The Hutton Inquiry

MR CAMPBELL: In the first instance on the instructions of the Prime Minister and also because John Scarlett had asked me to offer him presentational advice on the draft that he submitted in the second week of September.

MR CAMPBELL: I think what the Prime Minister expected of me in this particular communications exercise, if you like, was to perform my role, which I traditionally would perform, on something which crosses Departments, which is the role of coordination. The second point is that this was a document that was to be presented to Parliament and to the public, not just at home but also overseas. It was a major communications exercise. The other point I would make is that the Joint Intelligence Committee, for very obvious reasons, do not have the expertise or the personnel to do that kind of job.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, the Prime Minister ultimately has responsibility for the intelligence agencies. This was, as I said a moment ago, a document that he was presenting to Parliament. He was going to have to be answerable to Parliament for every word in it. Equally, those of us whose job it is to help the Prime Minister and other Ministers put the Government's case to the media and, through them, to the public were going to have to be on top of the detail; and I would say that I was making presentational points in accordance with the job that the Prime Minister and Mr Scarlett had asked me to do.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not believe it should have done and I do not believe it would have done and certainly not Mr Scarlett and the senior representatives of the agencies who sit on the JIC.

MR CAMPBELL: No, the point I was making, my Lord, is that when the dossier was presented to Parliament, the Prime Minister was the person who was going to have to stand at the dispatch box and take all the questions upon it and be answerable to Parliament for its contents. So the point I was making is that he had to be confident. That was a document worthy for him to present to Parliament and for him to have sufficient confidence in it to be able to answer all the questions of MPs and the public. So we never saw this as a document that was making a particular case for a particular policy in relation to Iraq. What it was doing was setting out the facts on Iraq's WMD as the British Government understood them to be.

MR CAMPBELL: From the Joint Intelligence Committee.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, on point 1, when I say "in light of the last 24 hours..." that refers to the fact that Saddam Hussein had announced that he was intending to allow the UN inspectors back in. Now, the Prime Minister and the Government's view was that this was almost certainly another ploy. When I talk about making "more of the point about current concealment plans", I am simply making the point, given that we knew he had an infrastructure for concealing his WMD programme, that that should be brought out more in the dossier. And I then say "it would be stronger if we said that despite sanctions and the policy of containment, he has made real progress", ie real progress in the development of his programmes. My understanding is that John Scarlett agreed with that point; and I think one sentence was added to the text.

MR CAMPBELL: What I meant by that is that the point we were making there would be brought out more effectively and more clearly.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 2 relates to what I spotted as an inconsistency between the executive summary, which said definitively that Saddam and his son Qusay had or have authority to launch chemical and biological weapons, and the point in the main body of the text which said Saddam may have delegated that authority. I had been present at discussions where I thought that was a definitive piece of information, if you like.

MR CAMPBELL: That that authority had indeed been delegated. So I could not really understand why it said one thing in the summary and something different in the main body. In the event John Scarlett, presumably having checked against the assessments and against the raw intelligence, reported that the intelligence only supported "may have".

MR CAMPBELL: Again, the draft of the 16th September referred to the fact that Saddam had sought to secure uranium from Africa, but did not follow the point through, and I was -- wanted to know whether in fact he had been successful in that. So I say "can we say he has secured underlined uranium from Africa". Again the answer came back from John Scarlett: no, he had not and the text stayed exactly as it was in the September 16th draft.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 4 related to an issue that had been well documented, I think, in public already about these aluminium tubes. I was simply making the point that that might be something that was appropriate for the executive summary. John Scarlett, at one point, did put it in the executive summary, but when the final dossier was published in fact it was not there, for reasons which have nothing to do with any comment that I made.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 5 again was a factual question, could we be "clear about the distances by which he is seeking to extend [the] missile range." The draft had worked on extending its range beyond 150 kilometres. I wanted to know if we could say how far beyond. The answer came back was it 200 and that went into the final product.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 6, again you may recall when I first gave evidence that we covered this point, I thought that was unnecessary rhetoric.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 7, again it was a factual question, how much of the £3 billion of assets generated outside UN control was illegal. The answer came back that all of it was illegal and the word "illegal" was inserted into that part of the dossier.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 8, I asked about whether we could be specific about the quantities of some of the munitions that were mentioned. The answer came back that we could not and that point did not change.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 9 I think referred to some of his chemical weapons. In the event, that part of the dossier, again without any comment or input from me, was actually -- was done in a different way. So that point became irrelevant.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I was making an observation that it just read very weakly.

MR CAMPBELL: No.

MR CAMPBELL: It was -- as I say, it was -- John Scarlett came back and said that particular word, according to the intelligence, could not be improved upon.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 10, again this was the observation of an inconsistency. This was in relation to the 45 minute intelligence. The summary said that some of these weapons could be ready within 45 minutes and in the main body of the text it said the Iraqi military may be able to deploy them. I pointed out that the main body was therefore weaker than in the summary.

MR CAMPBELL: And the outcome of that -- John Scarlett, at that time, said that he would check that against the raw intelligence. As it transpired, Julian Miller and his team were already on to that point. When John Scarlett talked in his response to me, he said: the language that you queried has been tightened. That as I understand it had already been done. So on that particular point, I had no input or influence whatever.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I did not, and I did not suggest a view. What is more, I did not chase up how John Scarlett resolved it. I left that entirely to him.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 11 related to what were called in the dossier dual use facilities, in other words facilities that could be used as both civil and -- sorry, both for civilian and for military purposes. I pointed out that "could" again sounded weak and suggested "capable of being used" was a better way of expressing it. I believe that was incorporated into the text.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not, no.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 12, I suggested that in a short section on a foot and mouth disease vaccine plant that a reference to its probable renovation was not necessary. John Scarlett agreed with that and the sentence was removed.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 13, I simply made a factual observation that I suspected that when they wrote 1991, that was either a typographical error or a factual error because it was actually 1998.

MR CAMPBELL: Point 14 was actually a point that both the Prime Minister and I had made; and this was perhaps more complicated than some of the others, and this was an issue, I think, where my role in offering presentational advice was important because the fact is that I did not actually understand the way that it had been described in the September 16th draft that I saw. And Julian Miller, as a result of my failing to understand it, actually came and explained it to me and it did become clear. If I can just explain the point that I, as it were, did not get. I could not understand why it appeared to take less time to build a nuclear device without sanctions -- sorry, I beg your pardon, with sanctions than it did without sanctions. What Julian Miller came and explained to me is what the intelligence was based upon was Saddam Hussein's efforts to acquire the material illegally. In the end what happened is that there was quite a long discussion about this and eventually the text, I think, was made more clear.

MR CAMPBELL: What I was trying to suggest here was that given that the Prime Minister, in a sense, wanted to communicate to the public the reasons why he was becoming more and more concerned about this issue, I was actually suggesting, if you like, as an editorial presentational device, that within the dossier it was explained on such and such a date this assessment with these facts went in; on such and such a date this assessment with these facts went in. And John Scarlett did not do it in that way. He addressed the point in a different way.

MR CAMPBELL: No.

MR CAMPBELL: Simply that Ed Owen, who works for the Foreign Secretary, had said to John Scarlett in an e-mail that I had seen that he felt there were too many bullet points in the executive summary, and I did not agree with that.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: I would.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not believe there are, no, because at -- I mean I think it is important to understand the dynamic of the professional relationship that was at the heart of this, namely the professional relationship between myself and Mr Scarlett. Mr Scarlett was in control of the contents of the dossier. He had asked me for advice on presentation. Both of us were conscious of the fact that this was a -- the expectations surrounding this publication were huge; that the media and Parliamentarians were likely to pore over every word. John Scarlett will freely admit it is not an area he has expertise in and I was able to offer the sort of advice he wanted.

