The UK Battle for the truth

Blair's office 'substantially' altered Iraq dossier

An email from Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell to chief-of-staff Jonathan Powell, dated September 5, disclosed that the dossier was being substantially rewritten ahead of its publication on September 24.

Campbell, 46, is the man accused by BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan of personally embelleshing Downing Street's controversial dossier on Iraq, aimed at justifying the case for military action ahead of the March war.

Gilligan alleged in a British newspaper article on June 1 that Campbell, who is set to testify before the probe Tuesday, was responsible for inserting a sensational claim into the dossier, a week before its publication, that stated Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in just 45 minutes.

Documents released to the inquiry Monday showed that the dossier should be altered "as per TB's discussion" -- an apparent reference to Tony Blair.

Blair was told: Iraq no threat

One of the prime minister's closest advisers issued a private warning that it would be wrong for Tony Blair to claim Iraq's banned weapons programme showed Saddam Hussein presented an "imminent threat" to the west or even his Arab neighbours.

In a message that goes to the heart of the government's case for war, the Downing Street chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, raised serious doubts about the nature of September's Downing Street dossier on Iraq's banned weapons.

"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," Mr Powell wrote on September 17, a week before the document was finally published.

Article also reveals that No. 10 was "playing chicken" with the BBC before Kelly, the man caught in the middle, committed suicide.

UK SPIN DOCTOR DENIES HYPING DOSSIER

Mr Campbell went so far as to say he had "no input, output [or] influence" on the dossier at any stage, despite accusations by a BBC reporter that the hype was all his.

"I said: 'The drier the better, cut the rhetoric'," Mr Campbell said. "There were areas where the language was too colourful. I also said the more intelligence-based it was, the better."

Blair loses trust of public

Only 6% of voters trust the government more than the BBC to tell the truth.

Half the electorate also believes that the government deliberately embellished its dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in an attempt to make its case for war stronger, according to the August Guardian/ICM survey.

And the vast majority - 68% - believes the government was unfair in its treatment of David Kelly, the biological weapons expert who apparently killed himself after being named by the Ministry of Defence as the source of a BBC story. Just 8% believe the government's treatment of the MoD scientist was fair.

Only 24% of those polled believed the government's claim that the Iraq dossier was not "sexed up."