Campbell made many complaints to BBC

The microscopic scrutiny Alastair Campbell devoted to BBC reports on the Iraqi war was revealed yesterday by the release of an extensive exchange of correspondence between the Government official and the corporation's senior news executive.

Downing Street's director of communications and strategy was complaining about reports by Andrew Gilligan long before the defence correspondent broadcast his controversial claims of government interference in the Iraqi weapons dossier.

In a letter written on 19 March to Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of news, Mr Campbell asked why Mr Gilligan had been allowed to broadcast from Iraq, on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, his view that "innocent people will die here in the next few hours".

The Downing Street official asked: "Could you justify that statement to me?"

He also complained about the reporting of BBC correspondent Rageh Omaar, who was also in Iraq.

The BBC's director of news wrote back, accepting that Mr Gilligan's wording had been imprecise and "may have suggested he knew when air strikes would begin".

But he said the reporter's comment was "not ... controversial" because it "came in the context of a discussion about the likely progress of war" and Mr Sambrook also defended Mr Omaar's journalism.

The correspondence has been published on the official website of the Hutton inquiry and gives an indication of the relationship between No 10's director of communicationsand BBC journalists.

One newspaper editor said yesterday that he had a drawer full of similar letters from Mr Blair's official spokesman.