MR CAMPBELL: No. I think if you look at the totality of the comments that I made, both my own comments and those from the Prime Minister, I think you could say that some were clearly neutral, if you like, if you are looking at the comments that are made about the structure of the document. Some you could say, I think fairly, that they were suggestions that would strengthen the text. Others are suggestions that would weaken parts of the text. But the overall aim was actually to seek to provide greater clarity.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: In relation to that second point?

MR CAMPBELL: I understood I was being asked for a list of changes and how John Scarlett, on behalf of the JIC, responded to those requests for changes.

MR CAMPBELL: It would be difficult without having the version -- the memorandum that I finally sent.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: That is right.

MR CAMPBELL: Because I was -- in relation to point 10, as I said a moment ago, I was pointing out an inconsistency between the executive summary and the text. I was not suggesting how that inconsistency should be addressed. I was, therefore, not making the request for a change. This point about 45 minutes had never been a big issue in relation to the planning of the dossier; and the final point I would make is that we knew, at that stage, that the ISC would be looking at all of these issues anyway. So I provided what I was asked to provide, which is a list of the request for change and John Scarlett's responses.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, the first thing I would say is it was not me that was taking that -- just me, should I say, that was taking the strong line. The Prime Minister and other members of the Government took a very strong line on this, firstly because these were, in his and the Government's view, grave allegations, about as grave as could be levelled against the Prime Minister. If they were true then it was not just a case of me having to resign, the Prime Minister would have had to resign. I think it is also fair to say that I had, if you like, political instincts that led me to believe that this could do very serious damage to the standing of the Prime Minister and the Government. It came in the middle of what was a pretty concerted campaign against the Prime Minister by the opposition and parts of the media on the theme of trust. I think the other point I would make finally is it was the fact that it was the BBC. The BBC is not like the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail. The BBC is probably the most respected media organisation in the world, and rightly. These allegations were going to go, as indeed they did, right round the world the moment they were made.

MR CAMPBELL: I think my main objection was born of the sense that I felt nobody was taking our denials and then, following the denials, our complaints at all seriously. As I say, this story went right round the world. It was followed up by media organisations here in very large number and they gave considerable space to it. And the central allegations that started this controversy, the BBC and other parts of the media were not covering in my view the denials of the Prime Minister and others fairly or fully and they just were not taking our complaints seriously.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know. I mean I cannot really -- I can only make my own judgment upon what they have said publicly and what they said to me. But I did not get the sense that they were taking them seriously at all. I think to them it was just another story to kick around on the Today Programme.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, I think as I indicated both -- as indeed I recorded in my diary, and I indicated when I first gave evidence, I think perhaps on the Channel 4 News interview, although I stand by the substance of what I said, I think the manner in which I said it, at times, left something to be desired. But I think it is important to understand the sense of anger and frustration that is building when you have been accused of something very, very serious which you know you have not done, when your efforts to seek to resolve it privately are met with a mixture of disdain and indifference, and then when it becomes a public issue that the allegations are then sort of redefined and the BBC just try to sort or wish away what they had said and try to pretend they had never said it. I think that -- I do not make any effort to disguise the fact, I was extremely angry, I was very frustrated, I was increasingly dispirited about the whole thing, for all sorts of reasons. Professional reasons; I felt I was not actually doing my job properly in getting corrected allegations I knew to be false and were damaging the Prime Minister and the Government. Political reasons, to which I have alluded to earlier. And also personal reasons; it is pretty unpleasant to be accused of this kind of thing without a shred of evidence and without anybody, it seems, remotely taking seriously the complaint that has been made.

MR CAMPBELL: I think the frustration was shared right through the Government because, from the Prime Minister down, through the Cabinet, through the intelligence agencies, the people that work for me, we all knew the allegations were false; and it is a very difficult thing to try to deal with.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, it is not true. My first letter -- bear in mind it is important to understand the whole context of this. Not just me but the Prime Minister had been denying this on a daily, sometimes twice daily basis since the story was first aired. My first letter -- including on the floor of the House of Commons, and with specific regard to the 45 minutes point. My first letter on 6th June said: "With regard to the report on the BBC Today Programme last Thursday at 0607 (transcript enclosed), can you explain to me how it conforms with the BBC's own guidelines, in particular the following three". So I attached the transcript, I set out the three areas of the BBC producer guidelines where I believed they may be in breach and I send that to Mr Sambrook. How anybody can say from that that I did not raise the specific report and the specific allegations that were made, I do not understand.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, that, my Lord, is why I attached the transcript of the 0607 report.

MR CAMPBELL: There were a number of reports which I felt were inaccurate.

MR CAMPBELL: The point was this was the report that did the damage.

MR CAMPBELL: This was the report that went round the world. This was the report that the rest of the media here and overseas picked up. These were the allegations that were being levelled against the Government. It was setting out to Mr Sambrook: here is the transcript. You can judge the guidelines as well as I can but these three guidelines in relation to the use of a single source I believe need looking at. Added to which, since May 29th, when the story was first broadcast, this story was the biggest story not just in Britain but in other parts of the world as well. So the idea that by this stage Mr Sambrook or anybody else at the BBC was not aware of the allegations that we meant, as I say, I do not have it to hand but the quote of the Prime Minister on the floor of the House of Commons is very, very clear. He talks about how with the backing of the JIC Chairman he was making clear that nobody in Government committed this offence in relation to the 45 minutes intelligence. So I do not think Mr Sambrook or Mr Dyke or anybody else could have been in any doubt about what we were saying.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not accept that. Why was I at the Foreign Affairs Committee in the first place? As the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee said, I was there to answer the allegations made against me by the BBC. Added to which, on the morning of my appearance, I think overnight some British soldiers had been killed. That was the lead story on the Today Programme. The second story was my appearance at the Foreign Affairs Committee. I think there were six separate items about it on the Today Programme. There was a report by their political correspondent Norman Smith who said that the reason I am appearing is because the Government has realised this story is not going to go away. My evidence, long before I said a word, the BBC took the decision they were going to cover it live and, like other networks, they covered it live. Normally when the Prime Minister leaves Downing Street to go to Prime Minister's Questions there are a couple of camera crews in the street. The street was packed; and the BBC journalists and others were saying they were there for me, not the Prime Minister. So I think to suggest this story had somehow gone away really does not stand up to much examination.

MR CAMPBELL: No, it was not a discussion with Godric Smith, it was a discussion with the Defence Secretary, part of which Godric Smith heard on my speaker phone in the office, and I was not suggesting to Godric or to Mr Hoon or to anybody else that the name of the person who had come forward be put into the public domain. I was suggesting in advance of the Prime Minister's Liaison Committee appearance that the fact of somebody coming forward should be put into the public domain. And there was a very -- I hesitate even to call it a proposal, it was a thought which was very quickly rejected by the Defence Secretary, Godric and Tom Kelly both though it was a bad idea. But more importantly I raised it with the Prime Minister, he thought it was a bad idea and nothing came of it.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I was not suggesting the name be conveyed.

MR CAMPBELL: What my thought was based on was the idea of whether this should happen, not how. Had the decision been taken that it should have been taken forward, then we would have had a discussion about how to do that, but I was not envisaging doing it in anything other than an open way, making clear that this was information that would come from the Government.

