?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Do you know who did?
9 A. That would have been done within the MoD and the person
10 who would normally liaise on that in terms of No. 10,
11 something of that level, would be Godric Smith.
12 Q. We have heard that the ISC were going to get a letter on
13 8th July and then they are told -- Sir David Omand is
14 told: no, we do not want a letter, you make a press
15 statement. Were you party to any of those discussions?
16 A. I was present when that news from the ISC was relayed to
17 the Prime Minister.
18 Q. And why is the decision then taken: well, let us release
19 the press statement? I mean, why, if the ISC do not
20 really want his name -- FAC have reported, there can be
21 no question of you covering up now, ISC have said: do
22 not give us his name. FAC have finished?
23 A. I think what the ISC was saying -- this goes back to the
24 point about their procedures, that they -- I was not
25 involved in the discussions with the ISC, but my
165 1 understanding of those discussions was that Ann Taylor
2 did not, as it were, want to be announcing something
3 that she felt was properly announced by the Government.
4 It did not mean that she did not want to look into the
5 issue as the chairman of the ISC.
6 LORD HUTTON: Yes.
7 A. So, that was the chain of events, that the ISC did not
8 want to announce this part of this. She felt it was
9 better that the MoD announced that and then the ISC
10 would interview him. You would have to ask Ann Taylor
11 why she felt that.
12 LORD HUTTON: Mr Campbell, in a sense I think you have
13 already given detailed answers to a number of matters
14 relating to Dr Kelly's name being released, but
15 appreciating that, I would just like to ask you another
16 general question: suppose at this discussion on 8th July
17 someone had said: let us just hold on for a minute, this
18 is a civil servant who has given very distinguished
19 service to his country, he has admittedly been
20 indiscreet in speaking to a journalist as he has, but if
21 we release his name we are going to subject him to very
22 considerable strain. Is it right that we should do
23 this? Can we not simply batten down the hatches? And
24 there is a risk of a leak but perhaps it will not come
25 out, or if names are put to us we just say: we do not
166 1 respond to questions about civil servants.
2 I know you have in a sense already responded to that
3 question, but I wondered if you could give a general
4 answer, a general summary as to what the response would
5 have been if that question had been raised?
6 A. I think you could have done that, but I think it would
7 still have ended with all the media pressure -- media
8 and other pressure that you refer to, because I think it
9 would have come out, because these things do. And
10 again, I mean, I am slightly -- I have given up reading
11 newspapers in recent weeks but I have a slight concern
12 that things I have said already will be taken as
13 critical of others. I regret that if that is the case.
14 I do want to say in all those discussions I was privy to
15 Kevin Tebbit in particular was absolutely solicitous.
16 He did not make the point in exactly the way that you
17 put it --
18 LORD HUTTON: No, I appreciate that.
19 A. -- but he was constantly emphasising: this is an
20 employee. Yes, he has clearly done something that he
21 should not have done, but we are his employer and we
22 have a duty of care to him.
23 The other observation I would make from those
24 discussions, again this clearly is a hindsight point,
25 but the impression I got -- I did not know Dr Kelly, but
167 1 the impression I got was of, and the way that he was
2 being described was actually of a very strong, resolute
3 character, clearly of deep conviction and who had been
4 in many difficult, stressful circumstances, and I just
5 do not think it crossed anybody's mind that it might
6 take the turn that it did.
7 LORD HUTTON: No, I can quite understand that. Yes. Well,
8 references have been made to the concern that if his
9 name was not given to the FAC and/or to the ISC and if
10 it leaked out, that the Government would be accused of
11 a cover-up.
12 A. Hmm.
13 LORD HUTTON: What do you say as to that point?
14 A. I think we would have been accused of a cover-up.
15 LORD HUTTON: But a cover-up in what sense? What would have
16 been covered up?
17 A. What would have been covered up would be the fact --
18 bear in mind -- and this is why it was so difficult to
19 draft that press release that was finally released,
20 because there were so many of these competing factors.
21 Part of the discussion that I recall, involving
22 Sir Kevin Tebbit, Sir David Omand, the Prime Minister
23 and others, was Sir Kevin clearly not being 100 per cent
24 sure about whether -- what Dr Kelly had actually said,
25 about what he might say if he was called before a Select
168 1 Committee.
