Guardian: "Kelly naming would 'fuck Gilligan' - Campbell"

posted by ewing2001 on Monday September 22, @12:03PM

Update: Cpt. Wardrobe's Lord Hutton-Watch re-organised

Kelly naming would 'fuck Gilligan' - Campbell

By Liane Katz and Matthew Tempest

Guardian -Monday September 22, 2003

"It would fuck Gilligan" if David Kelly proved to be the BBC journalist's source for his incendiary WMD dossier story, according to extracts from Alastair Campbell's diary published today.

Mr Campbell's second appearance before the Hutton inquiry was overshadowed by the diary, which appeared to show that both he and the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, wanted Dr Kelly's name to appear in the press - although neither Downing Street nor Sir Kevin Tebbit, the permanent secretary at the MoD, wanted to be the ones to name him.

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In open court extracts from Mr Campbell's diary - which he dismissed as hurriedly written - revealed that Geoff Hoon and Pam Teare wanted "get it out through papers then have line to respond".

Mr Campbell's entry on July 4 records: "GH and I agreed it would fuck Gilligan if that [Dr Kelly] was his source.

Mr Campbell wrote that he wanted to "get source up" but that later the prime minister told him "to leave it to Omand and Tebbit's judgement and they didn't want to do it."

Another entry read "we agreed we should not do it, so we did not."

Mr Campbell had a variety of explanations for the seemingly damning phrases, some of which Lord Hutton appeared to accept and some of which he did not.

Lord Hutton specifically asked who the "we" referred to, and Mr Campbell replied: "No 10."

Mr Campbell claimed that the reference to Sir David Omand and Sir Kevin Tebbit not wanting to do "it", merely referred to "anything out of the ordinary or untoward".

Lord Hutton intervened to ask "You have no idea what 'it' meant?" and Mr Campbell replied: "This 'it' went no further."

Mr Campbell was quick to stress that any idea of getting Dr Kelly's name into the public domain to help the prime minister's appearance before the liaison committee was just "a thought which was born and died within minutes".

Whether Lord Hutton accepts Mr Campbell's word on this point will doubtless be a central feature of his final report this November.

James Dingemans QC, one of the inquiry's barristers, said of the diary extract where Mr Campbell reported "several chats" with Ms Teare and then Mr Hoon that we should "get it out through papers then have line to respond", "a cynic might think that's what happened."

Mr Campbell replied: "No I deny that. I can't help further."

Mr Campbell admitted he wanted the FAC to be "a clear win, not a messy draw." Mr Campbell's evidence which lasted two and three quarter hours saw him cross-examined by the government QC, Jonathan Sumption, the BBC's lawyer, Andrew Caldecott, and Lord Hutton's QC, Mr Dingemans.

Mr Caldecott attempted to prove, through spending nearly an hour going through Mr Campbell's 16 amendments and suggestions on the dossier to John Scarlett, head of the JIC, that he had strengthened it.

Mr Campbell admitted making suggestions, some of which strengthened the language of the dossier, some of which he described as "neutral" and some of which he insisted weakened the dossier.

However under cross-examination, he appeared to accept that only one suggestion clearly "sexed down" the dossier.

"If you mean strongly 'sexed up', I don't accept that at all. If you mean strong solid piece of work that does the job the PM wants it to do," Mr Campbell said, then he accepted that.

Mr Caldecott said: "You were concerned to strengthen the language of this dossier, weren't you?"

Mr Campbell replied: "This document could only be as strong as the underlying intelligence assessment allowed it to be."

Mr Campbell defended his description in his testimony to the FAC that "45 minutes existed in the very first draft and stayed the same throughout", even though he admitted the language changed from "may" to "are" with regard to the WMD claim.

Of his infamous suggestion to Mr Hoon over a speakerphone on the evening of Tuesday, 7 July, overheard by No 10 spokesman Godric Smith, that a leak be made to one newspaper, Mr Campbell insisted firstly that he meant merely a leak of the fact that an individual had come forward, and secondly, that it would not be made to only one newspaper but "newspapers".

He agreed with earlier evidence that the prime minister, Mr Hoon, Tom Kelly and Mr Smith all thought this was "a bad idea", but that he was not envisaging doing it "anonymously".

In an aside Mr Campbell revealed that Mr Scarlett spent the entire weekend prior to the publication of the government's September 24 dossier at the printers, personally signing off every proof page.

Despite splashes in the Evening Standard and two other national newspapers on 25 September on the "45-minute" claim, Mr Campbell insisted: "It was not a big deal." He continued, "At the time the 45 minutes was a small, minor part of the dossier."

Of the Q&A; procedure that named Dr Kelly, Mr Campbell said he was "aware that was the policy they agreed," but he said he could not remember which morning meeting he was informed of it.

Mr Campbell read selected extracts from his diaries during his first appearance before the Hutton inquiry on August 19, but they have not been published until today.

He previously told the inquiry he was not planning to publish the diaries after leaving his Downing Street post, but Westminster observers have long speculated that their publication would provide him with an alternative "pension".

Please check out also Captain Wardrobe's Hutton '45 minute e-mail' site and Down with Murder