MR CAMPBELL: If he does put that question to me in those terms, that was not what I had in mind.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, what I had in mind at that point was -- I mean bear in mind on 7th July I had been busy all day with if you like helping to organise the Government's response to the Foreign Affairs Committee report. Come the late afternoon, early evening, I am starting to turn my mind to the Prime Minister's forthcoming appearance at the Liaison Committee and what I had in mind was something, a plan, that allowed the Prime Minister when he appeared at the Liaison Committee to be able to avoid what I think could have been a very difficult situation had he been asked about this, the question whether we knew anything about the source. What I had in mind was a chain of events which ended if you like with the Prime Minister being able to say: I am aware of these reports, I am aware somebody has come forward, it is being handled by the Ministry of Defence. My worry was if there was nothing in the public domain at that time, either he would be put in a position where he could leave himself open to the charge of being misleading, in other words if he said nothing when he did know something that would be difficult or he would be put in a position where he, the Prime Minister, would be launching if you like yet another fire storm around this issue.

MR CAMPBELL: No.

MR CAMPBELL: Almost certainly they will have been summarised because the discussions that I had been having would no doubt have been -- would have involved people who were seeing JIC assessments the whole time.

MR CAMPBELL: I do.

MR CAMPBELL: Is this coming on the screen?

MR CAMPBELL: I can see why you might say that; and I would just point you back to Mr Illsley's question, to the part where he says "you were able to see up to September before and after". It is a point I was also asked at the Intelligence and Security Committee where I made clear that I saw the JIC assessments after the production of the dossier, not least in relation to preparing myself for the Parliamentary inquiries that the May 29th reports led to.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, again, you would have to ask Mr Illsley what he meant by the question. I can only explain and stand by the answers that I gave.

MR CAMPBELL: As well, as I say, you would have to ask Mr Illsley that. I know what I saw whilst I was working on the dossier and I know what I saw afterwards.

MR CAMPBELL: Prior to the ...?

MR CAMPBELL: Prior to publication. I mean, I could not give you an answer to that. I attended meetings with the Prime Minister, I attended meetings with Mr Scarlett and with others. Some of them may have been discussing what they knew to be material from the JIC assessments.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, the meetings I was chairing had intelligence officials present, both from SIS and DIS; and I think I gave evidence when I first appeared at the Inquiry about another meeting that I had with the Prime Minister, had with the head of the SIS and a serving SIS officer.

MR CAMPBELL: The meeting with the Prime Minister?

MR CAMPBELL: No, they were not meetings about intelligence. They were meetings to discuss the presentation of the dossier.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, that is exactly why they were there.

MR CAMPBELL: No, they were there because they are intelligence officials who were involved in the preparation of a dossier that the Prime Minister was intending to present to Parliament which was the JIC's best assessment of Saddam Hussein's WMD programmes.

MR CAMPBELL: I would say it is more than that because it also included historical background information. But it certainly included the core of the JIC assessments that had been presented to the Prime Minister.

MR CAMPBELL: I think that is fair enough.

MR CAMPBELL: What led to this dossier was the fact that the Prime Minister was constantly having to explain to Parliament and the public that he was seeing intelligence, it was making him more and more concerned and he wanted to share some of that with the public, that is right.

MR CAMPBELL: I know we met on the 5th and again on the 9th. As a result of those meetings it was made clear right round the system, right round every Department likely to be involved in the production of the dossier, that anything that went before was now in the hands of John Scarlett and it was for him to rewrite it as he saw fit.

MR CAMPBELL: She is.

MR CAMPBELL: That is right.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: I think what I am saying there is that by the time John Scarlett and his team had rewritten the entire dossier, he would get back from the States and by that Monday there would be something else to look at.

MR CAMPBELL: That is right.

MR CAMPBELL: 24th or 25th, I cannot remember.

MR CAMPBELL: Correct.

MR CAMPBELL: It would have been -- I think normally you have to give at least two days' notice for a recall of Parliament like that, so it would have been in the days up to the 24th. I think the Inquiry has a copy of my diary where I record a conversation with the Speaker when he was in New York on the 11th. The reason I remember it was the 11th, he was there for the commemoration of September 11th, and we had a discussion then; and then Jack Straw had a discussion and there were discussions between the Speaker's office and No. 10 that followed that. I think it was in the week before the 24th.

MR CAMPBELL: This is my meeting on the 9th.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes. I could not tell you exactly who was there. Certainly myself, John Scarlett, I recall David Manning being there for a part of the meeting, Jim Poston who was then the head of the CIC. There were two or three representatives of the Foreign Office. There were representatives of the MoD and DIS and there were representatives of the Security Service.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I had a separate meeting prior to this with John Scarlett and three SIS officers. Again, I would have to check with their memories as well, but I think only one of them stayed or two maybe stayed for the whole meeting.

MR CAMPBELL: As I explained when I first gave evidence, there had been a number of reports, specifically one in the Daily Telegraph and one in the Financial Times, and the SIS officers, one wanted to convey to me and I think through me to the Prime Minister that these reports did not reflect their views or the views in their view of the agencies; and we also then had a discussion about how the dossier process might evolve. Then we had the broader meeting, and that led to this outcome.

MR CAMPBELL: None that I can recall.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: No, what they were saying was that they -- it was not the case that those who had been asked to take part in this exercise were in any way being resistant to it, and I felt it important, and I think John Scarlett did as well, given that this note was going to be circulated so widely, that their view as representatives of the leadership of SIS was being put down in print like that and communicated. But it was not -- they were saying, indeed I think the same day, as I recall it, I remember the Foreign Secretary saying to me he had had a discussion with Sir Richard Dearlove, who had made the same point to him. They were going to be as helpful as they possibly could be, bearing in mind the obvious issues of security and source protection. That is the point I am making there.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, that was not an outcome of that meeting. The point about the JIC assessments was the one that I made in the note that Mr Sumption took me through a short while ago, which was that I felt it was important, it was possible to do, to convey, through the dossier, to the public that sense of mounting concern, which can be expressed through the JIC assessments. But I was not at that stage articulating that.

MR CAMPBELL: I am not saying I was not interested in that. In my view it was always going to be the case that the JIC assessments were going to be the basis of this because that is what the Prime Minister has been seeing, that is what was giving him cause for concern. They were the concerns they wanted to communicate to the public.

MR CAMPBELL: When I first read the September 10th draft.

MR CAMPBELL: I had not.

MR CAMPBELL: I certainly assumed it would reflect accurately what the intelligence community thought at that time. Whether it came from an assessment or raw intelligence it frankly was not for me to know, but the --

MR CAMPBELL: No, I am not saying that. I assumed that it did, but when I first --

MR CAMPBELL: -- read the draft of the dossier on September 10th, and I have to say that this 45 minute point has taken on huge significance following the May 29th allegations of the BBC. At the time it was a very small minor part of the dossier.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not think it did. As Mr Dingemans showed me the front page of the Evening Standard, and that -- it is true that the Evening Standard, which is one newspaper, led on it. I think two other national newspapers made that their main point. My point is in the Government, in its presentation, it did not. It was not a big deal.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I was chairing a meeting because the Prime Minister had asked me to look at the presentational aspects of the dossier. In terms of the status, if you like, of myself and John Scarlett, I think for anything with regard to the content of the dossier John Scarlett was, if you like, superior to me. I was making points about presentation, which I think were legitimate and appropriate and which the Prime Minister would have expected me to do. But I do not think it struck anybody in that meeting as odd that it took place in my room and that I chaired the meeting.

MR CAMPBELL: It was an important meeting in terms of the planning of the dossier, certainly.

MR CAMPBELL: The note that is there on the screen is an accurate account of the outcome of that meeting.

MR CAMPBELL: Which is what the meeting was about.

MR CAMPBELL: I did not. I have a lot of meetings, they are not routinely minuted. I am not a minister. The point about this note is it set out accurately the outcome of our meeting; and that is, in my view -- we are all busy and that is the important thing from that meeting.

MR CAMPBELL: No, we had the Al-Qaida document.

MR CAMPBELL: It was.

