The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
“… emphatic
in saying to people that it was not true that we pressured them …
But
he stopped
short of agreeing to do a letter about it. He was very much up for
helping
us but only
so far.”
230.
On
1 June, The Mail on
Sunday published an
article in which Mr Gilligan wrote that
his source
attributed the “exaggeration” in the September dossier to
Mr Campbell.127
231.
Mr Campbell
wrote in his diaries that he had discussed the article with
Mr Scarlett
on
1 June, who was “minded to set out everything in a note to
Ministers which they could
232.
On
2 June, Mr Campbell wrote:
“… WMD
still raging … T[ony] B[lair] was still in ‘it’s ridiculous’ mode …
The main
problem of
course was that there were no WMD discoveries beyond the two
[mobile]
labs, and
no matter how much we said there were other priorities now, the
public
were being
told as a matter of fact we had done wrong.”
233.
Mr Rycroft
sent Mr Blair a series of background papers on
3 June.129
The
papers
comprised:
•
an FCO note
on plans for third-party verification;130
•
a telegram
on US attitudes from the British Embassy
Washington;131
•
a short
No.10 note attaching a factual MOD description of the role
and
composition
of the ISG;132
•
the
transcript of a request by the Labour MP Mr Graham Allen for
Parliament to
set a
deadline of 110 days for the Coalition to find WMD in Iraq,
matching the
110 days
given to Dr Blix before the conflict, and for there to be an
independent
inquiry if
no internationally verified discovery had been made by
then;133
and
•
a paper by
the FCO on the terms of reference, proceedings and
conclusions
of the
Franks Inquiry after the Falklands War, which published its report
in
127
Report of
the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr
David Kelly C.M.G. by
Lord Hutton,
28 January 2004, HC 247, paragraphs 38-39.
128
Campbell A
& Hagerty B. The
Alastair Campbell Diaries. Volume 4. The Burden of Power:
Countdown
to
Iraq. Hutchinson,
2012.
129
Minute
Rycroft to Prime Minister, 3 June 2003, ‘Iraq:
WMD’.
130
Letter
McDonald to Rycroft, 2 June 2003, ‘Iraq WMD: Third Party
Validation’ attaching Paper
[unattributed],
[undated], ‘UNMOVIC: Restructuring’.
131
Telegram
772 Washington to FCO London, 3 June 2003, ‘Iraqi WMD: US
Views’.
132
Minute
Cannon to Prime Minister, 2 June 2003, ‘Iraq: Deployment of
Iraq Survey Group’.
133
Email
Sumner to Rycroft, 2 June 2003, ‘PA-WMD/Special
Advisers’.
134
Letter Owen
to Cannon, 3 June 2003, ‘Background on The Franks Report,
1983’ attaching Paper
[unattributed],
‘Falkland Islands Review (“The Franks Report”)’.
470