19 April 2004

Dear Dr Morrison

Profile, BBC 4, 9 March 2003

I must begin by apologising for the extreme delay in dealing with the points you raised in your letter of 21 August.

I understand Mark Byford indicated that the information you provided in that letter might influence my decision, and indeed it has done so. I accept that, when I replied to your original complaint, I was under a misapprehension about the date of the final withdrawal of the UNSOM inspectors, and that the phrase “thrown out” should not have been used in relation to that withdrawal.

On your other point, about the inspectors suspecting “that Saddam had kept much of his deadly arsenal intact” you made a strong case for thinking that viewers would not have appreciated the extent to which Saddam’s arsenal had in fact been depleted (though “much” is an indefinite term). However, I remain of the view that John Simpson’s words were defensible as an encapsulation of information he had been given in lengthy conversations with one of the inspectors.

A summary of my finding will appear in a forthcoming issue of the BBC’s Complaints Bulletin, together with a note of the action taken by management as a result. I shall ensure that you are sent a copy. Meanwhile, I would like to add (to my apologies for delay) my apologies for reaching an erroneous conclusion in my original reply.

Yours sincerely

Fraser Steele

Head of Programme Complaints