Examination of Witness (Questions 240-259)
17 JULY 2003
MR ANDREW
GILLIGAN
Q240 Mr Chidgey: Are we talking about
months, years?
Mr Gilligan: Certainly somewhat
longer than months. It really is very difficult to say how long
I have known someone.
Q241 Mr Chidgey: You presumably met
him on a number of occasions, perhaps many times, perhaps no more
times than is possible to specify as a specific number?
Mr Gilligan: I do not dispute
that I met Dr Kelly, of course. If any of my sources wish to disclose
their meetings with me they can. Anything between me and the source
is for the source to disclose, not for me. If you like it is a
little bit like the relationship between a lawyer and a client
or a doctor and a patient, if the client or the patient wishes
to break confidentiality they can but I am still bound by a duty
of confidentiality to them. It is for Dr Kelly to disclose any
details that he wishes and not for me to add anything further
to his evidence. I have nothing further to add to his evidence,
which struck me as pretty clear.
Q242 Mr Chidgey: I am not asking
what he may or may not have said you to you, I am trying to get
an idea of the relationship that you had with him, as I am sure
you have with many other people. Do you know whether he had authorised
meetings with you or not?
Mr Gilligan: I cannot discuss
any further meetings I may or may not have had with Dr Kelly.
As I have said, I cannot really add anything further to my evidence
or that of Dr Kelly.
Q243 Mr Chidgey: You are not prepared
to tell us what the mechanism was, whether you spoke on the phone
or exchanged e-mails?
Mr Gilligan: I have nothing further
to add to my evidence or that of Dr Kelly.
Q244 Mr Olner: It really continues,
Mr Gilligan, on the questions that Mr Chidgey was asking you,
you do not deny that you did meet Mr Kelly on 22 May?
Mr Gilligan: I have not described
the date of the meeting. I have nothing further to add to the
evidence which Dr Kelly gave. If he wants to talk about his meetings
with me it is up to him but I am not going to talk about it. It
is for him to describe any details of any meetings he has, if
he wishes to do so he may do so.
Q245 Mr Olner: You did have a meeting
with him?
Mr Gilligan: Yes, absolutely.
Q246 Mr Olner: What was the reason
for holding that meeting?
Mr Gilligan: As I say, if any
sources wish to disclose the fact about their meeting they can,
I am not going to.
Q247 Mr Olner: Did you ask for the
meeting or did he ask to meet you?
Mr Gilligan: I have nothing to
add to my evidence or that of Dr Kelly.
Q248 Mr Olner: You have read or perhaps
had an opportunity to read his account of the meeting on 22 May,
is there anything there which you dispute about that?
Mr Gilligan: I have not gone over
it word for word because the transcript is not up on the website
yet but from what I saw on tv I did not see anything I would have
a problem with.
Q249 Mr Olner: You would agree with
what Dr Kelly said that you did meet on 22 May?
Mr Gilligan: Yes, I have already
said we met. If he wants to say we met on 22 May, he can, but
I am not putting any further information about any contacts that
I might have had with any source into the public domain, it is
for the source to do that, not for me.
Q250 Mr Olner: Can I come back to
what Ms Stuart was saying earlier, what you said on the BBC programme
was one thing, but you seem to have changed your story completely
for the article you wrote in the Mail on Sunday?
Mr Gilligan: Can you specify how,
Mr Olner?
Q251 Mr Olner: I am coming back to
the piece about the fact that the two new bits were not new and
yet they were flagged up somewhat differently in your article
for the Mail on Sunday.
Mr Gilligan: Can you specify how
they were flagged up differently, Mr Olner?
Q252 Mr Olner: Mrs Stuart read it
out to you, part of that transcript was that both of the things
were not new, they were known about.
Mr Gilligan: I have heard the
transcript.
Q253 Mr Olner: The Chairman established
you are a journalist of long-standing experience on defence matters.
Mr Gilligan: Can you spell out
what I said in the Mail on Sunday on that point?
Q254 Mr Olner: It was on that one
where you first mentioned the word "Campbell".
Mr Gilligan: Yes it was, yes.
Q255 Mr Olner: You then went on to
use terminology that has been used in the past that you "sexed
it up" in that article. You "sexed up" that article.
What you said in the BBC programme was fair comment in some respects
and then I think you went on to embellish the matter in the Mail
on Sunday.
Mr Gilligan: Are you saying that
I admitted I "sexed" an article up, because that is
absolutely not something that I have ever said.
Q256 Mr Olner: I am saying what you
did in the radio broadcast was entirely different to the Mail
on Sunday article.
Mr Gilligan: You are happy to
accept the content of my radio broadcast, Mr Olner, that is a
relief to me. That is not the Government's position I have to
say.
Q257 Mr Olner: No, I am talking about
that specific item.
Mr Gilligan: What is your question?
Q258 Mr Olner: My question is why
did you change your emphasis on the story, in my opinion, compared
to what you said on Radio 4? On the Radio 4 one you said that
the ballistic missile threat to the Cyprus bases and the 45 minute
thing were nothing new, were nothing new. Did you say that or
not?
Mr Gilligan: The Mail on Sunday
article—Let me go through this. The difference between what
I said on Radio 4 about the dossier on 29 May this year and what
I said in the Mail on Sunday on 1 June was that on Radio
4 I did not mention Campbell and in the Mail on Sunday
I did mention him. I will tell you why we did not mention Mr Campbell
on Radio 4 on 29 May. We did not want to be accused of being inflammatory
with the story. The editors had already seen all my notes, which
included the passage about Mr Campbell which I quoted to you at
the Committee, and it was decided that we would not include that
passage in the piece, although nobody disputed its accuracy, because
we did not want to inflame the thing and make it a personal attack
on Campbell. We were "sexing down" our story, if you
like. What happened after that was the Government failed to deny
the story, in fact they did not deny it until 4 June, six days
after the story was first broadcast. The press—
Mr Olner: Why do you think that was?
Q259 Mr Pope: I thought Number 10
denied it within an hour?
Mr Gilligan: No, Mr Campbell gave
evidence to you that he denied it within an hour but, in fact,
that is untrue. The Government merely denied a story that had
never been—They denied a number of claims that had never
been alleged. They said "Not one word of this story was not
derived from intelligence material". Nobody had ever alleged
that it was not derived from intelligence material, the allegation
was that doubts about its accuracy had been ignored and that it
had been overplayed. Equally, they denied that anyone had made
anything up. Again, nobody ever alleged that any part of the dossier
was made up. The point was repeatedly made that this was real
but unreliable information, this 45 minute point. The actual allegations
in our actual story did not come until Prime Minister's Questions
on 4 June, I think it was 4 June. That was one reason why the
story ran so long. That was one reason why I felt confident to
go with the Campbell line in the Mail on Sunday.
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