"to establish the truth behind the death in 2003 of David Kelly, an expert in biological warfare employed by the Ministry of Defence and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. Kelly's discussion with BBC ""Today"" programme journalist Andrew Gilligan about the British government's dossier on weapon of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inadvertently caused a major political scandal. Kelly had been found dead days after appearing before the Parliamentary committee investigating the scandal. The Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death, ruled that he had committed suicide and that Kelly had not in fact"
"""Today"" became embroiled in a row with the Government over an early morning claim made by reporter Andrew Gilligan that the Government ""probably knew"" that one of the key claims made in its September 2002 dossier detailing Iraq's WMD ""was wrong"". Lord Hutton, in the findings of his subsequent inquiry, criticised the editing procedures on ""Today"" despite never having taken evidence from Marsh. In April 2006, Marsh left ""Today"" to become Editor at the BBC College of Journalism, a new venture that was set up in 2005 in the wake of the Hutton report and the recommendations of the Neil"
"Iraq Dossier Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation (more commonly known as the Iraq Dossier, the February Dossier or the Dodgy Dossier) was a 2003 briefing document for the British prime minister Tony Blair's Labour Party government. It was issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, and concerned Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Together with the earlier ""September Dossier"", these documents were ultimately used by the government to justify its involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The term ""Dodgy Dossier"" was first coined by online polemical"
"on-line changed the headline. The BBC was criticised for its coverage of the events before the invasion of Iraq, in 2003. The controversy over what it described as the ""sexing up"" of the case for war in Iraq by the government, led to the BBC being heavily criticised by the Hutton Inquiry, although this finding was much disputed by the British press, who branded it as a government whitewash. The BBC's chairman and director general both resigned following the inquiry, and its vice-chairman Lord Ryder made a public apology to the government – which the Liberal Democrat Norman Baker MP"
"in 1999. Gilligan's 29 May 2003 report on ""Today""—that the British government had ""sexed up"" the intelligence dossier on Iraq, a report broadcast after Liddle had left the programme—began a chain of events that included the death in July that year of David Kelly, the weapons inspector who was Gilligan's source, and the subsequent Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into the circumstances of Kelly's death. Liddle defended Gilligan throughout the controversy. Under Liddle's editorship, ""Today"" won a number of awards: a Sony Silver in 2002 for reports by Barnie Choudhury and Mike Thomson into the causes of race riots in"
"was also a member of Cambridge Universities Labour Club. In 1994, he joined the ""Cambridge Evening News"", then in 1995 he moved to ""The Sunday Telegraph"" where he became a specialist reporter on defence. In 1999, he was recruited by the editor of BBC Radio 4's ""Today"" programme, Rod Liddle, as Defence and Diplomatic Correspondent. In May 2003, Gilligan made a broadcast in which he claimed that the British Government had ""sexed up"" a report in order to exaggerate the WMD capabilities of Saddam Hussein. Gilligan resigned from the BBC in 2004, in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry, after"
"entirely in news. He was successively a programme editor, news editor and Head of Newsgathering when the Corporation won a number of awards for its international news coverage. He merged radio and television news, and domestic and World Service newsgathering during this time, resulting in the world's largest broadcast news operation. He was acting Director of Sport in 2000, and became Director of News in 2001. Sambrook defended in June/July 2003 what became the highly controversial ""Today"" programme report that the Blair government had in its ""September Dossier"" knowingly exaggerated claims relating to Iraq's supposed possession of weapons of mass"
"removed from number10.gov.uk website) Other versions of the dossier are available, such as: Other links: Iraq Dossier Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation (more commonly known as the Iraq Dossier, the February Dossier or the Dodgy Dossier) was a 2003 briefing document for the British prime minister Tony Blair's Labour Party government. It was issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, and concerned Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Together with the earlier ""September Dossier"", these documents were ultimately used by the government to justify its involvement in"
