Cabinet Office Freedom of Information request #11
This request concerned two meetings attended by Alastair Campbell in September 2002.
The first meeting, on 12 September, was at 10 Downing Street. According to the Butler Review, Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6/SIS went to NO. 10 and briefed Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell on the latest intelligence, including "Report x", which was later claimed to be the justification for the dossier's judgement that Iraq was continuing to produce chemical and biological weapons.
The second meeting, on 13 September, was between Campbell and Julian Miller. Between 11 and 16 September, the dossier's executive summary was crassly sexed-up so that claims, including the 45 minutes claim, that had been uncertainly expressed as "recent intelligence indicates" became "judgements". At the same time, the judgement that Iraq was continuing to produce chemical and biological weapons was added to the dossier.
The request asked:
- Please provide any note of the meeting at NO. 10 between Tony Blair, Mr Campbell, Sir Richard Dearlove and others on 12 September 2002.
- Please provide a copy of Mr Campbell's diary entry relating to that meeting (as supplied by the Cabinet Office to the Hutton Inquiry).
- Please provide any note of the meeting between Mr Campbell and Julian Miller on 13 September 2002, including any notes made by Mr Miller recording Mr Campbell's comments and/or suggestions.
- Please provide an unedited copy of Mr Campbell's diary entry relating to this meeting.
The request was made on 1 August 2007 and should have been responded to by 30 August. The Cabinet Office finally replied on 3 December 2007, claiming to have none of the information requested.