UK govt demand apology from BBC

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw demanded an apology from the BBC today after Alastair Campbell and the rest of the British government were cleared of political interference in the Iraq dossier row by Commons MPs.

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said there was no evidence that government communications director Mr Campbell had inserted a claim in the first dossier published last September that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction were deployable in 45 minutes.

They also said there was no evidence that he had sought to exert improper influence over the dossier and that there was no evidence of any “politically-inspired meddling”.

In May the BBC reported a senior intelligence source as saying that Downing Street had inserted the 45-minute claim against the wishes of the intelligence agencies, knowing it probably to be wrong.

But the MPs were scathing about a second dossier, published in February, which they labelled “almost wholly counter-productive”.

It was found to contain an academic thesis lifted from the Internet and then altered to support the British government’s case.

The committee said Prime Minister Tony Blair had “misrepresented its status” to Parliament, albeit inadvertently.

But the MPs cleared Mr Campbell of exerting improper influence only on the casting vote of its Labour chairman Donald Anderson.

One Liberal Democrat, three Tories and one Labour rebel said there was not enough evidence to make a judgment.

The Tories and the Lib Dem MP unusually voted against adopting the whole report – because of doubts over Mr Campbell – but were outvoted by the Labour members of the committee.

The MPs also said the 45-minute claim in the September dossier had been given “undue prominence” and that the language of that report was “more assertive than that traditionally used in intelligence documents”.

The committee said the “jury is still out” on the substantive claims about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and complained about their lack of access to intelligence sources and papers.

It cleared any minister, including Mr Blair, of misleading Parliament.

After the report was published, Mr Straw said: “Not a single committee member, having heard all the evidence both publicly and privately, has found that the BBC’s central and damaging allegation was true.

“I believe that the BBC should now apologise and I note that even the BBC governors in their statement last night did not defend the accuracy of this claim.”

But in a statement, the corporation said: “The BBC believes today’s report from the Foreign Affairs Committee justifies its decision to broadcast the Today programme story of May 29 and the Newsnight story of June 2 and shows that both were in the public interest.

“In particular, we believe the decision to highlight the circumstances surrounding the 45-minute claim has been vindicated.”

The statement added: “It is because of BBC journalism that the problems surrounding the 45-minute claim have come to light and been given proper public attention.

“We note that the committee was deeply divided on the role Alastair Campbell played in the compilation of the September dossier and only reached a decision which supported his position on the casting vote of the Labour chairman.

“We also note that not all the Labour MPs on the committee supported this decision.

“We also consider it important, in the context of our reporting, that in paragraph 100 the committee says unanimously ‘The language used in the September dossier was more assertive than that traditionally used in intelligence documents’.

“And in paragraph 107, the committee says ‘We conclude that the continuing disquiet and unease about the claims made in the September dossier are unlikely to be dispelled unless more evidence of Iraq’s WMD programmes come to light’.”