Timeline: the Gilligan affair
Read full transcript of Gilligan's Today report
Fri 18 Jul 2003 09.37 EDT First published on Fri 18 Jul 2003 09.37 EDT
Mandelson criticises BBC and Gilligan
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Mandelson criticises Andrew Gilligan, describing him as a "loose cannon" and says BBC governors made a "crass error" in backing him to the hilt.
Lord Hutton, the law lord who will conduct the independent judicial inquiry into the events that led to the death of David Kelly, has insisted that he, and he alone, will decide the scope of the investigation. Lord Hutton said the government had promised the "fullest cooperation" with his inquiry and expected "all other authorities and parties to do the same" - including the BBC. "It will be for me to decide, as I think right within my terms of reference, which matters will be the subject of my investigation. It is also my intention to conduct the inquiry mostly in public," he says.
An inquest into the death of weapons expert David Kelly is opened and adjourned. Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner said the 59-year-old died from an "incised wound" to the left wrist. The coroner said he would have to wait for results from toxicology rests before releasing the body for burial.
Mail on Sunday deputy editor Roderick Gilchrist says Alastair Campbell is in a "disturbed and dangerous psychological state" and "out of control."
The Guardian reveals that BBC bosses blocked a compromise which might have prevented Dr Kelly's suicide. BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and director general Greg Dyke were made an offer in the days before Dr Kelly was identified as the MoD "mole", but turned it down because they were determined to give no ground in their battle with Alastair Campbell, director of communications at No 10, the paper said.
The BBC says a team of lawyers and one senior journalist will be assigned to collect "every shred of evidence" within the BBC that will help the public inquiry investigate the events surrounding Dr David Kelly's suicide.
BBC breaks silence
The BBC breaks its silence on the issue, issuing a statement after talking to Dr Kelly's family, that names him as the source of both Andrew Gilligan's report and those of Newsnight reporter Susan Watts on June 2 and 4. "The BBC believes we accurately interpreted and reported the factual information obtained by us during interviews with Dr Kelly, it says. "We continue to believe we were right to place Dr Kelly's views in the public domain. However, the BBC is profoundly sorry that his involvement as our source has ended so tragically."
The corporation later issues a statement from Andrew Gilligan who says he "did not misquote or misrepresent Dr David Kelly".
BBC statements in full
Tony Blair responds to Conservative calls for his return and a recall of parliament, telling Sky News' Sunday with Adam Boulton programme that a recall of parliament would "generate more heat than light" and that Dr Kelly's family should be allowed time to grieve. "In the end the government is my responsibility and I can assure you the judge will be able to get to what facts, what people, what papers he wants," he adds in reference to the judicial inquiry.
Writing in the Observer, Tony Blair's close ally Peter Mandelson attacks the BBC. 'It was the BBC's obsession with him (Campbell) that led more than anything to the breakdown in relations between the government and Britain's principal public service broadcaster, with the result we have seen."
The MoD's director of news Pam Teare admits she confirmed Dr Kelly's identity to friendly journalists fuelling fresh concerns over the manner in which the scientist was thrust into the spotlight despite his expectation that he would remain anonymous.
Body identified as Kelly
Police confirm the body found in woodland two miles from the village of Southmoor is that of missing scientist Dr Kelly. Superintendent of Thames Valley police David Purnell says the scientist took his life by cutting his wrist with a knife possibly after taking powerful painkillers. Purnell says a knife and a packet of Coproxamol, a paracetamol-based pain killer, were found at the scene.
Hours later the grieving family of Dr Kelly issue a statement appearing to blame both the government and the BBC for his death: "Events over recent weeks made David's life intolerable and all those involved should reflect long and hard on this fact."
Kelly reported missing, body found
9.20am: Police find a body at Harrowdown Hill, close to Dr Kelly's home in Southmoor, near Abingdon, but decline to identify it as that of the missing scientist.
3.00pm. Police confirm the clothes on the body matched the description of those Dr Kelly was wearing when he left home at 3pm the day before, when he was wearing jeans, a white cotton shirt, a brown leather belt and brown shoes. However, Thames Valley police say they are conducting two separate investigations - one into Dr Kelly's disappearance and another into the identity of the body - and there is no official confirmation yet the body is that of Dr Kelly. Police later say there will be no formal identification until a postmortem is completed on Saturday.
The government says if the body is identified as Dr Kelly's it will launch a judicial inquiry into events leading up to his death.
