Campbell demands apology over the 'sexed-up' dossier

Alastair Campbell unleashed a fierce attack on the BBC yesterday when he denied its allegations that the Government had "sexed up" a dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons programme to justify the war in Iraq.

Giving a combative performance during almost three hours of questioning by the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Tony Blair's director of communications and strategy insisted that the Government did not lie about the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

In what some MPs saw as a diversionary tactic, Mr Campbell demanded an apology from the BBC over repeated reports by Andrew Gilligan, its defence correspondent, that intelligence chiefs were unhappy with the Government's claim, in a dossier issued in September last year, that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes. Mr Campbell said: "The reason why I feel so strongly that we, the Government, from the Prime Minister down, deserve an apology about this story is that it has been made absolutely clear, not just by me ... but when you put in the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), the head of Secret Intelligence Service, the Government's Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator all saying emphatically this story is not true and the BBC defence correspondent on the basis of a single anonymous source continues to say that it is true, then I think something has gone very wrong with BBC journalism."

Although he admitted to the MPs that he made "drafting suggestions" as the September dossier evolved, he insisted the 45-minute claim was not his idea. "It existed in the very first draft and, as far as I am aware, that part of the paper stayed like that," he said. "I think in the run-up to conflict, there was an agenda in large parts of the BBC. There was a disproportionate focus upon the dissent, the opposition to our position. Their rationale is that the Prime Minister led the country into war on a false basis. That is what this is about."

Mr Campbell said: "When you are dealing with the BBC, I am afraid they just will not admit that they can get things wrong. If that is BBC journalism, then God help us." He accused BBC chiefs of defending a "very, very serious" allegation they knew to be untrue. "It is - I don't use this word lightly - it is actually a lie," he said. The BBC refused to retreat, saying in a statement: "We do not feel the BBC has anything to apologise for. We regret that Alastair Campbell has chosen to accuse Andrew Gilligan and the BBC of lying."

The committee took evidence from Mr Gilligan last week. Its verdict on the increasingly bitter dispute between Downing Street and the BBC will be anxiously awaited when it publishes its report next month on the build-up to the war. Mr Campbell is to provide the MPs with changes that were made during the drafting process.

He told the hearing yesterday that he had "sexed down" the document. For example, he proposed toning down some "vivid and horrifying" descriptions of Saddam's regime in a section on human rights.

Mr Campbell admitted that mistakes had been made when a second document published in February was drawn up and he took full responsibility for what has been called the dodgy dossier. He denied that three of his staff had been involved in drawing it up, saying he had commissioned it, as chairman of the Communications Information Centre.

He said he was unaware that parts had been lifted from a student thesis until this was disclosed by two television programmes, and he described the "awful moment" when he realised there had been a failure properly to attribute research work by Ibrahim al-Marashi, a Californian student.

Mr Campbell apologised to Mr Marashi and said it would have been better if the February dossier had not been published. He said the ensuing row was a "storm in a tea cup". He clashed with Sir John Stanley, a Tory committee member, who said: "Mr Campbell, I have to say I found some of the answers you gave to the chairman less than credible."

Earlier Mr Blair came out fighting over the two documents. He told MPs: "The actual part of that [February] dossier was entirely accurate. The mistake in not attributing it was accepted at the time and I would simply point out that both in respect of that and the first dossier, there is not a single fact in it that is actually disputed."

Writing in The Independent today, the former foreign secretary Robin Cook says it would suit the Government nicely if the "dodgy dossier" overshadowed the many pertinent questions about the September document. He says: "The real charge against the Government is not academic plagiarism but that its claims that Saddam had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which were 'a current and serious threat', have turned out to be wildly out of touch with the reality on the ground in Iraq."