Reply #2: Gilligan: Campbell 'wanted extra information for Iraq dossier'

[T_i_B]

You post the Grauniad, I'll post the Independent! :-)

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=432964

Weapons expert David Kelly told BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan that Downing Street communications chief Alastair Campbell asked for additional information for the Government's Iraqi weapons dossier, the Hutton inquiry heard today.

Mr Gilligan, defence correspondent on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and the journalist at the centre of claims that the Government "sexed up" its September dossier to strengthen the case for war, made the claim in evidence to Lord Hutton's inquiry into the scientist's apparent suicide.

Mr Gilligan was asked to read notes, stored on his personal organiser, of his meeting with Dr Kelly on 22 May this year.

The notes, which were in annotated form, said of the dossier: "Transformed a week before publication to make it sexier, a classic was the 45 minutes, most things in the dossier were double-sourced but that was single-sourced."