"British government had deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction in order to justify a war. On 2 June 2003, Susan Watts broadcast a report in which she extensively quoted a ""senior official involved with the process of pulling together the original September 2002 Blair weapons dossier"". Her source was Dr Kelly. The thrust of the report was similar to the later Gilligan story, but the key allegations in Watts' report were described in more measured terms and without Gilligan's claim of the direct personal involvement of Alastair Campbell in rewriting the dossier. Like Gilligan, Watts"
"the contentions he makes in his report are that the government ""ordered (the September Dossier, a British Government dossier on WMD) to be sexed up, to be made more exciting, and ordered more facts to be...discovered."" The broadcast is not repeated. On May 27, 2003, a secret Defense Intelligence Agency fact-finding mission in Iraq reported unanimously to intelligence officials in Washington that two trailers captured in Iraq by Kurdish troops ""had nothing to do with biological weapons."" The trailers had been a key part of the argument for the 2003 invasion; Secretary of State Colin Powell had told the United"
"said but not to identify the source. Kelly told Gilligan of his concerns over the 45-minute claim and allegedly ascribed its inclusion in the dossier to Alastair Campbell, the director of communications for Tony Blair. Gilligan broadcast his report on 29 May 2003 on the ""Today programme"", in which he said that the 45-minute claim had been placed in the dossier by the government, even though it knew the claim was dubious. In a subsequent article in ""The Mail on Sunday"" newspaper, Gilligan directly identified Alastair Campbell as the person responsible. The story caused a political storm with the government"
"2003 British intelligence dossier, released to the public by Prime Minister Tony Blair, on Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear capability. The dossier alleged that Taha had played a leading role in the manufacture of anthrax and other biological agents. It was this dossier that triggered the chain of events that led to the death of British UN weapons inspector David Kelly, who was accused of telling a BBC reporter that some of the intelligence had been manipulated. Dr. Kelly, as an UNSCOM weapons inspector visiting Iraq on the occasions described below, had interrogated Dr. Taha so pitilessly that she was"
"Iraq leak The Iraq leak (also Iraq-gate, or the Iraq scandal) is a series of events that began on 6 March 2003 from a statement given by Anneli Jäätteenmäki, leader of the Finnish Centre Party, in a televised election debate prior to the 2003 parliamentary election. Jäätteenmäki accused Paavo Lipponen, the then Prime Minister of Finland, of attaching Finland to George W. Bush's 'coalition of the willing' that was in preparation for the 2003 war in Iraq. Lipponen had visited Washington on 9 December 2002. According to Jäätteenmäki, Finland had taken part in a meeting where 'those countries that had"
"February 8, 2004, Dr Hans Blix, in an interview on BBC TV, accused the U.S. and UK governments of dramatising the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in order to strengthen the case for the 2003 war against the government of Saddam Hussein. On May 30, 2003, The U.S. Department of Defense briefed the media that it was ready to formally begin the work of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), a fact finding mission from the coalition of the Iraq occupation into the WMD programs developed by Iraq, taking over from the British-American 75th Exploitation Task Force. Various"
"a similar study in February 2004. According to the study, which took place during October 2003, current or former government or military officials accounted for 76 percent of all 319 sources for news stories about Iraq which aired on network news channels. After the invasion, the editors of the ""New York Times"" apologized for its coverage of Hussein's alleged weapons programs, acknowledging that ""we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims (related to Iraqi weapons programs) as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge."" During the invasion, critics argued that the mainstream media unduly focused on"
"U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. On 2 April 2003, in a speech given in New York City, British Home Secretary David Blunkett commented on what he believed to be sympathetic and corrupt reporting of Iraq by Arab news sources. He told the audience that ""It's hard to get the true facts if the reporters of Al Jazeera are actually linked into, and are only there because they are provided with facilities and support from, the régime."" His speech came only hours before Al Jazeera was ejected from Baghdad by the US occupation. A top secret memo leaked by a British civil"