2 So I do not think people should imagine that we were
3 sitting there thinking: well, Dr Kelly, up before the
4 Select Committee, it is unadulterated, unalloyed good
5 news for the Government. It was not necessarily going
6 to be so because Kevin Tebbit had reported he did have
7 concerns about some aspects of the Government's
8 position.
9 LORD HUTTON: So the concern was that if his name was not
10 given by the Government but it was later revealed, it
11 might transpire that Dr Kelly had views which were quite
12 or strongly critical of the Government?
13 A. That is right; and that is why the Government did not
14 want to put him before public scrutiny. And I think if,
15 for example, on that Saturday that I was talking to the
16 Prime Minister and Jonathan Powell and the
17 Defence Secretary about the issue, if one of the Sunday
18 papers, on that Saturday, had discovered this
19 development then I can guarantee you the headlines the
20 next day would have been "Government cover-up on eve of
21 FAC report".
22 LORD HUTTON: But is the Government obliged to disclose to
23 Parliamentary Committees civil servants who are somewhat
24 critical of its policies, because one of the points that
25 has been made is that Dr Kelly was not concerned in
169 1 drawing up the intelligence part of the dossier and was
2 not himself an intelligence agent. So it would have
3 been the view of someone who was a very knowledgeable
4 expert on weapons but not the views of an intelligence
5 officer.
6 A. I accept that.
7 MR DINGEMANS: What did you know, at this stage, about
8 Dr Kelly? What had you been told?
9 A. Where are we in the chronology now?
10 Q. 9th July.
11 A. 9th July.
12 Q. Were you ever told, for example, that he had been
13 involved in drawing up the background to the 20th June
14 dossier that I have shown you?
15 A. I do not know. I was told at some stage, I cannot
16 remember when, that he had helped draw up the historical
17 section on weapons inspections.
18 Q. Were you ever told that he had at least reviewed the
19 draft of 5th September, it looks like from the e-mail of
20 10th September?
21 A. No.
22 Q. Were you ever told he was at the meeting of the DIS on
23 19th September?
24 A. No, I did not know that.
25 Q. Would that have had any effect on your proposal,
170 1 because, as I understand it, you were interested in the
2 fact that he was not an intelligence officer?
3 A. Hmm, hmm.
4 Q. And that would help rebut the BBC claims?
5 A. Hmm, hmm.
6 Q. But if he had had access to the intelligence, would that
7 have made any difference?
8 A. No. I think to run a story that was run on May 29th on
9 the Today Programme on a single source -- that source
10 would have to be one of the top half a dozen
11 intelligence officials in the country to justify that.
12 Q. On 9th July we can see that you have sent a draft e-mail
13 from the Garden Room which appears to end up as part of
14 the letter that Mr Hoon sends to Mr Davies. Do you
15 recollect assisting Mr Hoon with some of the
16 correspondence that was being sent at this stage?
17 A. I did, although I do not think he incorporated any of
18 the points I made. What I was trying to do was to
19 within that letter explain to the BBC -- who in the end
20 are in the main journalists as well as executives --
21 explain to the BBC why, in our view, the issue here was
22 not source protection, because the individual had
23 indicated his willingness to be identified. But in the
24 end Mr Hoon did not take that point on-board.
25 Q. Can I ask you, whilst we are still on 9th July, two
171 1 aspects of your diary in that respect. What was, as you
2 perceived it, the biggest thing needed at this stage?
3 A. I felt that at that time, if we were going to bottom out
4 this story and have it established beyond doubt that the
5 allegations were false, then I felt that Dr Kelly
6 appearing before a Committee probably was the only way
7 that was going to happen.
8 Q. So you were keen by 9th July that Dr Kelly's name should
9 be out?
10 A. I felt -- we all felt that was going to happen, and
11 I thought that that was the only way this was going to
12 be resolved. But I did not do anything to bring that
13 about because I was under strict instructions not to.
14 Q. Did you take part in any of the question and answering
15 on the MoD defensive Q and A material?
16 A. No, I did not.
17 Q. And so you were not unhappy when Dr Kelly's name was
18 obtained by the press?
19 A. Well, I think by now, as I record in my diary for that
20 day, I felt the thing was moving away -- I actually felt
21 quite dispirited that day because I had a very strong
22 sense the BBC were refusing to accept -- they were
23 refusing to engage on this issue at all. They were not
24 covering the story. It was just going away, as a media
25 thing.
