Stephen Mitchell

From : Andrew Gillioan-INTERNET

Sent . 25 June 200? 05 57 PM
To: Kevin Marsh, Stephen Mitchell & Ass'

The BBC stands by its story on the September Iraq dossier and sees no call to apologise for its journalism .

Alastair Campbell is wrong to say that Downing Street denied tne BBC's story witnin an nour of its being broadcast .

Downing Street in fact denied two charges which had never been made by the Today programme's source - that
non-intelligence material nad been used in the dossier, and that material had been fabricated.

The Today programme's source did not make either of these charges . His charge was that a claim about chemical
and biological weapons being at 45 minutes' notice to deploy had been inserted into the dossier at a late stage ;
that it had been given undue prominence in the dossier as part of a process of "making it sexier" ; that the claim was
the work of a single, uncorroboraced source ; and that the intelligence services were unhappy that the dossier did
not reflect the considered view that they were putting forward .

me of these charges (the lack of corroboration) was confirmed by the Armed Forces Minister within an hour of the
original broadcast . The others were not in fact denied by the Government un-.il Prime Ministers Questions on
Wednesday 4th June, six days after the story was first broadcast .

The charges made by the Today programme's source were independently echoed, in whole or part, by intelligence
briefings to at least eight other journalists . They are Susan Watts and Gavin Hewitt of the BBC, Daniel McGrory of
The Times, Richard Norton-Taylor of the Guardian, Nick Rufford and Nick Fielding of the Sunday Times, Peter
Beaumont of the Observer, and Raymond Whitaker of the Independent on Sunday . A Whitehall source also told the
Washington Post that there were "pressured and superheated debates" between intelligence officers and Downing
Street over the dossier .

The charges made by the Today programme's source were also corroborated by Clare Short, the former
International Development Secretary .