MR CAMPBELL: I did not, my staff did not and I believe that the note that was sent out was an accurate account of the outcome of that meeting. I think that was sufficient for its purpose.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, if I had to -- as well as the people I have working for me to do the jobs that they do, also had to have an infrastructure to take notes of every single meeting that I have, then that would be a considerable additional cost to the Exchequer.

MR CAMPBELL: Head of News at the Foreign Office.

MR CAMPBELL: The CIC, which is based in the Foreign Office.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, the Prime Minister's special adviser

MR CAMPBELL: They both work for me but we all work for the Prime Minister.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: This group did not happen.

MR CAMPBELL: What I am saying there is, as you rightly say when you read it out, that this team would make recommendations and suggestions and John Scarlett could decide what he wanted to incorporate. I am simply making the factual point that in fact in the end we did not set up the team because John Scarlett took control of the writing in its entirety.

MR CAMPBELL: Because at that stage, and I think again I recorded this at the time, and I think this was raised by Mr Dingemans when I first appeared, what this meeting decided was that John Scarlett would be in charge and No. 10 would give him whatever support he wanted. Now, the other thing that was happening was that there were people from other Departments who were wanting, quite rightly, to be involved and I was seeking to bring those people in. But it was clear, from this moment, that John Scarlett was in charge; and John Scarlett and his team took over the writing of the dossier.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: I think it is fair to say Mr Scarlett and I at this stage were in a management process by which we were making clear and we were laying down what was going to happen on this dossier. There were all sorts of parts of the Government that may have thought they had a vested interest in being involved, and indeed to a greater and lesser extent some were involved. But by this point Mr Scarlett and I were very, very clear about the process that would follow.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, that is again not -- I mean, I am not an intelligence expert. I think sometimes intelligence can also reflect imprecision but, yes, I agree with the basic premise of your question.

MR CAMPBELL: I did not.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Is this in the folder as well?

MR CAMPBELL: 29/0009.

MR CAMPBELL: I will stick with the screen. It is okay.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I would, but also I would say that in a drafting process that anybody working in the drafting process would assume that any inconsistencies would be picked up, as indeed they were.

MR CAMPBELL: I think you would read the dossier from start to finish and certainly presentationally the executive summary was bound to be probably the most important part of the document.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, the only problem that I had in any part of the dossier that related to this point was the one that I drew Mr Sumption's attention to earlier.

MR CAMPBELL: I am saying the problem that I had was the one that I drew attention to.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes. But can I just add to that that was not something that struck me at the time. What struck me at the time was the inconsistency that I pointed out.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, I have to tell you when I first read the dossier, and I think this goes for quite a lot of people who read it both within the Government and when it was published outside the Government, I am not sure this 45 minutes point carried quite the weight that you think. And I drew attention to the 45 minutes point in the way that I did -- there is no point me pretending that I can remember how I reacted when I first saw that draft.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm. That may be so. But I do not think that is a point for me.

MR CAMPBELL: I think I am right in saying I first received the draft on the 10th and I read it that evening.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know is the answer to that.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm. I have no reason to assume that meeting did not go ahead.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I think he is saying that he was not terribly impressed with the draft; but I was impressed by the draft and actually thought it did form the basis of a very strong document.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not believe so.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know and I do not know that he does.

MR CAMPBELL: I think I dealt with some of these e-mails when I first gave evidence and I stand exactly by what I said then, that there were -- within the office, people were making comments, trying to be helpful. But at this stage it was absolutely clear who was in charge, that was John Scarlett, and who within No. 10 was communicating with John Scarlett, and that was myself, Sir David Manning and Jonathan Powell; and not, with respect, Phil Bassett, Danny Pruce or any other people on this e-mail.

MR CAMPBELL: He is a special adviser. He no longer works in No. 10, he works for Lord Faulkner. But I am not sure special advisers are -- I think I can say I was a senior special adviser. I think the rest are pretty much of equal rank.

MR CAMPBELL: No, they were not, and the discussion that mattered was the discussion that I was having with John Scarlett and any discussion that the Prime Minister, Sir David Manning or Jonathan Powell were having with John Scarlett.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Not to my recollection, no, because any discussion I was having with John Scarlett was based on -- I did not agree with this assessment. I did not agree that the September 10th draft was not a good document, it was. Obviously, as John Scarlett himself said, there was a lot of work to do on it and that work was done. But it was done according to the principles we had agreed and that were set out in that note of September 9th.

MR CAMPBELL: I do, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: It was John Scarlett's idea to have a conclusion.

MR CAMPBELL: I am sure about that.

MR CAMPBELL: I am sure. And as I said the last time I appeared, I am not even aware that Mr Scarlett would have been made aware of these e-mails, I doubt that he was. There is -- Mr Scarlett had the idea of writing a conclusion, he drafted a conclusion. He raised the conclusion with me later and I knew that he had doubts about it himself. I read the conclusion he drafted and I agreed with those doubts and ultimately there was no conclusion.

MR CAMPBELL: Sorry, this is now the 16th, is it?

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: As I say, the only point I made in relation to this is the inconsistency I pointed out between the executive summary and the text, which I think was the first from the main text that you read.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Concealment?

MR CAMPBELL: I will have to take your word for that. I do not have the FAC memorandum, unless you can -- I have it somewhere, I can find it.

MR CAMPBELL: Actually I can read -- I have not seen the evidence, I beg your pardon. Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: There is nothing on the screen at the moment at all.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes. It is quite a long way down, I think.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: I mean, I do not know and I do not think it is a very -- within the discussions we were having, either myself and John Scarlett or myself and the FAC, I do not think it is a very big point. I agree with you that for the sake of completeness it could easily have gone in. I do not think -- I would have had nothing to worry about that being expressed in exactly the way you have expressed it.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: No, it is an observation that the dossier as it goes through the drafting process is improving and becoming clearer, becoming the kind of document that the Prime Minister would feel comfortable about presenting to Parliament.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I was keen, and this is the job the Prime Minister asked me to do, to make sure that the dossier as presented to Parliament was a strong, clear, consistent document that allowed him effectively to explain to the British public the reality of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's WMD. That is my job in these circumstances; and I think if you are saying "strong" equals "sexed up", I do not accept that at all. If you are saying "strong" equals a good, solid piece of work that does the job that the Prime Minister wants it to do, then I agree with that.

MR CAMPBELL: It would depend on the circumstances that you were putting. None of it would be sexing up unless you were doing something improper in relation to the intelligence judgments. This dossier could only be as strong as a public document as the underlying intelligence assessments allowed it to be.

MR CAMPBELL: I was not. I was commenting upon a draft of a document that the Prime Minister was expected to present to Parliament and the public. And I was doing so in my capacity as the Prime Minister's adviser, and in this instance John Scarlett's adviser because that is what he had asked me to do, on presentational issues.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I do. I am aware of that.

MR CAMPBELL: No. May I say, I do not think there would have been anything improper had he done so because I had pointed out an inconsistency and it was for John Scarlett to resolve that in whatever way he and Julian Miller and Julian Miller's team wanted. But, as I understand it from Mr Scarlett, that is a point Mr Miller had already spotted. I do not accept that in me saying on page 17, two lines from the bottom, "'may' is weaker than in the summary" I am doing anything more than pointing out what is an inconsistency, which is one of the points the Prime Minister had asked me to undertake.

MR CAMPBELL: The inconsistency.

MR CAMPBELL: Correct.

MR CAMPBELL: No, the answer depends --

MR CAMPBELL: The answer depends upon the underlying intelligence assessments which Mr Scarlett and Mr Miller have. They are not a matter for me.

