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Campbell quits amid Iraq dossier controversy
Gulf News, London |Reuters | 30-08-2003
Alastair Campbell, a top government aide often called the second most powerful man in Britain and a key figure in a major crisis over the government's Iraq policy, announced yesterday that he is to resign in the next few weeks.
Campbell, who has been at the centre of media allegations that Tony Blair's office manipulated intelligence about Iraqi weapons in the run-up to war, said he was stepping down for personal reasons as the prime minister's media chief.
Campbell has fiercely denied allegations he hyped up a dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and intelligence chiefs have backed up his version of events.
In an interview after the resignation announcement, Campbell said the decision had nothing to do with the controversy.
"I have been thinking and talking about leaving for some time," he said. "I wanted to go a year ago and the prime minister asked me to stay on because the Iraq issue was developing in a particularly alarming way and we agreed back in April that I would definitely go this summer."
In a resignation statement issued by Blair's office, Campbell said he was quitting for family reasons and added that he intended to step down from his position in "a few weeks."
Campbell said his partner Fiona Millar, a media adviser to Blair's wife Cherie, would be resigning at the same time to return to a career in journalism.
In a statement, Blair said "the picture of Alastair Campbell painted by parts of the media has always been a caricature."
He praised Campbell as "an immensely able, fearless, loyal servant of the cause he believes in who was dedicated not only to that cause but to his country."
Former Labour Party spokesman David Hill will succeed Campbell, Blair's office said.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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