UK Guardian -- Governors back BBC in row over Iraq dossier

Hours before the foreign affairs select committee is due to publish its report on the affair, the governors maintained it was "in the public interest" to report the claim by an intelligence source that Downing Street exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

In a Guardian interview today, the former Commons leader Robin Cook makes a withering attack on Tony Blair's credibility, and says the key dossier justifying war was inaccurate.

He accuses Alastair Campbell, director of communications at Downing Street, of using his row with the BBC as a "red herring" to distract attention from the real issues.

After a two-hour meeting with BBC director general Greg Dyke and his news executives, the governors insisted Mr Campbell retract his claims that the BBC's coverage of the war on Iraq was biased. They "emphatically rejected" suggestions that the corporation had an anti-war agenda.