10 DOWNING STREET

LONDON SW7AZAA

From th°_ Prime Minister's Press oace

29 May 2003!

Dear Mr, Damazar,

RADIO FOUR TODAY PROGRANfllIE

In the absence abroad of my colleague Tom Kelly, I would like to r°Qist°r

our concern at the failure of this morning's Today programme to contact V
Downing Street for a response to Andrew GilIigan's story which made serious
and untrue allegations about this office over the presentation of a dossier relating
to Iraq .

What is of fnrther concern is tl~.at Today continued to run these allegations .

at the top of every news bulletin, without any reference to the firm denial
p.ovided voluntarily by Downing Street after we first heard the story . This
absence of any balancing comznent continued despite our duty press officer
calling the programme no less than four times . While John Humphrys did finally
refer to our statement in his two-way with Andrew Gilligan, this is not the same,
as I am sure you will accept, as makina clear we cateLyorically denied the story in
your news bulletins .

I am also concerned that the World at One declined to interview Adam

Ingra-n, the Minister for the Armed Forces, on their programme today on the
grounds that he is not a member of the Cabinet . He is, however, the Minister
responding for the Government on this issue and without his appearance I am
unclear how the prograrnme thought it could present a balanced piece on this
issue . I notice, too, that WATO also failed, for some reason, to carry Downing
Street's quote that, 'Any sug;estion that there was any pressure or inte-n-ention
from Downing Street is entirely false' which had been used on other broadcasters
and newspapers . `

I should add that vve categorically deny the allegations made . But our
complaint goes 'beyond this . The BBC's guidelines spell out clearly your
obligatiorLs to present balanced reporting . I would like to hear from you "low you,~,~0
- - P,t?,r iLl_1~~G j~7-
 -2-

believe thes° stanca ;ds :lave been met when your reporters :ailed to give this
ofice a chance i1-
. ac'vance to resDond to al]ega :ions and ignored deruals when
they were provided .

I would be interested to receive your com"nents on these issues .

Yours sincerely, -

_4_NNT SIIEVAS

Mr. Mail, Damazer

Deputy Director BBC News
By Fax: 0208 576 7120
Statement from Downing St to Today Programme, 0713dzrs Thursday 29'
May 2003 :

IDowning St Epokesman :

"These alleQattons are untrule .

"Not one wo:d of the dossier was not entire'_y the ~ork of the i.ntellieenee
agencies .

"The su,oiuestion that any pressure was put on the intelligence services by
No10 or anyone else to change the document are entirely false ."

Ends
 Stephen Mitchell
From, Matt Morns
Sent: 29 May 2003 04 33 PM
To : StePhen Mitchell
Cc : Kevin Marsn
Subject : Gilugan's Story

Some details as reqi,ested of me newsroom's coverage of ;he Downing Street de- :al .

The onlyproblem ' can identify is the 0800 bulletin on Radio Four We did not carrythe denial then, ever, though it had
been .made -- to the Today Office -- during the previous nour. We d'd write a few lines of the story, ane we dic write a
few lires or' Ming ,r.amobell talking aoout it on Tocay . Tn s material appeared in :he lead cue, wh;c',n was to a Ricnard
Miron piece about Mr Blair having Just arrived in Iraq. We should clearly have carried the der ial at this pornt.

Tn,s orniysIon was soon rectified, for the dsnial -- which I myself heard from Gavin Allen, ard passed to Rick Evans at
about 0840 -- was carried on Radio Four at 0900, 1000, 1100 and 1200

At 1300, the news bulletin ran a piece by Shaun Ley The first line of the cue reads' "Downing Street has d;smissed -
a claim that the Government's oossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction was rewritten to make the
-ireat apoear more urgent." hgram's aen ;al was scripted by Ley, and it was also carried in the-WATO end heads _

On Radio 2 at 1300 we said .

Mr B,air's visit comes amid fresh questions about whether there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq TI-e,
BBC nas been told that intelligence of-ficia!s were unhappywith some of the claims made by ministers about Saddam
Hussein's arsenal before the war . Downing Street denies the claims and the Conservative Defence spokesman,
Bernard Jenk;n, told Jeremy Vine tnat itwas still too earJy to judge the government'

The denial was also carried on Five Live at 1400 and 1500 (the story had dropped out of the Five Live summaries
during the moming) .

I'm on my mobile if you need more -- 07802 949 382

Matt
 ~ ,,A (-I-41J

Stephen Mitchell

From : Kevin Marsh

Sent: 29 May 2003 05.23 PM
To : Stepnen Mitchell
Subject : Downing Street

VJe have no reason to pelieve - not then, not now - that our report on tne Government's iraq oossier was ir any way
false or contained any untrue allegation

While it is the case Today did not concact Downing Street prior to firs`, running the story ar D607, it is :he case that we
set cut its main aspects to Adam Ingram's assistant yesterday evening in connection with the interview with him No
spec ;ric comment was made at that time .

It is not true that there was no "balancing comment" in the programme .

Number 10 called us at about 7 .15 their comments were included verbat :m in Jonn Humphry's mtroduction to the
main item shortly after 0730 ; he said that Downing Street had told us the stoy was "not true .. . not one word of the
dossier was not entirely the work of the intelligence agencies ." However, we had never at any time suggested the final
ocumen ; was not the wo:k of the intellieence agencies - ~Ainich we clarified in the following 2-way

When the Downmg~3treet Dress Cl lcer was asr,ed specifically whether an-earlier version of trio dossier was sent back
to the intelligence services for revision, the press officer said "we will not comment or, processology (sic)" - a comment
that falls some way short of a denial

Later at about 0828, during John Humphrys' conversation with Adam Ingram, fine Mmis;er said of our report that we
had claurned the dossier "had been concocted under pre'sure from Number 10 - that ;s not the case. There was no
pressure from No 10 :"

When John Humphrys put a more accurate orecas of our story to Mr Ingram he replied "No It's not true - anc you know
No 10 has denied that"

I should point out, however, that Mr Ingram accepted that some parts of tne dossier - in particular the reference to "45
minutes"-were attributable to a single intelligence source . and it is ',he burden of our Story trial the mtelhgence
services, or some in those services, are unhappy tr,at material so sou-ced was included - after consultation wit-,
Downing Street - in tie final dossier .