Key players in the 'sexed-up dossier' affair

ANDREW GILLIGAN

The defence correspondent of BBC Radio 4's Today programme has long been a thorn in the Government's side.

But Andrew Gilligan's claim that Alastair Campbell "sexed up" its dossier on weapons of mass destruction plunged the whole corporation into a bitter stand-off with Downing Street.

The BBC stood behind its reporter as he resolutely refused to disclose the source behind the claim that went to the heart of the Government's integrity.

It emerged later that he had met Dr Kelly at a central London hotel.

Although the BBC refused to comment directly on the allegation that the scientist was the source, it had earlier insisted that the MoD's description of the official did not "match" Mr Gilligan's source.

On Thursday he was called back for a second session in private with the foreign affairs select committee.

Minutes after it finished, its members accused him of changing his story and being an "unsatisfactory witness".

Mr Gilligan hit back by accusing the Labour-dominated committee – two of whose Tory members were missing – of carrying out "a planned ambush by a hanging jury".

The full transcript of his appearance behind closed doors will be published next week.

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DR DAVID KELLY

The quiet scientist drawn into a British political crisis over the war in Iraq, was a widely respected expert who helped uncover the extent of Iraq's biological weapons programme.

Within months of the 1991 Gulf War ceasefire, Kelly was in Iraq, leading a team of biological weapons inspectors. He returned 36 times over the next seven years, patiently hunting for evidence of a military biological programme.

"Everything I know about him suggests he was highly professional, hard working, and a person of integrity," Garth Whitty, a former UNSCOM chemical weapons expert, told Reuters. "He was very, very focused and he had a wealth of expertise".

Kelly was quizzed by parliamentarians on July 16 over his unauthorised meeting with BBC radio defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, whose accusation that Britain "sexed up" pre-war intelligence on Iraq triggered questions over the case for war.

Despite frequent requests to speak up, Kelly was barely audible and clearly uncomfortable in the limelight.

He said he had been unable to get home because he was being pursued by the press. A friend said Kelly stayed at a safe house but left because he was unhappy away from home.

A former Oxford University fertiliser expert, Kelly was offered a job nearly 20 years ago at Britain's Porton Down chemical and biological defence laboratory. "It was the best decision of my life," he said later.

Friends described a man with a sharp mind and a passion for his field of expertise.

"He was a man whose brain could boil water -- he used words with tremendous precision, he used them as weapons," television journalist Tom Mangold said.

"There was nothing he didn't know about biological warfare and there wasn't much he didn't know about weapons of mass destruction."

But nothing in Dr Kelly's years of bio-warfare sleuthing prepared him for the intense pressure he came under after he admitted speaking to the BBC.

The bearded and bespectacled 59-year-old microbiologist disappeared after he left his rural home in Oxfordshire, south-central England on July 18 in a heavy rainstorm with no coat. Several hours later his body was found in a wooded area. Police indicated he had apparently taken his own life.

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ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

Tony Blair's communications chief rejects what he calls "very grave" charges that he induced the prime minister to mislead parliament and the British public over the premise for attacking Iraq.

Alastair Campbell said an allegation by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan that he "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's weapons to persuade reluctant legislators to back the war was blatantly false and he demanded an apology from the BBC.

"It is a lie, it was a lie. It is a lie that is continually repeated and until we get an apology for it, I will keep making sure that parliament and the public know that it was a lie," Campbell told the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is probing the use of intelligence before the war.

The inability of US and British troops and experts to find Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction has irked many in the ruling Labour Party and severely damaged the government's credibility.

Campbell was responsible for the compilation of a government document published in February that plagiarised sections of a student thesis. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the same committee on July 16 the dossier was "an embarrassment to the government".

Campbell admitted on July 17 his team had made "a mistake", albeit an innocent one, with the compilation of the so-called dodgy dossier. But he dismissed the media coverage over the February dossier as "conspiracy nonsense".

But Campbell was outraged by the claim -- made by an anonymous source speaking to the BBC -- that he exaggerated evidence in an earlier September dossier on Iraq's weapons, thereby inducing Blair to mislead parliament over the case for war.

He admitted to suggesting changes to the dossier but added: "It was, as it were, sexed down rather than up."

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GEOFF HOON

The Secretary of State for Defence authorised the brief press release that sent the dispute over the "dodgy dossier" in an unexpected new direction.

Carefully timed to feature on the evening bulletins on July 8, it disclosed that an unnamed Ministry of Defence adviser believed he could have been Mr Gilligan's source.

The next day, in an apparent attempt to flush out the journalist's contact, Mr Hoon wrote to BBC executives, giving Dr Kelly's name "in confidence" and challenging them to confirm he was the source.

The scientist's identity swiftly emerged afterwards; the Ministry of Defence denied leaking it, insisting it only confirmed the name if it was mentioned.

By then the genie was out of the bottle and Mr Hoon's aides advised Dr Kelly that he would face intensity so acute that he would have to be accommodated in a 'safe house'.

The charge from members of the foreign affairs select committee that Dr Kelly was being used as a "fall-guy" to win a dispute between the Government and BBC was aimed at the Ministry of Defence.

As its head, Mr Hoon, one of Mr Blair's most loyal Ministerial lieutenants, could find himself at the centre of the gathering storm.

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BEN BRADSHAW

Ben Bradshaw is technically the fisheries minister in charge of Britain's dwindling fleet, but he has played a key role in fuelling the row between the BBC and Government over the allegedly 'sexed up' dossier.

The BBC's former Berlin correspondent has paraded through the broadcast studios to attack his former employer, defend Downing Street and demanding clarification over Andrew Gilligan's source.

He wasted no time in reacting to the release of Dr Kelly's name into the public domain. Seizing on the fact that the scientist worked for the Ministry of Defence – and not the intelligence services – he is reported in the Times to have written to Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of news, to ask if he stood by his claim that Mr Gilligan's source was a member of the intelligence service. His intervention made the clear inference that Dr Kelly was the BBC source – but not as informed a one as it had originally claimed.

Mr Bradshaw has been eager to come out to bat for the government over the 'sexed up dossier' affair – some say too eager. He tried to take on John Humphreys, the BBC Radio 4's anchor man for the Today programme, in one of the most explosive exchanges listeners have heard.

The Minister at the Department of the Environment told Mr Humphreys he knew people at the BBC who were not happy with Mr Gilligan's report, a claim dismissed by one of the corporation's most senior journalists.

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- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war