BRITAIN: Downing Street authorised a "substantial rewrite" of the British government's Iraqi weapons dossier in the run-up to its publication, according to evidence presented yesterday to the inquiry into the death of the scientist Dr David Kelly.
Documents released to the inquiry showed it was decided that the dossier should be restructured "as per TB's discussion" - an apparent reference to Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair.
The inquiry, headed by Lord Hutton, also heard how Mr Blair himself chaired crisis talks in No 10 after it emerged that Dr Kelly could be the source of a BBC story claiming the dossier had been "sexed up" to strengthen the case for war.
Mr Blair made clear that he believed that Dr Kelly should give evidence in public to the Commons foreign affairs committee.
The inquiry saw further documents which showed that Downing Street officials saw themselves as being locked in a "game of chicken" with the BBC in which the corporation needed to be forced to back down.
The inquiry is investigating how Dr Kelly apparently came to take his own life after being identified as the source of the BBC's story.
A key claim in the BBC story was that the dossier was "transformed" in the week before its publication on September 24th at the behest of Downing Street communications chief Mr Alastair Campbell.
The inquiry was shown an e-mail from Mr Campbell to the No 10 chief of staff Mr Jonathan Powell, dated September 5th, disclosing that the dossier was being substantially rewritten.
It said: "Re dossier, substantial rewrite with JS and Julian M in charge, which JS will take to US next Friday, and be in shape Monday thereafter. Structure as per TB's discussion. Agreement that there has to be real intelligence material in their presentation." JS apparently referred to Mr John Scarlett, the chairman of the joint intelligence committee, while Mr Julian Miller was the chief of the assessment staff at Cabinet Office.
The inquiry has already heard that it was after that the controversial claim that some Iraqi weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes was included in the dossier for the first time in a draft dated September 10th or 11th.
The inquiry also saw an e-mail from Mr Powell to Mr Scarlett, dated September 17th, acknowledging that there was no evidence in the dossier of any "imminent threat" from Iraq.
"The document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam . . . We will need to make it clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat."
The inquiry is expected to take further evidence on the drafting of the dossier when Mr Campbell appears before the inquiry to give evidence today.
The inquiry also heard how Mr Blair was closely involved in managing events after Dr Kelly came forward to admit he had had an unauthorised meeting with BBC journalist Mr Andrew Gilligan, who broke the story.
Mr Powell, who was giving evidence to the inquiry, said that he had telephoned Mr Blair to inform him of the news.
Mr Blair was kept in touch with developments over the weekend and on Monday July 7th he summoned key officials to talks at No 10.During what was described by Mr Powell as a series of "running" discussions they were joined by Mr Campbell and Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw.
At that stage Dr Kelly had said he did not believe he could be Mr Gilligan's source as he said that he was not responsible for telling the journalist that the dossier had been transformed with the inclusion of the "45 minute" claim.
However Mr Blair called for a "deeper analysis" of Dr Kelly's account and he was summoned back to London that afternoon from a training day for inspectors going to Iraq for a second interview by Ministry of Defence managers.
The following day a further meeting was held in Mr Blair's office and later that day officials who had interviewed Mr Kelly said that they believed he was Mr Gilligan's source.
Mr Powell said that it appeared that Mr Gilligan had "heavily embellished the controversial parts of his story". - (PA)