Spies put pressure on Alastair Campbell

A detail from volume three of Alastair Campbell’s Diaries, which is pertinent to the small spasm of anti-war reporting of the latest documents published by the Iraq Inquiry. My fine colleague Kim Sengupta, and others, reported the comments of SIS2, an intelligence officer, that Campbell had unhelpfully ”leaked” MI6 information before the Iraq invasion.

On 4 June 1999, towards the end of the Kosovo campaign, the traffic between Campbell and MI6 went the other way:

[SIS] called to ask if it was sensible to get out the intelligence that Milosevic was looking to get family out. My immediate reaction was to stay quiet but overnight I changed my mind.

The more important argument made by opponents of the war is that the new documents finally prove Andrew Gilligan’s allegation that the intelligence on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction was sexed up by Campbell. Campbell replies to Gilligan here. I am tempted to say, “Leave it Alastair, he’s not worth it,” but it is important to rebut assertions of wrong as right.

Further rebuttals will follow here.

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