MR CAMPBELL: I am not suggesting "may" might be strengthened. I am pointing out that in one place it is more definitive than in another. That is an inconsistency. And this is a document which -- I mean the JIC, their job, most of the time, is obviously to prepare assessments to be read by small numbers of other experts. This was a document to be read by the public. And that -- it was being presented by the Prime Minister. It was going to attract massive attention around the world. I was doing the job on this the Prime Minister asked me to do. And this was a very, very, very small part of it. This was not an important part of those discussions.

MR CAMPBELL: You have.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know when I began drafting the foreword, but it was around about this time.

MR CAMPBELL: I do.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I drafted a foreword based on a discussion with the Prime Minister and my colleagues.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, more to the point the Prime Minister had. Can I also just say I can see from that and the line above, for example, "internal" when it should be "intention" and also some of the question marks on page 1, that is my secretary typing up my first handwritten version before it comes back to me.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: I was, I think, at the right time in the process, given that the foreword obviously was going to be an important part of the document overall, it would be the first thing that anybody getting the document would read, this was the right time to start drafting the foreword. I had a discussion with the Prime Minister, I think with David Manning, with Jonathan Powell, certainly with John Scarlett, and I based -- I started a draft based upon what the Prime Minister wanted to say. And certainly that was one of the points that he felt was worth covering.

MR CAMPBELL: Within the foreword or within the dossier?

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I think I am right in saying in the foreword the 45 minutes point did not change. I accept and agree that within the various points of the different drafts of the dossier where the 45 minutes point was put that they were changing, but I do not think the central thrust of the point changed at all. I mean I accept that -- bear in mind, again, at this point I have not, as we have for the purposes of this Inquiry, sat down literally and gone through every draft and every e-mail and every note and all the rest of it. I think the central point I am making is that the 45 minutes point, the thrust of that point, stayed the same throughout; and I certainly had no influence upon it whatever. And you skirted by -- you said you are not suggesting that I inserted it, but I mean --

MR CAMPBELL: I am grateful for that; but I think it is important that I am allowed to set the context for my FAC appearance, which is that I was being accused of that very thing, and that is what I was there to defend myself against.

MR CAMPBELL: I did not look through every draft, no.

MR CAMPBELL: I have gone and looked at all of the drafts that I saw which were in the file that I had on the dossier; and the drafts that I saw were the 10th September and the 16th September and the final draft that was sent to me I think days before publication. This was a drafting process. Julian Miller and his team were in charge of that, John Scarlett was in charge of the document; and I was there, at the FAC, to defend myself against very, very serious charges; and I -- it is easy now -- you can pick this word and that word but I stand by my evidence to the FAC and the defence I was making myself against those charges.

MR CAMPBELL: Sorry, you are now going back to point 10 of my memo.

MR CAMPBELL: The central point on 45 minutes I do not believe changed substantively. I pointed out an inconsistency and John Scarlett and Julian Miller addressed that inconsistency.

MR CAMPBELL: I stand by my answer there.

MR CAMPBELL: I did.

MR CAMPBELL: Sorry, I think we just need to go down a little bit more.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes. No, we need to go further down.

MR CAMPBELL: I will take your word for that, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: I did, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: We did.

MR CAMPBELL: It certainly was, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, because as well as these documents we had discussions; and also I mentioned earlier that in relation to this Inquiry, there for example have come to light, subsequent to this, e-mails about further discussions which, at the time, we did not recall. Now, that is why we say "as far as we recall". At the time, I went to the Foreign Affairs Committee on I think it was Wednesday. I was asked to provide, and it was not just in relation to this part of our discussions, but in four separate areas, substantial additional material and information by the Friday morning. We had a limited amount of time. We did the obvious thing. We went to the file. We got out the file. The file had the drafts that I had seen and it had these exchanges. So I think "as far as we recall" is an accurate way of putting our discussions at the time.

MR CAMPBELL: I see, I beg your pardon --

MR CAMPBELL: No, I do not accept that at all. If you are saying that we could have simply supplied the documents to them, that is true. However, as you will have seen from the documents yourself, they require pretty considerable explanation. Point 9 on page 16, bottom line, "'might' reads very weakly". The other thing you would have to do with this, you would have to supply the drafts. And the JIC, and I think this would go -- I know it went I think for the Foreign Secretary as well, and for the Cabinet Secretary and others -- did not think it was appropriate to provide the drafts to the Foreign Affairs Committee. So these exchanges required explanation. We did sit down and try to recall all the discussions that we had, and we did have, as the basis of that, these documents, that is correct. But I do not think that the point that you are making is a fair one.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: No.

MR CAMPBELL: There was a document which I was aware, from the weekend, John Scarlett was minded to write; and this again is something that I was asked about by Mr Dingemans when I first appeared, and it is complicated. If I could just have a little time to explain this. You may recall that I spoke to John Scarlett when the allegations were first made and asked whether he might consider writing -- allowing to be published a letter making clear that no wrongdoing had taken place. John Scarlett told me over that weekend that he was minded to set out a note for Ministers that Ministers could draw on. I was in America for a funeral when I wrote this note to the Prime Minister. I would normally speak to the Prime Minister before Prime Minister's Questions, not send him notes. The point I was making, at this stage of the process, John Scarlett was in the process as far as I understand it of writing a note about the dossier process. That is what this is a reference to.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I am not suggesting that the Prime Minister do anything that would not accord with the facts. The facts at that time were John Scarlett had told me over the weekend he was thinking about writing a note. The Prime Minister for obvious reasons was very concerned about this issue, about what he should say about it at Prime Minister's Questions. I am aware that the JIC Chairman is writing something about this. I am aware that the Prime Minister is about to appear before Parliament to to be asked about it and suggesting that he make reference to this analysis which I believe the Inquiry has seen of the dossier process. So I accept it is not very clearly written, but bear in mind this is me writing to the Prime Minister about issues he and I will be discussing the whole time anyway.

MR CAMPBELL: It is part of the normal stuff of presentation. Again that sentence, in terms of what we did in relation to the dossier, is not complete. But again the Prime Minister knows the complete picture, as do I. And this is a note -- this is, if you like, correspondence from myself to the Prime Minister which frankly one does not expect to be published. But he knows and I know what I am talking about in relation to what we on the presentational side at Downing Street did in relation to the dossier.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: The explanation as to why the Prime Minister and the Government were growing more and more concerned about the issue of Iraq's WMD.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I think it is the point that Lord Hutton alluded to earlier. If you mean strong in the sense of a document that is going to stand up to rigorous scrutiny, and you mean strong in the sense of it presents what the Government is saying and what the Prime Minister is presenting to Parliament, well then that is exactly what I saw my role as being, assisting John Scarlett to do that.

MR CAMPBELL: Absolutely not.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not think so. I mentioned for example in relation to the foot and mouth plant. I think that again it was a small part of the dossier but you could argue that was weakening. I think in relation to the -- there was the point about the missile range. I mean that is just a factual observation, the point about them getting the date wrong. I mean, I really do not think that these 16 points, all the points that were made in the e-mails that have since been sent to the Inquiry, I really do not accept they amount to strengthening in the terms that you imply. They certainly do not amount to a transformation of the dossier.

MR CAMPBELL: Where is that analysis from? I do not ...

MR CAMPBELL: I have to take your word for it, I have not seen the document.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Can I just ask, is this a draft of something that I have written?

MR CAMPBELL: What, the non- italicised, non-underlined bits?

MR CAMPBELL: Right.

MR CAMPBELL: I see, I see.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not think so. I do not think it is being fair. I think -- this is me thinking on my feet because I have not seen this before. There was a discussion on the Wednesday when the Prime Minister did Prime Minister's Questions, which is presumably the day before or two days before John Scarlett and I are discussing this; and the Prime Minister had a discussion with Sir John Scarlett and Sir David Omand about how best to express this. I think the Prime Minister following that discussion took the judgment that we should be making clear that nobody had sought to override the intelligence judgments. I think this is just to make that consistent with that. I do not think anybody was ever suggesting, within the Government system, that there had been interference with intelligence judgments. As I say, I think that is what that will refer to.