172 1 Q. So the story is dying down from the media's point of
2 view?
3 A. Hmm, hmm.
4 Q. But getting Dr Kelly's name into the open is going to
5 ramp it up again?
6 A. No, I am now talking about post Dr Kelly's
7 identification. I am talking about the day after.
8 Q. Once his name is there. Looking at your diary again on
9 9th July, again the first page of the entries, what was
10 your perception with the BBC? I mean, were you now
11 trying to increase the temperature of the dispute?
12 A. Well, there is a reference there to my, in our briefing
13 meeting before Prime Minister's Questions, saying to the
14 Prime Minister I felt that he should -- this is not
15 necessarily in relation to Dr Kelly, but I felt that his
16 position vis a vis the BBC could and should be
17 a Prime Minister's Question but in the end the
18 Prime Minister did not want to do that. And the whole
19 exchanges that dominated PMQs that day were actually
20 about weapons of mass destruction.
21 LORD HUTTON: Just before we leave that, on 9th July what
22 was your view about the desirability of the name of the
23 source coming out into the public domain?
24 A. I felt at that stage that it was inevitable and, as
25 I have said earlier, possibly the only way that we were
173 1 going to be able to establish in the public and
2 Parliamentary mind that the Today Programme allegations
3 were false. So, from my perspective it would have been
4 a good thing. But I emphasise I did not do anything to
5 bring it about.
6 LORD HUTTON: Yes. As I am sure you know, the Inquiry has
7 heard evidence that the press officers were instructed
8 not to give Dr Kelly's name if asked who was the source,
9 but if the name was given to them correctly they were to
10 confirm that. What is your view of that procedure?
11 A. Well it is actually -- it is the reality of much press
12 office work, in that a lot of stories first come to
13 public attention by a journalist finding out something,
14 putting a question to a press officer, and if it is
15 a straightforward factual question and the answer is yes
16 or no, the press officer has to deal with that.
17 Now, as you alluded to earlier, sometimes you can
18 just batten down the hatches and say: we have absolutely
19 nothing to say. But as I said earlier, I think in these
20 situations, particularly where they involve people as
21 opposed to arguments and institutions and statistics and
22 all the rest of it, that it is always better to have
23 clarity and to have some sort of control over the
24 process. I can see why that strategy was put together.
25 The fundamental problem with it was that --
174 1 LORD HUTTON: Sorry, it was put together because?
2 A. It was put together because --
3 LORD HUTTON: To give more time to Dr Kelly?
4 A. Dr Kelly had indicated he did not want to be in what
5 Kevin Tebbit called the first wave of publicity.
6 LORD HUTTON: Was there any other reason that you are aware
7 of?
8 A. I do not think so.
9 LORD HUTTON: Sorry, I interrupted you.
10 MR DINGEMANS: We have finished 9th July. You have spoken
11 to the Prime Minister about whether he could increase
12 the pressure on the BBC at Parliamentary Questions.
13 Then on 10th July you are reported at CAB/1/517, and
14 this is by Mr Baldwin. Perhaps I can just extract the
15 relevant bits:
16 "The BBC now faces a test of nerve."
17 It was suggested you had said:
18 "I want to put the finger on the Dyke for this".
19 A. No, no.
20 Q. Is this accurate reporting or not?
21 A. I did not say that to anybody.
22 Q. But you had on 9th July suggested to the Prime Minister:
23 turn up the heat on the BBC?
24 A. But as part of a -- I mean, every morning before
25 Prime Minister's Questions there are discussions about
175 1 this, and I had suggested that that might be one of the
2 issues he would want to engage in, but in the end he did
3 not.
4 Q. He did not, but at CAB/1/93 can I take you to an e-mail
5 that is sent to you. What do we see here?
6 A. This is the Tom Kelly e-mail you discussed with
7 Mr Powell yesterday.
8 Q. That is to Jonathan Powell but it is copied in to you.
9 You have suggested to the Prime Minister, in relation to
10 other issues as well, turning up the heat on the BBC.
11 You have Tom Kelly here writing an e-mail saying:
12 "This is now a game of chicken with the Beeb -- the
13 only way they will shift is [if] they see the screw
14 tightening."
