Campbell denied to Chilcot that the purpose of the September 2002 dossier was "to make the case for war".
Herald Editorial, Glasgow, September 16 "While [Sir Richard] regretted that the dossier failed to make clear that the intelligence referred to battlefield weapons rather than ballistic missiles, he objected to the 45-minute point being referred to as just a 'claim'claim
Some of the outraged hawks who want America to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities accuse the spies of sexing down their latest Iran dossier in order to make amends for having sexed up the one that led America into a war in Iraq.
The disclosure follows the revelation last week that a senior defence intelligence officer told the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq conflict that, contrary to the evidence of former government communications chief Alastair Campbell, the dossier was intended to make a case for war and intelligence had been exaggerated to make this case.
In hitherto secret evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Major General Michael Laurie said: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care".
"Alastair Campbell said to the inquiry that the purpose of the dossier was not to "make a case for war," he wrote.
He added: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war rather than setting out the available intelligence".
In written evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Maj-Gen Laurie rejected Mr Campbell's claim that the dossier was not intended to make the case for war: "This was exactly its purpose and these very words were used".
Three UK government ministers resigned and a so-called "dodgy dossier" that was used to make the case for war came to symbolise the deep unease felt by critics of the war.
Some have taken that as evidence of the pressure that Downing Street was exerting to make the dossier more dramatic.
He was told to make the dossier anyway, and he did, and it became known in the department as the Binder.