MR CAMPBELL: I think it was probably to restate one of the central points that was made on May 29th by the Today Programme.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes, I have.

MR CAMPBELL: What that means is, in a sense, ownership of the production. As it says, "the public handling and the briefing" now that essentially the dossier is a product to be put into the public domain. As I understand it -- that was not a meeting that I attended but it was a meeting to discuss -- you can see, for example, the point there, it is being issued formally as a command paper, so the contact with the stationery office, stationery office, how we are going to print copies, how many copies are going to be printed. It is those kind of issues that that meeting was discussing. Those were going to be the responsibility of No. 10.

MR CAMPBELL: That is true.

MR CAMPBELL: They were. Any points to do with the text had to be cleared with Mr Scarlett. Indeed, Mr Scarlett spent the weekend prior to publication at the printers and personally signed off the proofs page by page.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes. Some of them.

MR CAMPBELL: This is my recollection of the conversation with Geoff Hoon on that day; and this is my recollection of what Mr Hoon was saying to me about the information that had been told to him within the MoD. I think if I may just make an observation, I am happy to stand and account for anything that I have written in a private diary. But I think it does risk at parts being unfair to others and that is a point I made the first time round.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes. But certainly one of the points that I -- early in the discussions we were having in relation to the person who had come forward, this point, you know, about accepting that this person said that the intelligence went in late, but again on that, I mean, as has been pointed out, the 45 minutes point was under a headline, "Recent Intelligence", so it was not actually a very -- it was not a terribly big point. It am just making an observation there about what I took from the first conversations I had.

MR CAMPBELL: Because it was I think clear within the MoD from the outset that there were real difficulties here. The person who had come forward, and at this stage I did not know that it was Dr Kelly, was saying that they had said certain things. Clearly there had been some sort of unauthorised contact. And I think, from early on, it was never thought necessarily that this was, as I said when you last questioned me, necessarily unalloyed good news that this person as it had were had come forward.

MR CAMPBELL: I did.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not deny and I did not deny when I was questioned by Mr Sumption that I was very, very angry and frustrated about this whole situation and the BBC were saying that the source for their story was a senior intelligence official, somebody centrally involved in the drawing of the dossier. I was as certain as it is possible to be in myself, and I think so was Sir John Scarlett and so was Sir Richard Dearlove and so was the Prime Minister, that this was probably not the case, and therefore I felt it was important from May 29th that the Government have these allegations withdrawn and retracted; and as I explained when I first gave evidence, I felt that this development was probably important to that.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know that he used those exact words. I used those words to convey there the sense of what I felt he was saying to me, which was that this person had come forward, the person had acknowledged that he had done something wrong in having the unauthorised contact with Mr Gilligan. What I felt Mr Hoon was saying was that the person was saying: yes, I did some of these things. I did not do these, and I hope that by being honest and straightforward in coming forward to you that will be taken into account in any disciplinary action that might follow. And that was my assessment of what Mr Hoon was saying to me.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I would not normally, no, but I --

MR CAMPBELL: It is not a term that I would normally use. It may be that the Secretary of State used that. It is certainly my sense of what he said. But I cannot vouch 100 per cent for the Secretary of State using those exact words.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, we discussed it, I think, on the 5th and the 6th although I think on the 5th -- the extracts have not been published for this, but the 5th I was very much focused on the BBC Governors and another issue relating to Sir Richard Dearlove; but certainly I wrote this on the 6th and it reflects those conversations over the weekend. And I think both of us felt that this was a development that was relevant both to the FAC report, which was being published on Monday, and the BBC Governors' meeting on Sunday evening.

MR CAMPBELL: I was not aware at this stage that it was Dr Kelly.

MR CAMPBELL: That again is the impression I was getting. I mean by now I have spoken to the Prime Minister, I am speaking to Jonathan Powell, I have spoken to the Secretary of State; and the sense I was getting was that this was somebody who was not centrally involved in the dossier.

MR CAMPBELL: Correct.

MR CAMPBELL: No, because I think what -- I felt that in relation to these allegations we had to get -- they were so damaging to the Prime Minister and the Government, we had to get to a position where the BBC withdrew them. The BBC by then had stated -- I do not quite understand the intellectual underpinning for this statement, but they had said they would accept the allegations were false if there was a unanimous verdict by the Foreign Affairs Committee, and that is what I am referring to there.

MR CAMPBELL: That is I am afraid the journalist in me coming out. That is the issue, get that issue to those two bodies that were relevant to this situation at the time, the BBC Governors and the FAC. I am not talking about getting anything as it were public.

MR CAMPBELL: That is, I think, to be perfectly frank, the Prime Minister humouring me. I think I am saying to the Prime Minister: I think we should get this to the BBC Governors and to the FAC Chairman now; and he is basically saying: look, do not do anything, just wait until tomorrow, we will talk about it again.

MR CAMPBELL: I think that is part of the same conversation, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: That was not what I was thinking about at that time, my Lord, no. What I was -- the thought I had there, and I think this was in large part shared by Mr Hoon, was that this was a development potentially absolutely central to the discussion the Governors were having on the Sunday evening and to the report that was being published on the Monday. So I was talking there about whether Donald Anderson, the Chairman of the FAC, should be informed and whether the BBC Governors should be informed.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, I think the -- I think the Chairman -- I think the Chairman certainly could have been trusted to be told something like this in confidence.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Again, and I cannot vouch for this being verbatim, but this is the sense that I was getting from the meetings that I attended on the 7th.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Can I say I think that is me quoting Sir Kevin Tebbit, he felt rather than --

MR CAMPBELL: That is again jumping ahead. If it transpires that the person who has come forward -- I think by this stage I will have known the name; yes, I certainly would have known by this, by the morning of the 7th, that that person is judged by the MoD to be in all likelihood Mr Gilligan's source -- that these are the points we should be making.

MR CAMPBELL: Making to the media, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: No, not at this stage. I am saying --

MR CAMPBELL: Once the interview has happened and it has been concluded that in all likelihood this is Mr Gilligan's source.

MR CAMPBELL: I did, but not about that issue. I think I made that clear in the first note I sent to the Inquiry accompanying the diaries the first time I appeared.

MR CAMPBELL: Right. The discussion that I had there in relation to the source that I then go on to talk about was with the Secretary of State, not with Pam Teare.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not recall. I imagine we were discussing -- as I say, at 7th July I was taken up with the Foreign Affairs Committee report. I imagine at some point in the day I would just have been trying to find out what was going on in relation to the issue of the source, but I do not think anything of substance.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: No, no, I am not saying I am talking to her about the FAC report.

MR CAMPBELL: No, the point I was making about Geoff Hoon re the source, when it goes on to talk about the discussion we have been discussing earlier that was part overheard by Godric Smith, I am making the point there that Pam Teare was not party to that.

MR CAMPBELL: Fine.

MR CAMPBELL: I was, again -- I do not think we are talking about anything of great -- that will surprise you. I was simply trying to find out what was happening.

MR CAMPBELL: That I have no recollection of those conversations other than I was trying to find out what was going on.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I cannot emphasise enough that is not what I was discussing with Pam Teare.

MR CAMPBELL: I cannot help you beyond what I have said, that at some point I would have phoned up and just said to Pam: what is going on in relation to the -- where are we on the source issue? I had no discussion about the Q and A.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes, I know. This is at the end of the day. The only conversation I had with anybody from the MoD that I can recall, and therefore that says to me that was of anything, if you like, that was out of the ordinary, was the one that I had with Geoff Hoon. So I think I am just -- you know, I am going through the day, I am working on the FAC report, I then just want to know what is going on. I am sorry I cannot go any further than that, but I cannot.

