Tony Blair tried to change BBC tone on Iraq on eve of 2003 invasion

Tony Blair during a joint press conference with US president George W Bush in 2003, shortly after the start of the Iraq war

Tony Blair attempted to get the BBC to change the tone of its coverage of government policy towards Iraq the day before US and UK forces launched their invasion of the country, it was revealed on Friday.

On March 19, 2003, the then Labour prime minister wrote to Gavyn Davies, BBC chair at the time, complaining about an apparent lack of objectivity in the news provider’s coverage of the build-up to the war in a letter made public today by the National Archives in Kew.

“In a democracy, voices of dissent and opposition are rightly heard. But the balance in BBC reporting and comment has not been there. I have also been shocked by some of the editorialising of some of your interviewers and reporters,” he wrote.

The war led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, while Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”, which were repeatedly cited as the pretext for the conflict, were never found despite extensive searches by United Nations inspectors.

The letter reveals that the Blair government was at loggerheads with the BBC over Iraq two months before a notorious Radio 4 broadcast alleged that the case for invading over weapons of mass destruction had been exaggerated.

The broadcaster Andrew Gilligan claimed in a Radio 4 programme on May 29 that he had been told by a government source — who turned out to be weapons expert David Kelly — that the government had “sexed up” its case for the Iraq war.

He also alleged that ministers “probably knew” claims that the then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein could deploy biological weapons against the west within 45 minutes were false.

Amid the subsequent battle between the BBC and Downing Street over the claims, Gilligan, director-general Greg Dyke and Davies all lost their jobs, while Kelly took his own life.

In his March 19 letter, Blair complained that there had been a “real breakdown” in the separation of news and comment at the BBC. The prime minister said he had never written to Davies’ predecessor in such a way, “but I have heard and seen enough to feel that I should do so now.

“I believe, and I am not alone in believing, that you have not got the balance right between support and dissent; between news and comment; between the voices of the Iraqi regime and the voices of Iraq dissidents or between the diplomatic support we have, and diplomatic opposition,” he wrote.

A few days later, on March 24, Davies penned his reply, insisting that the BBC chair and governors were aware of their responsibility to ensure that the corporation’s coverage remained “scrupulously impartial” in such a charged political atmosphere.

“This is not straightforward, since when views are polarised, there is a great tendency for protagonists to complain about specific instances of apparent bias, while forgetting that others may be equally incensed about alleged bias in the opposite direction on other occasions,” he wrote.

Davies pointed out that the onset of war had often led to strains between the government and the BBC in the past, adding: “It is my responsibility as BBC chair to consider the matters you raise carefully, to weigh them against equally strong protests from opposing sources, and then to reach my own judgment about whether our coverage is truly impartial.”

The archives show that on July 6, 2003, Alastair Campbell, then Downing Street director of communications, wrote to colleagues setting out a plan of attack if the BBC failed to reflect the government’s view of the Gilligan story.

“If the BBC remain belligerent, I think the rhetoric has to be stepped up, up to and including the threat of putting the issue in the hands of lawyers,” he wrote.

Campbell meanwhile complained about the “British media culture” and the “general tenure (sic) of their (journalists’) coverage on Iraq”.