BBC journalist admits mistakes in Iraqi dossier report

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 18, 2003

BBC journalist admits mistakes in Iraqi dossier report

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BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan on Wednesday admitted having made some errors in his story on the British government's Iraq weapons dossier while he was cross-examined at the Hutton inquiry into the death of government scientist David Kelly.

In Gilligan's report, Kelly said the claim in the government report that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was "unreliable".

But Gilligan admitted that he made an error by saying that Kelly told him the government had included the 45-minute claim against the wishes of the intelligence services.

"The error I made here was in expressing the understanding I had that the views had been conveyed to the Government as something which Kelly had told me directly, "said Gilligan.

During the second phase of the inquiry led by British senior judge Lord Hutton, Gilligan acknowledged that he had made "slips of the tongue" during a live broadcast by describing Kelly, the Ministry of Defense consultant, as an "intelligence service source".

He also admitted that he should not have sent an e-mail to a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs select committee to reveal Kelly as the source of another BBC report.

"I was under an enormous amount of pressure at the time and simply was not thinking straight," Gilligan told the inquiry.

Gilligan's story had claimed that the British government tried to overplay the threat posed by the capabilities of Iraq's allegedweapons of mass destruction, causing a bitter war of words betweenthe BBC and the government.

Kelly was found dead with his slit wrist on July 18, a week after the Ministry of Defense confirmed he was the possible sourceof Gilligan's report.

Hutton was expected to wrap up his hearings on Sept. 25, and his findings are not due out before late October.

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