MR CAMPBELL: This -- they -- again this is diary writing which is not -- does not accurately express what is going on. If you are reading into that that Sir David Omand and Kevin Tebbit were somehow involved in this discussion about this proposal, this thought that I had, they were not. The Prime Minister is making the point there, again: look, just leave this to David Omand and Kevin Tebbit, let them sort it.

MR CAMPBELL: That is, I think, a general point of principle that the Prime Minister is expressing to me. You just have to let them get on with it. They are the making the point that the person who has come forward, Dr Kelly, has to be treated properly. Again -- I would like to emphasise in relation to this, this is a situation where I am thinking here not about Dr Kelly, I am thinking about the Prime Minister and his situation at the Liaison Committee the next morning, and I explained earlier the reasons why I was focused upon that in the way that I was. But this is a thought that is just quashed quickly; and that is the end of it. It is not something that we took forward. David Omand and Kevin Tebbit were not aware of it, unless Geoff Hoon had raised it with Kevin Tebbit, which I do not think he did.

MR CAMPBELL: The thought that we should get something out into the public domain overnight prior to the Prime Minister's Liaison Committee appearance.

MR CAMPBELL: The "it" was I think, my Lord, anything that in their view -- this is something which I do not believe they were aware of at the time -- would cut across the approach they were taking which was that Dr Kelly had to be treated properly. That meant they had to go through the process they were going through. Now, by this time the -- if you go back to the -- I think the 4th when Geoff Hoon was certainly making the point to me that there are lines being prepared, because there is an assumption that this development might actually leak very, very quickly, because I am afraid these things have a habit of doing so. There was an assumption that this was going to become public at some point. I did not want and I did not think it would be good for the Prime Minister if the first time that this issue was in the public domain was when he was appearing at the Liaison Committee. And the other point I would like to make on that --

MR CAMPBELL: No, leave it to Omand and Tebbit judgment and they did not want to do it, ie anything out of the ordinary, untoward, anything like this. This conversation I had with the Prime Minister -- I apologise for this my Lord, this is my diary that I am writing. At the end of the day, it is not an account of the day, it is me sitting down and scribbling whatever comes into my head. Now, that is just the reality of what this is. So there is nothing specific there that was ever put to Sir David Omand or Sir Kevin Tebbit, and the conversation that I had with the Prime Minister, that was the end of it. This "it" went no further.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I did not, no.

MR CAMPBELL: With Mr Hoon, I did.

MR CAMPBELL: What -- and again it is -- you are presenting it as though it is like a sort of thought through proposal. I have come to the end of the day on the FAC, I am thinking about the Liaison Committee, I speak to the Secretary of State and I say I do not want the Prime Minister to be in a position where he is either potentially misleading MPs or he is starting off another fire storm about this issue. Therefore, what do you think about the idea that we put this into the public domain overnight and the Prime Minister can then just respond by effectively parking it at the Committee? Mr Hoon did not think it was a good idea. Godric Smith did not think it was a good idea. Tom Kelly, the only other person who was aware of it, did not think it was a good idea; but, most importantly, the Prime Minister thought it was a bad idea and that was it.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not think it was a problem, I was already aware of that.

MR CAMPBELL: I think that is a question for him. I think the point he was concerned about was that -- and I -- once I knew this, I had always thought that the BBC, when it came to defending Dr Kelly as a credible source for the allegations that they made, would say: the reason why we can say that he is so credible is because he once sat alongside the Foreign Secretary at a Select Committee. I never, in fact, saw that as a terribly impressive point but perhaps Mr Hoon did.

MR CAMPBELL: I think the Defence Secretary was saying to me: did you know by that time -- which I did by that time, because the Foreign Secretary had told me in the morning -- did you know that this man had once sat alongside Jack Straw at a Select Committee? Yes, I did. I think Mr Hoon thought that was a bigger problem than I did.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, that is what you are saying to the press, ie those of us whose job it is to talk to the press, and particularly Tom Kelly and Godric Smith, we were making clear our view -- I think this goes back to the FAC, that on the back of the FAC report, regardless of the fact that the BBC's response to it was to say that it justified their journalism, that we felt confident that eventually they would be forced to apologise for this.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, I do not spend that much time speaking to journalists, but I do talk to journalists, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, yes is the answer.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes, I was talking to journalists certainly.

MR CAMPBELL: At this particular time?

MR CAMPBELL: I was -- I mean, I talked to journalists when -- I mainly talk to editors and senior journalists. At this time I was emphasising that I did not believe that the BBC source was a senior intelligence official and I did not believe that their source was somebody centrally involved in the drawing up of the dossier; and also by now -- but by now I am at the centre of the story whether I like it or not, so journalists were asking me about my position in relation to this, so I was talking about that.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, most -- I do not -- I no longer know with journalists what on the record and off the record is. I think most -- when I talk to journalists I make an assumption that there is a likelihood it will end up in print

MR CAMPBELL: No, no. And I do not believe I ever thought he was employed at the Foreign Office. As far as I was concerned, he was an MoD official.

MR CAMPBELL: "Wall to wall all day" is a reference to the FAC coverage.

MR CAMPBELL: Source issue means that the reports that are coming back from the MoD, in my case through Jonathan Powell, there were no developments.

MR CAMPBELL: That is again I presume from Jonathan Powell, that the conclusion is probably being reached that this is Mr Gilligan's single source that he mentioned at the Foreign Affairs Committee but they cannot be sure.

MR CAMPBELL: I think in relation to that that does risk being unfair to Mr Hoon because I think that is if you like a conflation of the fact that Mr Hoon was keen for the point on the 6th to be made clear to the BBC, to the FAC, that this development had taken place; but I would admit that in terms of the conversation that I think that refers to, it was I that was -- that was -- I think this goes back to the proposal we were discussing earlier. So I think that section does risk being unfair to Mr Hoon.

MR CAMPBELL: No, I do not think something like that, frankly, could be.

MR CAMPBELL: No, that is -- and again if you look at what I recorded in the extract just above that, I talk about papers plural. But in any event all that is being discussed at this stage, and it is a very, very short passage this, we are talking a matter of minutes, is, if you like, whether this should be done. Had the decision been taken that, yes, this should be done, there would then have been a proper discussion about how. But that is not a piece of information that the Government could reasonably put into the public domain in an anonymous unattributable way. Then you would have gone on to whether it was an MoD statement, a No. 10 statement, whether it was -- by now you get to the evening, whether you actually wait for the evening papers and the next day. But we never got to that. This was a thought that was born and died within minutes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes, I think I can. That I believe refers to the fact that during the Prime Minister's evidence to the Liaison Committee I spoke to Mr Hoon again to try to find out what was going on. Mr Hoon was not clear exactly where the MoD was on the process. I said the Prime Minister would want to know when he came back and that I think is he, Mr Hoon, gets going to find out, as it were -- and I then just reiterate "TB clear we should leave the bureaucracy to deal with it". Whether that is a point I am making to myself or a point I made to Mr Hoon, I do not know.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Because I think by that stage within these meetings the point was continually being made that everybody thinks this is going to become public quite soon. The development had been communicated to the ISC. Ann Taylor, as you rightly say, did not want to be put in a position where it might even look like she was, as it were, being directed by the Government, but she did express an interest or she made clear that her committee would express an interest in seeing and interviewing the person who had come forward. So from that moment the discussion then revolved around: how is that development to be put into the public domain? The decision was taken that it should be done as an MoD statement.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: What we were told was that Dr Kelly was out of London, I think he was driving back, and had had to pull in to have the statement read to him and then cleared by him.

