BBC reporter's statement on dead WMD expert

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I realised the BBC just gave a link again. So I append below the BBC
statement plus the further important statement by their reporter
dramatically standing by his own report although Kelly had appeared to
deny he was the main source. 

A thoughtful and sympathetic interview on Channel 4 News with Tom
Mangold, friend of David Kelly and former respected BBC journalist said
he thought the "sexed-up" phrase had indeed probably been fed
to Kelly, and he had agreed, but would not have used such vulgar language
himself. On the accusation that Campbell had doctored the first dossier
to include the 45 minute warning, he thought that charge probably would
not stand up. 

The focus of pressure has switched from the UK government to whether the
BBC and Kelly were in disagreement. 

The BBC is being challenged, significantly, by the Conservative member of
Parliament for Dr Kelly. 

It now has to explain why it implied its source was in the intelligence
services. But further it now claims that its report was substantiated by
a source within No 10 Downing Street (who now becomes a new anonymous
source, but hopefully not a candidate for suicide.)



Below are the BBC statements.

Below them a thoughtful article on the BBC website by Peter Preston,
former editor of the Guardian and a grand champion of investigative
reporting, which largely defends the BBC's position, but not
entirely.

Chris Burford
London

PS

Correction: the judge in charge of this inquity is called Hutton.

I am away for a couple of weeks.

________

BBC statements: Full text
Director of BBC News Richard Sambrook made the following statement
confirming that Dr David Kelly was the source for the BBC's controversial
report over the Iraq weapons dossier. 


The BBC deeply regrets the death of Dr David Kelly. We had the greatest
respect for his achievements in Iraq and elsewhere over many years and
wish once again to express our condolences to his family.

Weapons expert David Kelly

There has been much speculation about whether Dr Kelly was the source for
the Today programme report by Andrew Gilligan on 29 May. 
Having now informed Dr Kelly's family, we can confirm that Dr Kelly was
the principal source for both Andrew Gilligan's report and for Susan
Watts' reports on Newsnight on 2 and 4 June. 
The BBC believes we accurately interpreted and reported the factual
information obtained by us during interviews with Dr Kelly. 
Over the past few weeks we have been at pains to protect Dr Kelly from
being identified as the source of these reports. 
We clearly owed him a duty of confidentiality. Following his death we now
believe, in order to end the continuing speculation, it is important to
release this information as swiftly as possible. 
We did not release it until this morning, at the request of Dr Kelly's
family. 
The BBC will fully co-operate with the government's inquiry. We will make
a full and frank submission to Lord Hutton and will provide full details
of all the contacts between Dr Kelly and the two BBC journalists
including contemporaneous notes and other materials made by both
journalists, independently. 
We continue to believe we were right to place Dr Kelly's views in the
public domain. 
However, the BBC is profoundly sorry that his involvement as our source
has had such a tragic end. 


A further statement was later issued on behalf of BBC reporter Andrew
Gilligan. 


I want to make it clear that I did not misquote or misrepresent Dr David
Kelly. 
Entirely separately from my meeting with him, Dr Kelly expressed very
similar concerns about Downing Street interpretation of intelligence in
the dossier and the unreliability of the 45-minute point to Newsnight.
These reports have never been questioned by Downing Street. 
Although Dr Kelly had close connections with the intelligence community
none of our reports ever described him as a member of the intelligence
services, but as a senior official closely involved in the preparation of
the dossier. 


No heroes or villains in Kelly tragedy
By Peter Preston

Former editor of the Guardian

If the senior British adviser to the Iraq Survey Group - the UK's lead
man on weapons of mass destruction - sat across a lunch table from you
and seemed to blame Downing Street in general and Alastair Campbell in
particular for straining every last fact and adjective in the assessment
of threat that led to war, then would you, a BBC journalist, report it?
Of course. Not necessarily as a fact. Even Dr Kelly was only a single
source. But certainly as an authoritative opinion which needed to be
aired - and was on two separate occasions: to Andrew Gilligan and to
Susan Watts of Newsnight. 
And if your source talked to you under conditions of anonymity, would you
do everything in your power to protect him - including maintaining
silence even after he'd identified himself to his bosses and talked, not
entirely frankly, to the foreign affairs select committee? 

Of course. No question of that either. Sources come in many shapes, forms
and conditions of confidentiality. Once they place their faith in you,
your faith and your room for manoeuvre belongs to them; and after their
death, their family. 
Too much, I think, has already been written these past few days
expressing too much certainty about this miserable affair. 

That's not a mistake to carry on compounding. A judge and an official
inquiry offer better routes to truth than speculation. 

But we can already, perhaps, see more complexities than were allowed for
in the first few hours after Dr Kelly's apparent suicide. 

Storm 

Was he a leaker of conviction suddenly surprised by the salience given to
his views? 

What kind of pressures precipitated his death? Was it reasonable, in the
circumstances, not to expect pressure - indeed, even welcome it?

      

Too much, I think, has already been written these past few days
expressing too much certainty about this miserable affair 
A leading civil servant of 59, used to dealing with the press and having
journalists as friends, may be a man of fierce views and integrity. But
he is not unworldly, a naive scientist unaware of the way the media and
political world turns. He blows a whistle to be heard. 

On the big issues, then, I believe the BBC can await the Hutton inquiry
with reasonable confidence. It was right to publish, right not to
apologise, right to withstand storm by Campbell, and right to say nothing
further to jeopardise its source. 

But there will be criticism, nevertheless: and some of it will be
justified. 

Dr Kelly was not, as claimed, a senior and credible
"intelligence" official. He was a boffin working for the
Ministry of Defence. He had, indeed, been involved in the drafting of the
September dossier - but only as the writer of a few paragraphs of
history.
 
Good source 
Was he directly privy to the 45-minute missile claim or to its late
insertion into the report? It appears not, at least at this stage.

        

We have
a human mess, not a malign or contrived mess 

So whilst he was a very good source, he was not in vital respects a
first-hand one. 

Was that made quite clear on air? And, since such questions are there for
the asking, did Andrew Gilligan's Mail on Sunday article, leaving the
parcel of "sexing-up" at the single door marked
"Campbell", have the virtue of simple, spare reportage? 

Or, for that matter, protect the source as punctiliously as it should
have? 
We haven't seen Gilligan's second testimony before the select committee
yet. 
We can't begin proper textual analysis. But there may, as so often in
journalistic and political life, be the muddle of humanity here. 

An experienced and angry source who didn't quite realise what he was
getting himself into. A reporter with an eye for hot story giving what he
was told full weight (rather more vividly than Ms Watts). 

'Human mess' 
A government already infuriated by what it perceived as unfair BBC war
coverage seeing this as the final straw - to "Campbell's"
integrity. And a row spinning haplessly out of control. 

We have a human mess, not a malign or contrived mess. We have a quagmire
of good intentions. No villains or heroes. We also, in all probability,
have reason to lower the decibel count. 

The BBC and its governors were staunch under fire. They, and the
Corporation's editors, got the major issues right. 

But there's at least one nasty issue floating in behind. Is the BBC, the
giant of reporting rectitude and balance we all pay for, right itself to
hunger for more scoops and high profile controversies (the Gilligan
role)? 

And if it is, then how on earth does it keep the subsequent reporting of
that controversy in balance - when the intrinsic issue is the health and
survival of the corporation itself? 

That's ultimately mission impossible; and perhaps not a mission to
undertake too lightly or often, especially without non-dodgy
documentation.