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To rally support for war, the British prime minister’s office published a dossier of charges against Iraq in September 2002. It claimed, among other things, that the Baghdad regime could deploy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within 45 minutes.

Yet with no WMD used by Iraqi forces in the ensuing war and none found, the dossier's veracity came under suspicion. One of its allegations, which George Bush had made part of his state-of-the-union address, was discredited by intelligence sources. Then, in June 2003, Andrew Gilligan, a BBC journalist, accused Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair’s chief spin-doctor, of having “sexed up” the dossier against the wishes of Britain’s security services (in particular, inserting the “45-minute” claim). A parliamentary investigation cleared Mr Campbell of this charge (Mr Campbell resigned in August 2003). But the BBC refused to back down, sparking a furious row with the government. In early July this took a tragic turn when a government scientist named David Kelly, who had been exposed as the main source of the BBC’s story, committed suicide. An inquiry into his death, which reported in January 2004, cleared the government of “sexing up” the dossier and largely—but not wholly—vindicated Mr Kelly's employers, the defence ministry. Criticism was instead heaped on the BBC, prompting the resignations of its director-general and chairman of governors.