MR CAMPBELL: How long?

MR CAMPBELL: I could not give you for sure but I would have thought something under an hour.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know, but an hour I would have guessed.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: The second part of that first sentence I do remember the discussion on this; and I think that may have been my observation, that it goes back to the point I was making earlier about the discussion I had with Mr Hoon. I felt that the BBC would seek to defend their source on the grounds that he had sat next to Jack Straw at a Select Committee, that would be one of the central arguments they would deploy; and that I think is thinking forward to that. So, I felt, and I think this was something that others felt, that the BBC's -- not just the BBC but other parts of the media might say that we were seeking to say that Dr Kelly, if it turned out Dr Kelly was the source, was not a senior figure, was not terribly important and all the rest of it. I think these are points, if you like, that actually make clear that we are not going to be saying Dr Kelly is nothing. We are not going to be saying that Dr Kelly is anything other than an expert in his field; and we are going to acknowledge he is somebody who worked closely with Ministers.

MR CAMPBELL: Liaison Committee.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm, hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not. I do not recall exactly when it ended. If it was a normal day and Parliament was sitting then one of Tom or Godric would have had to have left at 3.45 to do that afternoon's briefing. I think I have a recollection of them both being there. So I just do not know when the meeting ended.

MR CAMPBELL: No, that does not refer to me, I do not think. I think that is me referring to the response that I have agreed with Tom and Godric is the response to the BBC statement. But I mean, again, just to set the context for this, this was, if you like, a media fire storm. I mean, that is what it was. Every part of this, every development in this was a very major story at the time. Our phones were ringing the whole time saying, you know: what are you saying about this? What are you saying about that? When the BBC put out their statement saying or seeking to suggest that this person could not possibly have been their source, we are being asked obviously: what do you say about this? This is the point we are making. This is what we call a non-denial denial.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, certainly on that, I think a decision was taken within the BBC and obviously within the BBC there were people at executive level who knew that Dr Kelly, at this stage, was the source. They took a decision that they were not going to cover the story; and that is when I say big conspiracy, that is not me getting paranoid, that is what that is a reference to, that they had basically taken a decision they were not going to cover this. Then when I say we kept pressing on as best we could, what I mean by that is we are drawing attention to the importance of this as an issue because of course the BBC at that stage have said -- their central point has been: we are not making these allegations, the source was.

MR CAMPBELL: No, that I think is the point that I am making. We keep having to make the point to the press that in our view, if this is the source then the story is wrong and the BBC should acknowledge that. And that is the point that we are making; and I think that the -- I know that Tom Kelly is before the Inquiry tomorrow so he will have to answer the questions that you put then. But the points that he made at that briefing were in response to a BBC response to the MoD statement that was seeking to put over the point that this could not possibly be the source and that is why he had to make the points that he did.

MR CAMPBELL: That is correct, yes.

MR CAMPBELL: That was my view. There were -- although again qualified by the observation that I made earlier, qualified further, I think you raised other parts of my diaries when I first gave evidence, it was never going to be unalloyed but I think the --

MR CAMPBELL: But this had become the nub of the issue. That was not Dr Kelly's fault. He did not know that was going to happen when he met Mr Gilligan but that was the reality of the situation that now pertained.

MR CAMPBELL: That it was not clear that it was necessarily going to be unalloyed good news for Dr Kelly to appear in public because he may well have things to say that would not necessarily accord with Government policy.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, you have probably, no doubt, read some of the transcripts and you may have seen some of the video coverage of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I do not believe the Foreign Affairs Committee would have held back from asking whatever questions they wanted.

MR CAMPBELL: I think by now -- I mean, I think the mood around No. 10 and I suspect much of the rest of the Government by now is that this whole issue is taking up a huge amount of time and energy; the BBC clearly were not going to accept they were wrong. They were not investigating, in my view, the complaint. It was frankly just going nowhere.

MR CAMPBELL: No, just generally. And I think that what had happened is that the statement had gone out, everybody felt it was inevitable at some point he was going to be identified. It was probably certain that the FAC and the ISC would want to see him. That was where this was heading. But I think by now, frankly, everybody is thinking this whole thing is just -- I do not think -- I think everybody felt pretty dispirited by the whole thing.

MR CAMPBELL: I was aware that that was the policy that they had agreed.

MR CAMPBELL: (Pause). I think I learnt it from Pam or from Kate Wilson at one of the morning meetings, that that was the approach they were taking.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know.

MR CAMPBELL: As I said when I first gave evidence, I had been asked by the Prime Minister to take pretty much of a back seat on all of this. I can see why that plan was put together. It is, as I explained earlier when I gave evidence before, the reality of a lot of press office work; but I think it would have been better if there had been greater clarity and control in the process. I think it is always a mistake to cede control on these issues to the press.

MR CAMPBELL: I thought he had been told, that -- I thought he understood, certainly I understood that he understood that that was going to happen.

MR CAMPBELL: That if it was put to them by the press.

MR CAMPBELL: Again, specifically I think it was -- it was within the context of those meetings then. I cannot specifically recall that.

MR CAMPBELL: Had not?

MR CAMPBELL: Well, just to go back to the point I made earlier.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, it is actually to answer the question. I think that in a situation like this, where you have a person there who whilst experienced with the press on one level has not necessarily experienced what it is like dealing when you personally are the centre of this sort of thing, then I think it is best that you are brought in and are part of an agreed plan and agreed strategy which you then implement together.

MR CAMPBELL: Again, I can see why in the circumstances that existed at the time the plan that was put together was put together. As I said both times I have appeared now, I always think it is better in these difficult situations, you have a plan, you involve everybody in that, everyone knows what is going on. But, again, the -- I mean I read Kate Wilson's evidence for example. I never spoke to Dr Kelly. I do not know how he was reacting. I mean, I got the sense from the way she was describing those conversations that maybe he did not want the help that was being offered. I just do not know. But I do not think it is really fair for me to deliver judgment in the way that you are asking me to.

MR CAMPBELL: Hmm.

MR CAMPBELL: I do not know.

MR CAMPBELL: Well, there would not be any need for it. The statement had gone out. I have said, you know, what I think about the fact that this came out as it were in an uncontrolled way. Beyond that, there is no real purpose served. As I say, again, just to put the other side of this, there was a -- this was a -- the media were banging the phones of everybody the whole time, but I am not aware of what you are referring to in relation to what Mr Blitz was told after the name.

MR CAMPBELL: I see. I am not aware of that.

MR CAMPBELL: Yes.

MR CAMPBELL: No.

MR CAMPBELL: I think it goes back to the point I made about 9th July. I mean, through this whole episode, really, what has been so -- it has obviously been terrible and far worse for Dr Kelly and his family than for anybody else but what has been terrible from our perspective is that at every stage of this we have felt as it were to be the wronged party and yet nothing has really ever gone according to the outcome that we might have wished, and frankly I think it just reflected in the mood that then existed in Downing Street that this was something which we were just going to have to sort of put behind us and forget.

MR CAMPBELL: Again, I think that was a -- myself and Jonathan Powell just wanted to be assured by the MoD that Dr Kelly was being prepared, as an FAC appearance does require a lot of preparation. I think it was Kate Wilson, at a morning meeting.

MR CAMPBELL: No. 10, No. 10.

MR CAMPBELL: That will be a reference -- the discussions I have about these sorts of issues would be myself, Tom Kelly and Godric Smith.

MR CAMPBELL: The Prime Minister would not -- I mean, I am not suggesting there that anybody is saying that we should be doing it ourselves. I am just making the point -- the Prime Minister was clear we should be saying nothing about this at all and beyond the strategic points that I had been making earlier, namely if this is the person then the BBC story is wrong and the BBC should be big enough to accept that.