GILLIGAN
6:07
Dr Kelly Was Not The Only
Source For The Story
JNV Anti-War Briefing 55 (5 February 2004)
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Posted:
13 February 2004
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THE CHARGE AGAINST
GILLIGAN... AND HIS EDITORS
Peter Preston, former editor of the Guardian, writes, 'Of course
the BBC got it wrong. Gilligan, those little demons driving
him on, blathered an allegation too far.' But, 'this was one
lone - and now unemployed - guy, out of nearly 4,000 BBC news
division employees, talking off the cuff, letting a single sharp
sliver of fact slide out of place on a bleary dawn when his
editor was off duty, attending a wedding.' (Observer, 1 Feb.,
p. 21)
At the other end of the political spectrum, in the Daily Telegraph,
columnist Sarah Sands observed: 'Of course Andrew Gilligan should
have thought about what he was going to say, of course there
should have been closer editorial checks but did this offence
deserve the annihilation of the BBC?' (30 Jan., p. 28)
EDITORIAL CHECKS:
THE MISSING SCRIPT
There is almost universal acceptance that 'there should have
been closer editorial checks', but this received wisdom is based
on the fact that the Today editor Kevin Marsh has not been heard.
Mr Marsh was not called as a witness by Lord Hutton (nor was
his boss, head of BBC radio news Stephen Mitchell), despite
Lord Hutton's criticism of the BBC editorial system.
If Mr Marsh had been called, he would have cleared up some misconceptions.
'Despite the claim that managers did not check Gilligan's personal
organizer notes for a month, BBC sources say that Marsh did
see a set of notes entered into the BBC's internal computer
system on May 28.' These notes were used to write a script for
the following day's 7.32am "two-way" between the Today
studio and Mr Gilligan; this script 'did not contain the assertion
that the government inserted the 45-minute claim into the Iraq
dossier knowing it was wrong.'
BBC sources told the Guardian that Mr Gilligan should have had
this script to hand when he made the 6.07am broadcast. 'That's
the convention,' said a Today programme source. Another BBC
source said, 'There's this idea that the 6.07 wasn't scripted,
but Andrew should have had the 7.32 script in front of him,
and should not have deviated from it.' (5 Feb., p. 9)
Thus Lord Hutton was wrong to say that, 'the BBC should not
have permitted Mr Gilligan to broadcast his report at 6.07am
without editors having seen the script of what he was going
to say.' (Telegraph, 29 Jan.,p. 3) The 7.32am script was there,
and should have been followed for the 6:07am two-way.
VERDICTS ON GILLIGAN
Telegraph columnist Frank Johnson suggests that the key question
is whether Andrew Gilligan's reporting 'helped show voters that
Mr Blair and Mr Campbell exaggerated the threat to Britain'.
Mr Gilligan's reporting 'showed just that', and 'therefore told,
essentially, the truth, and did voters a service.' (31 Jan.,
p. 26) Editor of the right-wing Spectator magazine, Boris Johnson
writes that the Gilligan scoop was 'justified reporting': 'The
data were unreliable, the spooks were unhappy, notably about
the 45-minute claim, and Campbell "sexed it up" to
the point of invention' (changing a crucial sentence in the
dossier, for example). (Telegraph, 29 Jan., p. 21)
Sir Bernard Ingham, formerly press secretary to Margaret Thatcher,
agrees: 'Gilligan got it broadly right, but wrong in the detail.'
At the other end of the spectrum, the man who brought Mr Gilligan
onto Today, Rod Liddle, also defends his protege: the story
was 'an important story in the public interest' which was '95
per cent correct'. (Independent, 3 Feb., Media, p. 8)
THE CENTRAL THRUST
Former BBC Director-General, Lord Birt, disagrees, saying, 'The
central thrust of the story was unfounded.' (Times, 5 Feb.,
p. 13) In contrast, resigning from the BBC on 30 Jan., Mr Gilligan
stated that 'most of my story was right': 'The Government
did sex up the dossier, transforming possibilities and probabilities
into certainties, removing vital caveats; the 45-minute claim
was the classic example of this and many in the intelligence
services, including the leading expert in WMD, were unhappy
about it.' (Daily Express, 31 Jan., p. 6)
MI6 CHIEF WAS THE
SECOND SOURCE
Crucially, Dr Kelly was not, despite all that has been written,
the only source for the 'sexing-up' story. The editor of Today,
Kevin Marsh, himself had two other sources, one of which could
not be more authoritative: the head of MI6. 'Sir Richard [Dearlove]
and two Secret Intelligence Service colleagues briefed Today
on April 11...
'Mr Marsh interpreted Sir Richard's words as meaning that MI6
was admitting that the intelligence did not support the case
for war against Iraq... that hard evidence of weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq would never be found. This, it is said,
struck him as an odd conclusion if, at the time the September
dossier was published, these weapons were being held at 45 minutes'
readiness. Mr Marsh let the BBC know that, in his subsequent
contacts with MI6, no other interpretation of the meeting with
Sir Richard was put forward.' (Times, 27 Jan., p. 2)
CLARE SHORT'S ROLE
Then, hours before Andrew Gilligan drew up the script for his
pivotal broadcasts, Today editor Kevin Marsh met Clare Short,
former Development Minister, who 'told him that no intelligence
had been produced which conclusively demonstrated that Iraq
was an imminent threat': 'Her words helped to persuade the programme
to believe Mr Gilligan's apparent scoop: that Downing Street
inserted a claim, against the wishes of experts, that Iraq could
launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.' (Times,
27 Jan., p. 1)
Lord Hutton never heard this crucial background because, bizarrely,
he never called Andrew Gilligan's editor as a witness, and therefore
did not read Kevin Marsh's statement, prepared for the Inquiry.
Sir Richard Dearlove was not named in the statement, which referred
only to a 'senior intelligence source', but two newspapers have
been informed that it was the MI6 chief himself. (Times, 27
Jan., p. 1; Observer, 1 Feb., p. 1)
Andrew Gilligan wrongly attributed one of his own opinions to
Dr Kelly when he suffered an unscripted slip of the tongue and
said the Government 'probably' knew the 45 minute claim was
wrong or unreliable when it inserted the claim into the Sept.
2002 dossier; he didn't admit this weakness in his 6:07am report
until he testified before Lord Hutton; and he named Dr Kelly
as the source for another BBC report. (Sunday Telegraph, 1 Feb.
p. 1) He did a lot of things wrong.
Senior BBC managers 'said that Gilligan's failure to own up
to his mistakes at the earliest opportunity set in train the
events leading to the suicide of Dr David Kelly, the Hutton
Inquiry and the resignation last week of Greg Dyke... and Gavyn
Davies.' (Sunday Telegraph, 1 Feb., p. 1) Perhaps, but
the fact is that Andrew Gilligan's central story was backed
by authoritative secondary sources, and it was right.
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