15 Was this the mindset that was dominating No. 10 at
16 this stage?
17 A. I do not think it does reflect the mindset really.
18 I think I know what Tom is saying there. I think
19 e-mails that are sent between colleagues who are very
20 close and work together very closely can look very
21 different when you are staring at them in a screen in
22 a courtroom. I think the point that he is making is
23 that at some point on this issue one of us is going to
24 have to back down, and we all knew, every single person
25 in Downing Street involved in this knew that the BBC
176 1 story was wrong.
2 It has just been very, very frustrating and
3 depressing that an allegation like that can be made by
4 the country's foremost media organisation and there is
5 absolutely nothing we can do about it.
6 Q. Can I just pick up -- there is another e-mail that the
7 Inquiry has received from a different source at FAC/6/2.
8 This is an e-mail sent by Mr Gilligan to the --
9 LORD HUTTON: Sorry, FAC/6/2?
10 MR DINGEMANS: Yes, my Lord. This is an e-mail sent from
11 Andrew Gilligan to Greg Simpson. Do you know who
12 Greg Simpson is?
13 A. No.
14 Q. He appears to be working in the secretarial support with
15 the Liberal Democrats.
16 "We have been doing some research on David Kelly [it
17 is 14th July]. Aside from the red herring of a source
18 hunt, he's an extremely interesting witness in his own
19 right; probably, if he answers fully, the best you've
20 had."
21 He is described in one of the standard reference
22 works as "a leading person ... he has talked..."
23 et cetera, then there are further details.
24 We go down to:
25 "Questions for Kelly.
177 1 "Above all he should be asked to say what kind of
2 a threat Iraq was in September 2002 ... If he is able to
3 answer frankly it should be devastating."
4 We did not get this e-mail from the BBC and they are
5 making enquiries as to why we did get it so I did not
6 have the chance to put that to Mr Gilligan, but it
7 rather looks like Mr Gilligan is using the FAC as a
8 chance to get at the Government and those are issues
9 I certainly put to Mr Gilligan. But was not the
10 situation also, from the Government's point of view,
11 that you were using the FAC to get at the BBC and that
12 the game of chicken was being played by two great big
13 institutions with Dr Kelly in the middle?
14 A. I can see why you say that but I do not accept it and
15 I have to say I find that quite an extraordinary e-mail.
16 If I --
17 Q. I have shown it to you fairly because I have shown it as
18 soon as I have it. Try not to give a speech on that and
19 answer the question if that is all right. I am sorry if
20 that is slightly unfair.
21 A. No, I understand. I have had several lawyers saying
22 things to me this morning.
23 (Pause). I think you have to look at the -- you
24 present this in your question as, as it were, Government
25 v BBC and then if you bring it down from that it is me
178 1 against Andrew Gilligan. I have never met
2 Andrew Gilligan and I just think that the accusations
3 that were levelled against us were very, very, very
4 serious; and we have tried, ever since May 29th, to have
5 it acknowledged that those allegations are false. The
6 Prime Minister knows they are false, the Foreign
7 Secretary knows they are false. The chairman of the JIC
8 knows they are false. The head of the SIS knows they
9 are false. Everyone who was centrally involved in the
10 dossier knows they are false. I think that is wholly
11 different to a journalist who is trying to defend
12 a story that I believe is indefensible.
13 Q. Dr Kelly gives his evidence to the FAC on 15th July,
14 then he gives his evidence to the ISC on the 16th July.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. You give further evidence to the ISC on the 17th July.
17 Can I take you very briefly to a short passage from
18 that. ISC/1/37.
19 If we look at the second paragraph down, you are
20 answering there the questions on your role in the
21 intelligence issues and the fact that it had to be
22 John Scarlett's report and your evidence, effectively,
23 to the ISC appears to mirror very much what you were
24 saying with the FAC. We cannot publish this evidence
25 yet until it has been cleared by the ISC. Is there
179 1 anything further from this evidence that you wanted to
2 highlight?
3 A. Not having the whole document in front of me, I could
4 not say, but I think the main issues covered were pretty
5 much the same. There was probably more interest there
6 in some of the intelligence handling issues, but I do
7 not know if they are relevant to this Inquiry or not.
8 Q. We hear, on 17th July, that Dr Kelly goes out and his
9 body is found the next day.