"dollars to settle their lawsuits, along with other suits brought by military personnel who claimed to have been libeled in the Oliver/Smith report. Senior producer Pam Hill and others resigned. Oliver was later quoted by the ""World Socialist Web Site"" (International Committee of the Fourth International) as saying that: On assignment for NBC and National Geographic, Arnett went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the U.S. invasion. After a press meeting there he granted an interview to state-run Iraqi TV on 31 March 2003, in which he stated: Earlier in the interview he said: When Arnett's remarks sparked a ""firestorm"
"into Britain's decision to invade Iraq has swiftly been condemned by the public as a ""whitewash"". Such a description hardly applies to the monumental inquest that has been published by Sir John Chilcot. ... After Lord Hutton's report in 2003 and the Butler report the following year, the one thing Sir John could not have afforded to produce was another report that was dismissed as a whitewash.' Political commentators were split as to what extent the report showed that Tony Blair had lied or deliberately misled Parliament and the public. NBC News said that the report ""stops short of saying"
"2003 and a minority (Democrat) staff report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform claimed that ""in 125 separate appearances, they [Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice] made ... 61 misleading statements about Iraq's relationship with al-Qaeda."" Polls have shown that many Americans continued to believe that Saddam was linked to al-Qaeda, although the number who do so has slowly declined. This discrepancy has been attributed by some to the way in which the U.S. mainstream media presented facts and opinion regarding the war on terror. (See also 2003 invasion of Iraq media coverage.) When Iraq invaded"
"and weapons of mass destruction. The inquiry opened in August 2003 and reported on 28 January 2004. The Hutton report cleared the government of wrongdoing, while the BBC was strongly criticised, leading to the resignation of the BBC's chairman Gavyn Davies and director-general Greg Dyke. The report was met with scepticism by the British public, and criticism by British newspapers such as ""The Guardian"", ""Independent"", and the ""Daily Mail"", though others said it exposed serious flaws within the BBC. Kelly had been the source for reports made by three BBC journalists that the government, particularly the press office of Tony"
"who committed suicide on 17 July 2003 after being named as the source of Andrew Gilligan's disputed ""Today"" programme contribution. Hoon gave evidence about the Iraq war both to the 2003 Hutton Inquiry during his term, and later on 19 January 2010 gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry about his time as Defence Secretary. Shortly after the US/UK led invasion of Iraq began in 2003, following an admission by the Ministry of Defence that Britain had dropped 50 airborne cluster bombs in the south of Iraq and left behind up to 800 unexploded bomblets, it was put to Hoon in"
"September Dossier Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to discuss the contents of the document. The paper was part of an ongoing investigation by the government into weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which ultimately led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It contained a number of allegations according to which Iraq also possessed WMD, including chemical weapons and biological weapons. The dossier even alleged that Iraq"
"weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Intelligence shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq was heavily used as support arguments in favor of military intervention, with the October 2002 C.I.A. report on Iraqi WMDs considered to be the most reliable one available at that time. ""According to the CIA's report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons."" Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) - Congressional Record, October 9, 2002 On May 29, 2003, Andrew Gilligan appears on the ""BBC's Today"" program early in the morning. Among"
"September 2003, ""The Boston Globe"" reported that ""Vice President Dick Cheney, anxious to defend the White House foreign policy amid ongoing violence in Iraq, stunned intelligence analysts and even members of his own administration this week by failing to dismiss a widely discredited claim: that Saddam Hussein might have played a role in the 11 Sept. attacks."" A year later, presidential candidate John Kerry alleged that Cheney was continuing ""to intentionally mislead the American public by drawing a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in an attempt to make the invasion of Iraq part of the global war on terror."""
