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Blair`s communications chief takes stand at Kelly inquiry
London, Aug 19: Prime Minister Tony Blair`s communications director, a key figure in a controversy over the government`s case for war in Iraq, said today that it was Blair who decided to publish a contentious dossier on Iraq`s Weapons of Mass Destruction.
London, Aug 19: Prime Minister Tony Blair's
communications director, a key figure in a controversy over
the government's case for war in Iraq, said today that it was
Blair who decided to publish a contentious dossier on Iraq's
Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Alastair Campbell told an inquiry into the death of a
government weapons inspector that Blair wanted to make the information public last September as a way of informing people about the threat posed by Iraq while calming fears that a military attack was imminent.
He said Blair ``Was seeing all this intelligence material coming in which made him more and more concerned about Iraq as a threat and he wanted to put some of that into the public domain.'' A May 29 British Broadcasting Corp. Report, which is at the heart of the inquiry, quoted an unidentified source as claiming that the September dossier was ``transformed'' in the weeks before publication to strengthen the allegations of an Iraqi threat. Campbell has acknowledged that he chaired meetings in which officials revised the dossier. But he has vehemently denied that he insisted on including a disputed claim that Iraq could deploy some weapons of mass destruction on 45 minutes' notice.
He told the inquiry that he did not know the origin of the 45-minute claim, which was included in a draft of the dossier about two weeks before it was published.
``I knew it had come from the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee), but I wasn't aware either of the raw information it was based on, or the sourcing,'' Campbell said.
Bureau Report
He said Blair ``Was seeing all this intelligence material coming in which made him more and more concerned about Iraq as a threat and he wanted to put some of that into the public domain.'' A May 29 British Broadcasting Corp. Report, which is at the heart of the inquiry, quoted an unidentified source as claiming that the September dossier was ``transformed'' in the weeks before publication to strengthen the allegations of an Iraqi threat. Campbell has acknowledged that he chaired meetings in which officials revised the dossier. But he has vehemently denied that he insisted on including a disputed claim that Iraq could deploy some weapons of mass destruction on 45 minutes' notice.
He told the inquiry that he did not know the origin of the 45-minute claim, which was included in a draft of the dossier about two weeks before it was published.
``I knew it had come from the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee), but I wasn't aware either of the raw information it was based on, or the sourcing,'' Campbell said.
Bureau Report