The BBC hits back, saying it stands by Gilligan and his "senior and credible" intelligence source.
"I can tell you that he is a source of long standing, well known to me, closely connected with the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, easily sufficiently senior and credible to be worth reporting," he adds.
There has also been wrong information that has come out of the White House during the crisis, most notably a statement by a senior official that a credible threat had been phoned in to the Secret Service on Sept. 11, shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, that "Air Force One is next".
The law was designed in part to make it more credible when a senior administration official is investigated and cleared by an outside lawyer rather than the Justice Department.
By contrast, the intelligence reports that preceded the March 19 strike on Dora Farms, which was carried out with four 2,000-pound 2,000-pounduided bombs and more than 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles, were regarded as highly credibombsandording to senior intelligence officials.
The reports we submitted to the office's senior management in 2006 included credible information from witnesses confirming illegal deals between Pakistani peacekeepers and warlords from the Front for National Integration, an ethnic militia group notorious for its cruelty even in such a brutal war.
"We think for the N.F.L. to try to create a Super Bowl-type event at the beginning of the football season, to bookend the season, is credible," said Dave Burwick, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Pepsi-Cola North America in Purchase, N.Y.
Some experts on Al Qaeda believe the message, which was also issued under the name of Mullah Muhammed Omar, the Taliban leader who is also on the run, could be credible, though a senior administration official said the C.I.A. is unsure.
"If residents are being intimidated in any way, then conditions would not be appropriate for a credible investigation," Jehanne Henry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch told VICE News.
Nearly any credible candidate for senior intelligence leadership appointments is likely to come with baggage, such as past involvement in questionable intelligence activities and/or the growing network of secretive intelligence contractors.
