Examination of Witnesses (Questions 386-399)
MR ANDREW
GILLIGAN AND
MR MARK
DAMAZER
19 JUNE 2003
Q386 Chairman: We continue today
our inquiry into the Decision to go to War in Iraq and I welcome
as our witness Mr Andrew Gilligan, the BBC Defence Correspondent.
Mr Gilligan, you have asked that you be accompanied by Mr Mark
Damazer, the BBC Deputy Director of News, in case any questions
of editorial policy were to arise during the course of our inquiry.
They may not do so and then obviously, Mr Gilligan, you are the
main focus, because some might say that it is in on your report
that much of the current controversy has arisen. I was just a
little amused to note that of course you came from a stable mate
of The Daily Telegraph, namely The Sunday Telegraph,
and The Daily Telegraph stated on 6 June in respect of
you: "In 1999, after five years at the paper"—that
is The Sunday Telegraph—"Gilligan was poached
by the Today programme's then editor, Rod Liddle, with
a brief to cause trouble." Is that your understanding of
your brief?
Mr Gilligan: Not entirely, no.
I think my brief was to—
Q387 Chairman: Not entirely.
Mr Gilligan: —report—
Q388 Chairman: Partly or . . .?
Mr Gilligan: Well, I think the
role of any reporter is slightly to probe and ask questions a
bit.
Andrew Mackinlay: Sometimes that causes
trouble.
Q389 Chairman: Is there something
equivalent to the lobby in respect of the agencies? Is there a
way, if not of deep throats, of scheduled regular briefing of
newspaper and media correspondents?
Mr Gilligan: There is nothing
as formal as the lobby. There are no regular meetings. There are,
to my knowledge, few, if any, group meetings. The agencies do
have officers whose particular job is to talk to journalists,
and certain journalists have those people's contact numbers.
Q390 Chairman: These are journalists
who are specifically designated for matters with the press.
Mr Gilligan: Yes. They are serving
intelligence officers as well, actually.
Q391 Andrew Mackinlay: They are intelligence
officers?
Mr Gilligan: Yes.
Q392 Chairman: They are intelligence
officers. What sort of matters are given to the press by those
individuals?
Mr Gilligan: It is difficult to
discuss that actually.
Q393 Chairman: Are they defensive
briefs when matters are raised, criticisms are made of the agencies?
Are they in-house matters, such as the cost of the headquarters?
Or are they matters like 45 minutes in JIC reports?
Mr Gilligan: In some ways, albeit
in a more low key way, they act a little like press officers.
Sometimes you can go to them with questions on an issue which
has come up, like, for instance, the cost of computerisation or
of buildings, and they operate a kind of response service like
that to certain journalists. The 45-minute question did not in
fact come from, if you like, the designated press spokespeople
of any of the agencies.
Q394 Chairman: Would you expect it
to come in these irregular briefings?
Mr Gilligan: I do think that when
other journalists with intelligence contacts, presumably including
these same people, these designated spokespeople, went to their
contacts for corroboration of my story, then it was corroborated
and we saw similar reports appear in several newspapers in the
days after my story.
Q395 Chairman: When you talk about
these contacts, these are serving members of the agencies who
talk to the press informally.
Mr Gilligan: Yes, some of them
talk to us informally, some of them talk to us with official sanction.
Q396 Chairman: But those who talk
to you informally are doing so against their professional code
and their terms of engagement.
Mr Gilligan: No, I think that
the agencies, like any other organ of state and, indeed, any other
organisation, sometimes have a need to maintain relations with
the press. That is really all they are doing. A lot of the time
it is authorised so they do not fall out with their professional
code.
Q397 Chairman: You are saying that
the agencies give licence to some individuals to talk informally
to the press outside these regular meetings.
Mr Gilligan: That is correct,
yes.
Q398 Chairman: Are you saying that
the meeting you had with that individual, unnamed, was so authorised?
Mr Gilligan: I would not like
to characterise how the meeting . . . whether the meeting fell
within that authorisation or not. I can tell you a bit about my
source. I mean, essentially, the particular meeting from which
this story arose came about at my initiative. I have known this
man for some time. He is quite closely connected with the question
of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and I asked for a meeting
with him. We have met several times before, we have spoken on
the phone from time to time. We have both been rather busy over
the last six or seven months for obvious reasons, so this was
the first free moment I had to ask for a meeting with him.
Q399 Chairman: So this individual
meets you on a fairly regular basis.
Mr Gilligan: I would not say that
regularly, no. I mean, it was something like a year since I had
last seen him face-to-face when we met, but I have spoken on the
phone in the interim.
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