Dr Kelly disappears
Dr Kelly tells his wife he is going out for a walk at 3pm. Although he is accustomed to walk for several hours at a time on the footpaths around his home in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, he is not dressed appropriately for the wet weather, dressed in just his shirt sleeves without a coat. When he fails to return home by 11.45pm his family contact the police.
Gilligan questioned again
MPs on the foreign affairs select committee accuse Gilligan of being an "unsatisfactory witness" who has changed his story that Campbell "sexed up" the September dossier.
Dr Kelly is reported missing by Thames Valley Police and a major search operation is launched in the vicinity of his home in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. The police say they are "very concerned for his wellbeing". Donald Anderson, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee, says he is "shocked" by the development.
Blair demands naming of source
Tony Blair again challenges the BBC to unmask the source of Gilligan's story, after Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith accused Blair and Campbell of creating a "culture of deceit" with their handling of issues such as the Iraq dossier row.
MPs: Kelly is not the source
Dr Kelly gives evidence to the foreign affairs select committee in which he denies that he was the main source for claims that Campbell "sexed up" the September dossier. MPs on the committee back him in a statement saying they do not believe he is the sole source and accuse the government of treating him as a "fall guy".
Gerald Kaufman MP, the chair of the culture and media select committee, says Gilligan should be given a choice between writing for newspapers and magazines, including his columns for the Mail on Sunday and the Spectator, and continuing to work for the BBC. Gilligan stoked the row between the corporation and government by elaborating in his Mail on Sunday column on his report for the Today programme that Campbell intervened in the preparation of the September dossier to exaggerate the Iraqi weapons threat.
Defence minister gets his hands dirty
Defence secretary Geoff Hoon names Dr David Kelly, a Ministry of Defence microbiologist and weapons consultant, in a letter to the BBC, asking the corporation to confirm or deny whether he is the source of Gilligan's story. The BBC dismisses the demand and says the situation is descending into farce. Although Dr Kelly's name has not been made public, in the course of the day lobby journalists become aware of his identity, and Downing Street confirms his name to the Times political reporting team. By 11.40pm, Dr Kelly has been named on the Press Association's newswire.
Read the BBC's response to Hoon
Greg Dyke, BBC director general wades in
At 10.15am: Greg Dyke speaks for the first time on the issue. He says the BBC will not be apologising and urges Alastair Campbell to bury the hatchet. He says the two sides will have "to agree to disagree". The BBC believes everyone will move on.
Dyke urges Campbell to bury the hatchet
The MoD "mole" At 5.55pm: The government reveals a staff member at the Ministry of Defence has come forward to admit he met Andrew Gilligan at a central London hotel before the war. The MoD does not know if this is Mr Gilligan's source, but says that it if is, then Gilligan has exaggerated the meeting's content.
"The individual is an expert on WMD who has advised ministers on WMD and whose contribution to the dossier of September 2002 was to contribute towards drafts of historical accounts of UN inspections. He is not 'one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier'. He is not a member of the intelligence services or the defence intelligence staff," said the MoD.
"He says that when Mr Gilligan asked about the role of Alastair Campbell with regard to the 45 minute issue, he made no comment and explained that he was not involved in the process of drawing up the intelligence parts of the dossier.
"He says he made no other comment about Mr Campbell. When Mr Gilligan asked him why the 45 minute point was in the dossier, he says he commented that it was 'probably for impact'. He says he did not see the 45 minute intelligence report on which it was based. He has said that, as an expert in the field, he believes Saddam Hussein possessed WMD,"it added
Read the MoD's full statement
How the BBC responded
"The description of the individual contained in the statement does not match Mr Gilligan's source in some important ways. Mr Gilligan's source does not work in the Ministry of Defence and he has known the source for a number of years, not months."
Read the BBC's full statement
BBC governors go on the offensive
The BBC board of governors meets to discuss the growing row between the corporation and the government. At the end of the meeting it issues a statement defending Gilligan's report and calling on Mr Campbell to withdraw allegations of bias against the BBC and its journalists.
"The board considers that the Today programme properly followed the BBC's producers' guidelines in its handling of the Andrew Gilligan report about the September intelligence dossier, which was broadcast on 29 May. Although the guidelines say that the BBC should be reluctant to broadcast stories based on a single source, and warn about the dangers of using anonymous sources, they clearly allow for this to be done in exceptional circumstances. Stories based on senior intelligence sources are a case in point," it said.
"We note that an entirely separate story was broadcast by an unconnected BBC journalist on Newsnight on 2 June. This story reported very similar allegations to those reported by Andrew Gilligan on the Today programme, but the story has not been singled out for similar criticism by government spokesmen."
