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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

British Inquiry Into Weapons Report

Aired August 19, 2003 - 06:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Today, a judicial inquiry is hearing more testimony on what the British government knew about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and what responsibility they had for questionable reports about their possible use.
CNN's Robin Oakley live from London now with the latest.

Good morning.

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

And the Hutton inquiry, which is looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of weapons scientist, Dr. David Kelly, has got a key witness in front of them today, Tony Blair's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, a man who's known really -- called by some people "the real deputy prime minister," certainly nobody closer in government to Tony Blair.

He's being questioned very closely this morning about the compilation of that dossier published by the government last September in which they made the case for war against Iraq, a dossier which the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, has accused the government of doctoring, sexing-up, in order to make that case for war against Iraq.

Now, Alastair Campbell has been saying so far in evidence this morning that it wasn't really the case that that kind of thing happened, because his instance, for example, an offer by the press officer -- the senior press officer at the foreign office to write this dossier, and said that offer was refused. They didn't want it in the hands of people like him. It had to be in the ownership of the intelligence services -- this dossier.

So, his argument is that only wording that appeared in that dossier was wording from the intelligence services, not things that were inserted by the politicians.

But in the meantime, we're getting quite an insight into the way in which government works, and a lot of talk of different e-mails flying about from different people within the government machine, people talking about there not being strong enough content in drafts of the dossier. And Alastair Campbell saying, well, I haven't seen half of these e-mails. I don't read all e-mails that get sent to me. I guess like you and me, Carol, even in government, it seems, not all of these official messages get through -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, and you have to wonder why people continue putting things in e-mails that can come back later to haunt you.

OAKLEY: Well, indeed. And it's the e-mails, really, that have been the most interesting thing so far about this inquiry. We've already heard from Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's chief of staff, in an e-mail that he didn't believe that the initial version of the dossier had made any case that Saddam Hussein represented a threat, let alone an imminent and immediate threat, even though Tony Blair then went on and wrote a forward to the dossier saying that there was a real threat there.

So, it is going to cause considerable embarrassment to the British government, which is already suffering in the opinion polls. Many people saying that they trust the BBC a lot more than they trust the British government -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Robin Oakley reporting live from London, many thanks.

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