BRITAIN: The British Prime Minister's communications director, Mr Alastair Campbell, set out his self-defence in the row with the BBC over whether he had transformed the dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction by insisting that he had left the bulk of the work of drawing up the document to Mr John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee.
Asked about the central allegation that he had been responsible for including the claim that Iraq could deploy chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so, Mr Campbell told the inquiry that the claim had nothing to do with him. "None whatsoever. I had no input, output, influence upon it whatever in any stage in the process."
He did, however, make it clear in the drafting of the dossier what kind of publication he wanted to see. "It had to be revelatory; we needed to show it was new and informative and part of a bigger case," Mr Campbell noted in his diary on September 5th, 2002.
Four days later, on September 9th, Mr Campbell chaired a meeting to discuss the dossier. Then, on September 17th, Mr Scarlett wrote to Mr Campbell with a new version of the dossier based on amendments he had proposed.
It read in parts, the inquiry heard: "Strengthened language on current concerns and plans, including in the executive summary. The summary also brings out the point on sanctions and containment as you proposed."
However, the minute shows that Mr Campbell criticised the use of the adjectives "vivid" and "horrifying" in the section on human rights in Iraq. "I thought it was unnecessary, given that the facts really were speaking for themselves," he said.
Mr Campbell's testimony gave an insight into his extraordinarily close relationship with Mr Scarlett. He described one-to-one meetings with Mr Scarlett as they prepared the government's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme.
Mr Campbell described the senior former MI6 officer as an "equal", but the two men had different roles.
At one point in his diary Mr Campbell noted that Mr Scarlett described him as the "brutal political hatchet man" and himself as the "dry intelligence officer".
Mr Campbell's role was to respond to Mr Scarlett's request for "presentational advice", the inquiry heard.
Mr Campbell explained that drawing up a dossier for publication was not "something the intelligence services are involved in".
He insisted yesterday that despite his relationship with Mr Scarlett - whom he has previously described as a "mate" - he distanced himself from the drawing up of the dossier.
Mr Scarlett, he said, wanted "ownership" of it. "The word he used was ownership. John Scarlett felt he had to have ownership of the dossier." Mr Campbell added: "I emphasised that the credibility of this document depended fundamentally on it being the work of the JIC [joint intelligence committee]. That was the touchstone of our approach from the very first moment."
Nothing should be published, Mr Campbell told Mr Scarlett, which the intelligence agencies were not "100 per cent happy with".
In his diary entry of September 11th, 2002, he noted: "The drier the better."
The inquiry counsel, Mr James Dingemans QC, asked Mr Campbell about the 45 minute claim. It was included late in the dossier and the inquiry has heard a senior defence intelligence officer agree that it appears in "noticeably harder" language in Mr Tony Blair's foreword to the dossier than in the body of the document.
The allegation by the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan that the claim was inserted into the dossier at the behest of Downing Street and against the wishes of the intelligence services sparked off the dispute which ended in the death of the government scientist, Dr David Kelly, Mr Gilligan's source.
Mr Scarlett was not the only senior intelligence official Mr Campbell dealt with. Documents and emails released by the Hutton inquiry show that he was in regular contact with Sir David Omand, the Prime Minister's security co-ordinator, as well as senior members of MI6.
On September 9th, a group of "very senior" MI6 officers came to see Mr Campbell to deny newspaper reports that they were unhappy about the dossier. "They were quite content to co-operate with the Prime Minister," the inquiry heard.
Questioned about concern, notably in the defence intelligence agency, about claims in the dossier, Mr Campbell said Mr Scarlett had assured him that that was not the view of the intelligence agencies. But there may well have been unhappiness "down the ranks", he conceded.
In a further insight into Mr Campbell's proximity to the intelligence world, the inquiry heard how he noted in his diary on June 4th this year that messages were awaiting him from Sir David and Mr Scarlett to call the head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove.
Sir Richard expressed concern about a comment by the then leader of the Commons, Dr John Reid, referring to "rogue elements" in the security services. Mr Campbell said he told Sir Richard he did not believe Dr Reid "was making a significant statement".