Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iraq, Europe and Sir Denis Thatcher.
Iraq
Asked if it was right to say that the British Government had been warning for some weeks about American inertia in dealing with reconstruction issues in Iraq, the PMOS said that as a Government we had recognised that we were all on a steep learning curve in Iraq. It was important to remember that we had taken over a country whose basic infrastructure had been reduced to a very low state, in which people had been terrorised for thirty years and were not used to making decisions on their own and, indeed, continued to live in fear that Saddam might return to power. We had had to address each of those issues and had been open in acknowledging that we were still making progress. Rather than play the blame game, the important thing was to recognise the scale of the problem. The presence of US Ambassador Bremer, together with the support of John Sawers, the UK’s representative, meant that there was a clear grip at the top of the organisation. No doubt that would continue with Mr Sawers’ successor, Sir Jeremy Greenstock. So yes, we were making progress - and yes, there was still more to do. But we believed that we had the necessary organisation and personnel in place to continue to carry out this important work effectively.
Put to him that Britons inside Iraq had been warning for days that we were close to ‘tipping point’ and that it could be argued that we had already ‘tipped’ in the light of the incident on Tuesday, the PMOS said he did not think it would be helpful to pre-empt the final report on the incident. That said, there were reasons for believing that this might have been a particular incident at a particular time and in a particular place, rather than being part of some wider problem. In our view it was matter of getting a grip of the problem incrementally. We remained confident that that was what the Coalition as a whole was doing. Put to him that the British had been pressing the US privately to wake up to the seriousness of the situation but that the US had clearly failed to do so, the PMOS said that to characterise UK/US relations in such an adversarial way was to misunderstood the nature of the relationship. We had constructive discussions with our American counterparts on a regular basis, as you would expect, to discuss what, and how, improvements could be made. Those conversations were clearly achieving real results. Asked about mounting concerns about a lack of sensitivity towards the Shi’ite population in Iraq, the PMOS said he thought that that was one generalisation too far. Our troops had gone out of their way to deal sympathetically with local sensitivities.
Asked how far Alastair Campbell believed the BBC’s ‘agenda’ extended beyond Andrew Gilligan, the PMOS said that despite Mr Campbell’s complaint against the BBC yesterday, it was important to remember that he had also praised some of their reporting during the Iraq conflict. Indeed, he had stated specifically that some of the best reporting to come out of Iraq during the war had been from the BBC. That said, the leaked memo from the BBC’s corespondent, Paul Adams, on 24 March set out our concerns. As Mr Adams had written, "We need to be really careful not to get sucked into the ‘it’s all going pear-shaped’ school of thought. The loss of a helicopter there, a Tornado there, some video of dead or captured soldiers, of fire fighting at Umm Qasr - none of these things singly or together means that things are going wrong. I was gobsmacked to hear a set of headlines today that the Coalition is suffering significant casualties. This is simply not true".
In answer to further questions about the BBC, the PMOS said that there were a number of questions still outstanding. They were quite simple:
- Did the BBC still stand by the allegation it had made on 29 May that No 10 had added in the 45-minute claim?
- Did it still stand by the allegation made on the same day that we had done so against the wishes of the intelligence agencies?
- Did it still stand by the allegation made on that day that both we and the intelligence agencies had known that the 45-minute claim was wrong?
- Did it still stand by the allegation, again on the same day, that we had ordered the September dossier to be ’sexed up’ in the period leading up to its publication - that it had been "cobbled together at the last minute with some unconfirmed material that had not been approved by the security services" (Today Programme, 29 May)?
- Did it still stand by the statement made on 6 June that the JIC was not part of the intelligence community but was a Number 10 Committee whose job was to arbitrate between the Government and the intelligence agencies?
- Did it stand by the claim on 3 June that the Chairman of the JIC only "kind of bureaucratically signed off his report"?
And there were other questions which had yet to be answered:
- How many sources was the original allegation about 45-minutes being added on based on? Was it one source, or more than one source?
- Was that source on the JIC, given the fact that only the JIC had the full picture?
- Why had the BBC’s journalist not checked the story with us before broadcast? Was this now normal BBC practice for all stories?
- If that was so, would it broadcast a story, for instance alleging financial malpractice by a member of its Board of Management, without checking it first?
- Finally, did the BBC believe that its one anonymous source outweighed the combined weight of the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the security and intelligence co-ordinator, and the heads of the intelligence agencies?
Asked why Mr Campbell had made him read out the questions, the PMOS said that Mr Campbell had not ‘made him’ do anything. He was perfectly capable of writing his own scripts, thank you very much.