"of the phrase 'sexed up' by Gilligan would have been taken by the general public to indicate an outright lie rather than mere exaggeration, and thus the claim was untrue. It was because of the report's criticism of his actions that Gavyn Davies resigned on the day of publication, 28 January 2004. Reporters from rival news organisation ITN described the day of publication as ""one of the worst in the BBC's history"". Greg Dyke, the director-general, resigned two days after the publication of the report, following a meeting of BBC Governors where it is reported he only retained the support"
"Among the items in the dossier was a recently received intelligence report that ""the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so"". A further briefing paper on Iraq's alleged WMDs was issued to journalists in February 2003. This document was discovered to have taken a large part of its text without attribution from a PhD thesis available on the internet. Where the thesis hypothesised about possible WMDs, the Downing Street version presented the ideas as fact. The document subsequently became known as the ""Dodgy Dossier"". 46,000 British troops, one-third"
"that, Black said that if John Birt (then Director-General of the BBC) had been a member of his regiment, he would have had him sacked, and one commentator described him as the ""suavely telegenic star"" of the documentary. Black is a frequent contributor to major British newspapers on terrorism and intelligence matters, including ""The Daily Telegraph"", ""The Guardian"", and ""The Independent"". In July 2004, Black wrote of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that George W. Bush and Tony Blair had ""cooked the intelligence books on both sides of the Atlantic"". He has been critical of all three major British political"
"confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry that Kelly was the source of this quote. On 22 May 2003, at the Charing Cross Hotel in London, Kelly met Andrew Gilligan, a BBC journalist who had spent some time writing about the war in Baghdad. Kelly was anxious to learn what had happened in Iraq, while Gilligan, who had discussed a very early draft of the dossier with Kelly, wished to ask him about it in light of the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction. They agreed to talk on an unattributable basis, which allowed the BBC to report what was"
"to broadcast live pictures of U.S. military forces reaching Baghdad on April 5, 2003. Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, a.k.a. Baghdad Bob, was shown at one of his press conferences saying that Coalition forces were not in Baghdad, Fox News was showing, in split screen, reporter Kelly riding a tank through the city. Two days later, Kelly captured another exclusive during the storming of Saddam Hussein's presidential palace. His reporting assignments have brought him back to Iraq numerous times, as well as to Gaza, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. Kelly was a host of ""Good Day New York"""
"never got any dissent with respect to those lines you cite … indeed the entire section that now we know came from [al-Libi],' Wilkerson wrote."" In January 2003, British intelligence completed a classified report on Iraq that concluded that ""there are no current links between the Iraqi regime and the al-Qaeda network."" The report was leaked to the BBC, who published information about it on February 5, the same day Colin Powell addressed the United Nations. According to BBC, the report ""says al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden views Iraq's ruling Ba'ath party as running contrary to his religion, calling it"
"truck pictured did not match the equipment used by UK troops in Iraq. The ""Mirror"" responded to these criticisms of the photographs on May 3, 2004. On May 14, 2004, the ""Daily Mirror"" reported that the pictures it had published, allegedly showing UK troops abusing an Iraqi prisoner, were fake and that ""the Daily Mirror has been the subject of a calculated and malicious hoax."" The ""Daily Mirror"" editor, Piers Morgan, was sacked due to the controversy. On May 11, 2004, The Boston Globe covered a press conference by Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and local civil rights activist Sadiki"
"forgery ... remain unidentified"". On December 13, 2003, the day of Saddam Hussein's capture by US forces, ""The Daily Telegraph"" of London ran a front-page story that not only claimed Saddam Hussein had trained one of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks, but also that his government, assisted by a ""small team from the Al Qaeda organization"", was expecting to receive a suspicious consignment from the country of Niger. This exclusive article, and a second piece, were both written by Con Coughlin, executive foreign editor to the paper. Coughlin's information came from a secret intelligence memorandum, purportedly handwritten during"
"after the controversial Israeli assault in April 2002. Blair's front page report on the Palestinian suffering caused by this attack, headlined ""Blasted to Rubble by the Israelis"", attracted considerable attention as the ""Daily Telegraph"" had always been perceived as favourable to Israel. Blair reported extensively from Iraq before and after the American-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. At the height of the looting in Baghdad in April 2003, Blair entered Saddam Hussein's old foreign ministry and found documents purporting to show that George Galloway, then a member of parliament, had received money from the deposed regime. Galloway vigorously denied this charge"