Campbell: I did not sex up Iraq war dossier
In a defiant appearance before a public inquiry on the conflict, Campbell admitted that while the highly controversial document could have been clearer, he still defended “every single word” of it.
Campbell, one of the former prime minister’s closest allies, also insisted Blair was determined to deal with Saddam Hussein’s regime peacefully right up to a crucial vote on the Iraq war in the House of Commons on March 18, 2003.
He said he never tried to “beef up” any of the judgments made by the September 2002 dossier’s author, John Scarlett, then chairman of a key intelligence committee which advised Blair’s government. Campbell said he was not involved in a “sexing up game”.
“At no point did anybody from the prime minister down say to anybody within the intelligence services: ‘You have got to tailor it to fit this judgment or that judgment’,” Campbell said.
“The whole way through, it could not have been made clearer to everybody that nothing would override the intelligence judgments and that John Scarlett was the person who, if you like, had the single pen.”
Campbell is the first big name witness to appear before the Chilcot Inquiry, which is probing all aspects of Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War; it was the second-biggest contributor of troops after the US.
His evidence came as an independent commission in the Netherlands found that the beginning of a war in Iraq in 2003 lacked legitimacy under international law.
The former spin doctor also told how current Prime Minister Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, would “absolutely” have been one of the “key ministers” Blair discussed decisions on Iraq with.
Blair is due to appear before the committee in late January or early February, while Brown will not be called until after this year’s general election, which is expected to be held in May.
Campbell, Blair’s former director of communications and strategy, resigned in August 2003, the month after the Ministry of Defence weapons expert David Kelly took his own life.
Earlier that year, Campbell fiercely denied a BBC report that he “sexed up” a dossier claiming Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes to help justify the war.
Kelly believed he may have been the source of the BBC’s story and officials confirmed his name as such to some reporters.
Campbell insisted he had decided to resign to spend more time with his family well before Kelly’s death.
An official inquiry subsequently exonerated him over the affair.
Campbell also said while the government shared the US’s assessment of the threat posed by Iraq, for a long time it proposed a solution other than regime change.
“He’s [Blair] not doing this because George Bush wants him to do it, this was his genuine belief that Iraq had to be confronted over its continued defiance of the UN,” said Campbell.
“That’s his position and that’s a policy that he pursued the whole way through, right to the House of Commons vote... Right to that point, the prime minister was hopeful this thing could be resolved peacefully.
“I think the prime minister was all the way through trying to get it resolved without a single shot being fired,” Campbell said.
US-led forces, supported by Britain, began their invasion of Iraq two days after the House of Commons vote, despite the lack of explicit backing from the UN Security Council.
Blair faced a major backlash at home over the decision to side with George W Bush over the war. He resigned in 2007 despite having led his Labour party to three election wins.
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