Britain: Downing Street has dismissed suggestions that a taped interview with Dr David Kelly will prove the "smoking gun" to vindicate the BBC in the row over the "sexed-up" Iraqi weapons dossier, writes Frank Millar London Editor
It was reported yesterday that BBC Newsnight's science editor Ms Susan Watts recorded her conversations with the weapons expert whose presumed suicide last week triggered the Blair government's gravest crisis. The BBC will submit the tape as part of its evidence to the judicial inquiry led by Lord Hutton.
The Guardian newspaper said the BBC believed it would exonerate Mr Andrew Gilligan, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme correspondent who originally reported the suggestion that Downing Street inserted the notorious claim about Iraq's ability to deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes "to make it sexier" against the wishes of the intelligence services.
In her report of June 2nd, Ms Watts quoted a source - now known to have been Dr Kelly - saying Number 10 had been "desperate" for information and had exaggerated the 45 minute claim "out of all proportion".
An actor spoke the source's words, saying of the 45 minute claim: "It was a statement that was made and it just got out of all proportion. They were desperate for information, they were pushing hard for information which could be released. That was one that popped up and it was seized on and it's unfortunate that it was.
"That's why there is the argument between the intelligence services and the cabinet office - because they picked up on it and once they've picked up on it, you can't pull it back from them."
Three days before his death, Dr Kelly told the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee he did not believe he could have been the primary source for Mr Gilligan's original story. And last night Downing Street was still directing attention to a section of Ms Watt's subsequent Newsnight report of June 4th which it believes flatly contradicts it.
Here Ms Watts says: "Our source was not disputing that the 45 minute assessment was included in the dossier by the intelligence services, although he did say he felt that to have been a mistake." A Number 10 spokesman said the suggestion here was that Dr Kelly thought the inclusion of the 45 minute assessment had been a mistake - not the intelligence services - while repeating that Dr Kelly was "outside the loop" and "did not have access to intelligence". The spokesman said the key issue, and continuing problem for the BBC, was "the status of the person making the claim". The BBC described microbiologist Dr Kelly as "a senior and credible source in the intelligence services".
Yesterday, Britain's Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, paid a private visit to Dr Kelly's widow, Janice, at her Oxfordshire home. He spent more than an hour with her, emerging looking sombre and saying only that he had come to see her.