13 August 2003

Dear Dr Morrison

Profile, BBC 4, 9 March 2003

Further to our letter of 29 May, we have now viewed a recording and taken up your points with the programme-makers responsible. Once again, please accept my apologies for the delay. As I am sure you will realise, those involved in this programme were involved in covering the war in Iraq. There has been further delay due to illness within my team.

I have taken your letter as containing two main complaints: that it was incorrect to describe the UN inspectors as being “thrown out”; and that it was wrong to say that as they left “they suspected that Saddam had kept much of his deadly arsenal intact”.

Taking the second point first, I understand the comment that the inspectors “suspected that Saddam had kept much of his deadly arsenal intact” was based on lengthy conversations with the inspector who appeared in the programme. That was his feeling at the time and one he believed other inspectors shared. Clearly whether they were right to form this view is a matter of continuing debate. However, I note that Hans Blix, in his briefing to the Security Council in January 2003, drew attention to some outstanding issues and questions. These involved the possibility of the weaponisation of the nerve agent VX; the fact that chemical bombs and rockets were unaccounted for; the possibility that anthrax had been retained after the declared destruction; and the possibility Iraq had retained SCUD missiles.

I understand Mr Blix’s view was that previous reports, including the so-called Amorim Report, did not contend that weapons of mass destruction remained in Iraq, but nor did they exclude the possibility. They pointed to lack of evidence and inconsistencies, which raised questions that he felt needed answering if the weapons dossiers were to be closed and confidence was to arise.

I do not believe, therefore, that the situation is quite as clear cut as would appear from the brief extract you quote from the Amorim document.

Given the source of the information on which the script was based, together with the fact the programme was following the chronology of events in Iraq, I believe it was relevant to refer to the views of the inspectors at this stage in the story. Their observation was placed in context and was described as a suspicion. I would therefore defend this aspect of the programme.

The second point is more problematic. Clearly there is a sense in which it would not be accurate to say that the inspectors were “thrown out”, as there was no formal act of expulsion by the Iraqi government. But, as a shorthand summary of a somewhat messy situation, was the phrase seriously misleading? If I accepted the account of events you give in your letter, I think I would have to agree that it was, as the clear inference (which you yourself draw) would be that the main – or even the sole – motive for removing the inspectors was the immediate threat of US/UK bombing operations. However, there seems to be a confusion about one of the relevant dates. You rightly say that the bombing campaign began on 16 December 1998; but this was not “the next day” after the removal of the inspectors. That took place on 11 November 1998. The UN press briefing issued on 11 November quoted Mr Butler as saying the decision was based on a “strong recommendation” by the US government (apparently in the person of Peter Burleigh), and in the context of an “increasingly hostile atmosphere” in Iraq. He added that he had spent most of the previous day dealing with an Iraqi demand that on[e] of the inspectors be punished and removed on the grounds that he had committed an act of espionage, and cited this as evidence of an atmosphere which was increasingly adverse to the safety and security of UNSCOM staff. One might be tempted to conclude that the substance of the US government advice was that there were to be air strikes – if not the next day, then in the not-too-distant future. However, I’m not aware that Mr Butler has ever confirmed this (and I note that he doesn’t do so in the passage of “ Saddam Defiant” which you quote) The extent to which the US/UK bombing campaign contributed to the removal of the inspectors therefore remains a matter of speculation, and the most we can say of the US government advise is that it seems to have precipitated a situation in which (as we know from other sources) they had been experiencing increasing difficulty in carrying out their operations. The justification for the phrase “thrown out”, then, would be that it reflected circumstances created by the Iraqi government in which UNSCOM had little option but to withdraw its staff.

I don’t think this justification would hold in a context where an understanding of the precise details of the removal of the inspectors was crucial to the topic under discussion. As a passing reference in a programme which ranged widely over the life and times of its subject, I don’t think that it amounted to a serious breach of editorial standards (in the sense of being likely to mislead viewers materially). However, I would accept that “thrown out”, as a description of what happened to the inspectors, isn’t ideal in any circumstances, and I have drawn my concerns about it to the management of BBC News.

Yours sincerely

Fraser Steel

Head of Programme Complaints