RADIO 5 LIVE 0500

May 29, 2003

Female A senior official involved in preparing the government's dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass

destruction has said the document was rewritten just before it was published to make it more

exciting . The official said the intelligence services were unhappy with the changes

Here's Andrew Gilligan :

AG: The dossier, published in September last year, was launched m the Commons by the Prime

Minister himself It received saturation coverage . In the preface, Mr. Blair stated explicitly -

that some of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could be ready within forty-five

minutes of an order to use them . One senior British official has now told the BBC that the

original version of the dossier, produced by the intelligence services, added little to what

was already publicly known . But one week before publication, said this official, the dossier

was transformed on Downing Street's orders The forty-five minute assertion was one of

several claims added against the wishes ofthe intelligence agencies, who said it was from a

single source which they didn't necessarily believe . The official told the BBC that most

people in Intelligence were unhappy with the dossier, because it did not reflect the

considered view they were putting forward (END)