An unprecedented row between the British government and the BBC took a dramatic twist on Saturday night when Andrew Gilligan, the reporter at the center of claims that No. 10 Downing Street deliberately "sexed up" evidence against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, announced he was ready to sue a serving minister.
Gilligan, the defense correspondent for Radio 4's prestigious Today program, said that he would take legal action against Phil Woolas, the deputy leader of the House, unless he received a full apology for allegations made against him.
The threat of legal action centers on a letter sent by Woolas to Gilligan which claimed that the reporter had misled the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the government's handling of the run-up to war.
The letter was released to the media on Thursday before Gilligan had received it.
"On Thursday, you made the extremely serious allegation that I had `misled' Parliament in my evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee," Gilligan's response to Woolas says. "You have clearly not read my evidence, or else have disregarded it," Gilligan said.
"In the light of the incontrovertible evidence of what I said to the committee, I regard the allegation in your letter, which was released to the Press Association long before it reached me, as defamatory, casting grave doubt on my professional integrity and honesty.
"Unlike the claims made by Alastair Campbell [the government's director of communications and strategy] against me in the committee on Wednesday, your claim is not protected by parliamentary privilege," he said.
"I now require a full apology and retraction of your claims, which were widely reported on Friday morning, are entirely unsupported by evidence and were clearly intended to blacken my character. In the absence of this, I will have no option but to put the matter in the hands of my lawyers.
"I should make clear that I write this letter with the full knowledge and support of the BBC."
Gilligan's letter pushes the row between the BBC and the government into uncharted territory. It is unprecedented for a member of the BBC's staff to threaten legal action against the government.
The committee itself, which will publish its report in eight days' time, is likely to censure Campbell for his failure to properly control the contents of the "dodgy dossier" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and for allowing the prime minister to claim in the House of Commons that "fresh intelligence" had been laid before parliament despite much of it being cribbed from the Internet.
Sources close to the committee said that Campbell should have known that the second dossier on weapons of mass destruction was based on the plagiarized work of an academic.
The committee is also likely to distance itself from claims that No. 10 deliberately "sexed up" the first dossier to make the case for war by inserting a claim that the Iraqi dictator could use chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes.
Officials said that the "weight of evidence" reveals that the 45-minute claim was based on a direct assessment of the intelligence services. No. 10, the committee will say, did not intervene to make sure the claim was put in the dossier.
Evidence laid before the committee by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a private session on Friday revealed that the claim was originally contained in a Joint Intelligence Committee assessment.
The criticism will come as a blow to the BBC, which has refused to back down on allegations in reports by Gilligan that Campbell sexed up the dossier.
The latest disclosures in the battle came after Campbell appeared on Channel Four TV News on Friday night and angrily rounded on the BBC.
Also see story:
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft