Blair's Turn To Get Grilled

Alastair Campbell, Prime Minister Tony Blair's powerful communications director and the man accused of "sexing up" the British case for going to war in Iraq, did his best last week to get himself and his boss out from under that charge. Smooth and understated at the "investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. David Kelly" — Senior judge Lord Hutton's inquiry into the apparent suicide of Kelly, the former government weapons expert who shared with a BBC reporter his doubts about the government's case for war, got dragged before parliamentary committees and then seemingly took his own life — Campbell had a nicely phrased denial ready. Asked whether he had influenced the words used in the British claim that Iraq could deploy WMD in 45 minutes, Campbell said: "I had no input, output, influence upon them whatsoever at any stage in the process."

So: case closed?
Far from it. The inquiry is offering the clearest view yet of the inner workings of the Blair government, through a welter of e-mails, memos and even extracts from Campbell's private diary ("it was grim for me and it was grim for TB and there is this huge stuff about trust"). There has been plenty of testimony about meetings, some including the Prime Minister himself, devoted to the persistent, worried search for evidence to harden up the case for war, speculation about how the media would react to the 45-minute claim ("Alastair, what will be the headline in the Standard on the day of publication?" Campbell was asked) and finally the persistent, worried search for the one who had leaked and what he would say next. Blair's government seems, in short, as obsessed with spin as its critics have always claimed.

And Downing Street does appear to have hardened the case for war. Last September, Blair's chief of staff Jonathan Powell argued to Campbell and Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett that the government's dossier "does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam." Campbell played down the significance of that e-mail and said he had not read others — such as one from Philip Bassett, a special Downing Street adviser, that fretted the government would be "in a lot of trouble" with the dossier as it stood. And despite his denials, Campbell, citing a need for consistency, apparently persuaded Scarlett to toughen the wording of the 45-minute claim. Scarlett changed "may be able" to "are able" so that the sentence read: "Iraq's military forces are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do so." So much for no influence, although Campbell insisted he made observations only, and that Scarlett had "ownership of the dossier."