Asked if we had written a letter to the BBC containing all the above questions, or whether we were delivering those questions through the Lobby this morning, the PMOS said it was the latter. Asked how far up the chain of command at the BBC we had gone in order to obtain answers, the PMOS said that as Alastair Campbell had underlined to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee yesterday, we had repeatedly asked the BBC questions about these matters, but we had not yet had a satisfactory response. Asked why the particular list of questions he had just read out had not been sent to the BBC, the PMOS said that he was posing the questions to the BBC through the Lobby because, as Mr Campbell had said yesterday, extensive private correspondence unfortunately had not managed to resolve the issue, particularly since the BBC’s answers kept changing. Pressed as to why Downing Street would not be sending a letter to the BBC, the PMOS said that the questions were based on what had already been broadcast by the BBC. So far, we had failed to obtain any satisfactory answers. Asked if the questions he had posed this morning had been put directly to the BBC, the PMOS said that all the issues had been addressed by the questions he had asked today.
Asked if Downing Street was considering whether to go through official channels, such as the Broadcasting Standards Commission, to obtain a satisfactory response from the BBC, the PMOS said that we wanted the BBC to answer the outstanding questions, and it seemed that the best way to get them to do that was to direct the questions to the organisation itself. Asked if No 10 had asked for a meeting with the Chairman of the Board of Governors to initiate an internal investigation at the BBC, the PMOS said that what the BBC did internally was a matter for them. We had been in lengthy correspondence with them, as he had set out, to obtain satisfactory responses to our questions. Asked if we would be publishing any of that correspondence, the PMOS said that the correspondence was private because we had wanted to resolve the matter privately. Put to him that, rather than have a ‘public whinge’, it would be perfectly proper for Downing Street to ask for a meeting with the Chairman of the Board of Governors - given the fact that the BBC was a public service broadcaster - to ask him to investigate what we considered to be a serious matter, the PMOS said he wouldn’t characterise our complaint as a ‘public whinge’. The BBC had surely been in no doubt for several weeks that we wanted the questions to be answered.
Questioned as to whether No 10 was demanding the BBC named its source, the PMOS underlined that we had never requested the BBC to do such a thing. We were simply asking the organisation to say whether they believed that their one anonymous source outweighed the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the security and intelligence co-ordinator, and the heads of the intelligence agencies - and that if so, whether they would accept that they were, in effect, calling all those people liars.
Asked if there was any reason as to why he had used the particular example of financial malpractice by a member of the BBC’s Board of Management, the PMOS said no. He had plucked it out of the air as an example. Asked if he was making an allegation against the Board of Management, the PMOS said no, of course not. He could state on the record that he had no evidence of financial malpractice by the Board. He had merely been asking the BBC whether they would broadcast such a story without checking it first in the light of the fact that they had broadcast a claim designed to question the integrity of the Government without even checking it first - and had, in fact, continued to broadcast it, despite the fact that we had denied it with the full authority of the Chairman of the JIC and the heads of the intelligence agencies.
Asked if he would accept that the only way some of the questions, such as the 45-minute claim, could be answered was by publishing the first draft of the September dossier, the PMOS said that it was important that the request by members of the FAC was considered in all seriousness, together with its implications. It was also important for Mr Campbell to give his response to the Committee first rather than to the media. Asked if Mr Campbell had had an opportunity to discuss the FAC’s request with the JIC, the PMOS said it went without saying that we were treating the FAC’s request with all due seriousness and we were consulting all the relevant people, as you would expect. Asked if we were expecting the JIC to accede to the FAC’s request, the PMOS cautioned journalists against getting too far ahead of themselves at this point.
Asked if he would characterise what was going on as a row or an attack on the BBC, the PMOS said that he would simply characterise it as Downing Street trying to set the record straight. Questioned as to whether No 10 had ruled out settling the matter through the libel courts, the PMOS said that we were still looking for an apology from the BBC. What might happen in the future was another day’s work. Asked if that meant he wasn’t ruling out the possibility of legal action, the PMOS said that he had no intention of engaging in speculation today about what might or might not happen further down the road. What was important was to set the record straight. As several distinguished personages had stated, the BBC’s allegation was about the most serious that could be made against any Government. Questioned as to whether any legal advice had been sought, the PMOS said not as far as he was aware at this stage.
Europe
Asked to confirm reports that the Prime Minister would be speaking to a group of Ministers about the issue, the PMOS said that as he had pointed out yesterday, the meeting of junior Ministers, entitled ‘Minecor’, was a routine exercise. He was due to address them today and would underline how engagement in Europe produced results, such as today’s CAP deal. Questioned about a report in today’s FT which claimed that a special European Strategy Committee was being set up, the PMOS said that a PQ was being answered this afternoon which would set out the position on this matter.
Sir Denis Thatcher
Asked if the Prime Minister would be releasing a statement following the news of the death of Sir Denis Thatcher, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had been informed of, and saddened by, the news. He would express his condolences to Baroness Thatcher in his own way.
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