» Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Bob Woodward

Asked for a reaction to the claim in Bob Woodward’s book that the US authorities had passed on to the British authorities the concerns of the CIA Director that the 45-minute claim in the dossier was ‘rubbish’, the PMOS said that we never commented on intelligence matters. We had also resisted the temptation to add to the publicity of other books in the past and would do so with Mr Woodward’s book as well. Put to him that the 45-minute claim had been mentioned four times in a public dossier and had been mentioned twice by the Prime Minister and that it was therefore not an insignificant point, the PMOS said that he was being asked about conversations between intelligence agencies, as well as matters which were being considered by the Butler Inquiry. It would therefore be wrong on both points to comment.

Put to him that it would appear that Mr Woodward had been given access to excellent British sources for his book, the PMOS said that he was not responsible for Mr Woodward’s book. Asked to deny categorically that the Prime Minister, Sally Morgan or Jonathan Powell had spoken to Mr Woodward, the PMOS said that he had absolutely no intention of getting drawn into a discussion about who had spoken to whom and when. He was not aware of any conversations. Equally, he was not going comment on every single contact between journalists and members of the Government.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Search for related news

2 Comments »

  1. It doesn’t really matter whether the PM answers now or not. If it’s true, it’ll come out in the US enquiry and the PM will be forced to comment. Just like he was forced to hold an enquiry. So predictable…

    Comment by DEGREEK — 22 Apr 2004 on 10:36 pm | Link
  2. The Bob Woodward articles are utterly compelling reading. Take a look at:

    <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/15/60minutes/main612067.shtml">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/15/60minutes/main612067.shtml</a&gt;

    <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html</a&gt;

    Comment by Tom Steinberg — 23 Apr 2004 on 11:40 am | Link

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Downing Street Says...

The unofficial site which lets you comment on the UK Prime Minister's official briefings. About us...

Search


April 2004
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
« Mar   May »
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
2627282930  

Supported by

mySociety.org

Disruptive Proactivity

Recent Briefings


Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries

Contact Sam Smith.

This site is powered by WordPress. Theme by Jag Singh