Governors back BBC in row over Iraq dossier
Full text of BBC governors' statement
What Alastair Campbell demanded from the BBC
Mr Campbell writes to the BBC demanding answers to 12 questions on the Gilligan affair by the end of the day. Richard Sambrook, the BBC's news director, responds with a statement saying: "We stand by our entire story. In my experience, this is an unprecedented level of pressure on the BBC from Downing Street. The BBC will respond properly to these matters, but not to a deadline dictated by Mr Campbell."
Read Richard Sambrook's statement
What Alastair Campbell said
Relations between the BBC and the government hit a new low when Mr Campbell, No 10's communications director, speaks out publicly against Gilligan for the first time, effectively accusing the reporter of broadcasting "lies".
During a three hour televised grilling by the Commons foreign affairs select committee, Mr Campbell says:
"The allegation made by the BBC defence correspondent, repeated in large parts of the media here and other parts of the world, is that the prime minister put to the country and to parliament a false basis for putting at risk the lives of British servicemen.
"That is an accusation against the prime minister, the foreign secretary, the cabinet, the intelligence agencies, against me and the people who work for me. That is why I take it so seriously."
"I know we are right in relation to that 45-minute point. It is completely and totally untrue. It is - I don't use this word lightly - it is actually a lie. I simply say, in relation to the BBC story, it is a lie ... that is continually repeated, and until we get an apology for it I will keep making sure that parliament and people like yourselves know that it was a lie."
The BBC hits back, saying it stands by Gilligan and his "senior and credible" intelligence source. "We do not feel the BBC has anything to apologise for," it says in a statement.
What Gilligan tells the Foreign Affairs select committee
Gilligan gives his evidence to the Commons foreign affairs select committee investigating the decision to go to war with Iraq. In it, he describes his source as "one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the dossier".
"I can tell you that he is a source of long standing, well known to me, closely connected with the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, easily sufficiently senior and credible to be worth reporting," he adds.
Gilligan in the Mail on Sunday again
Gilligan once again uses his Mail on Sunday column to detail the unfolding row with the government, describing the day "Hurricane Alastair and tropical storm Tony blew into my life". He accuses Downing Street of briefing against him, and describes how Dr Reid "went into close air combat with my colleague John Humphrys to justify his conspiracy theory".
What No 10 says
Tony Blair's official spokesman uses his daily briefing to highlight what he claims are a series of inaccuracies in Gilligan's reports.
The government's reaction
Dr John Reid, then the leader of the house, claims "rogue elements" in the security services were responsible for spreading falsehoods about alleged attempts by Downing Street to harden intelligence service reports, and so exaggerate the scale of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
What BBC's Newsnight reported
The Newsnight science correspondent Susan Watts reports on a conversation she has had with "a senior official intimately involved with the process of pulling together the September dossier". The source claimed the intelligence services came under heavy political pressure over the evidence that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could be ready for use within 45 minutes.
What Andrew Gilligan said in the Mail on Sunday
Gilligan repeats the allegations in his column in the Mail on Sunday, giving more details of the secret meeting at a central London hotel with his source.
"We started off by moaning about the railways. Only after about half an hour did the story emerge that would dominate the headlines for 48 hours, ruin Tony Blair's Basra awayday and work the prime minister into a state of controlled fury," he wrote.
Gilligan said his source "knew, better than anyone," that evidence of a weapons of mass destruction programme in Iraq "didn't amount to the 'imminent threat' touted by ministers".
He described the source as "gently despairing" about the way Downing Street had exaggerated the case for war. And he quoted him saying that while conventional missiles could be launched in 45 minutes, there was no evidence for the government's claim that this applied to weapons of mass destruction. "I asked him how this transformation happened. The answer was a single word. 'Campbell.' What? Campbell made it up? 'No, it was real information. But it was included against our wishes because it wasn't reliable.'"
Gilligan went on to accuse the prime minister and his staff of having "spent the past few days denying claims that no one has ever actually made - that material in the dossier was invented".
But he says they have failed to deny several of the claims the BBC's source had made, including the allegation that the dossier was rewritten the week before publication and that the line about the 45-minute deployment of weapons was inserted at a late stage.
What the Gilligan BBC report said
In a report on Radio 4's Today programme, the BBC defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan quotes an unnamed source alleging Downing Street wanted the government's dossier on Iraq "sexed up" with a reference to Saddam Hussein's ability to launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes.
Read the full transcript of Gilligan's report
Hutton report
Radio industry