Awards:

Telegraph wins plaudits for war coverage

The Daily Telegraph's coverage of the Iraq War has earned this newspaper one of the most coveted awards in British journalism.

On Tuesday night, the judges of the British Press Awards paid tribute to our newspaper's handling of the conflict and gave the Team of the Year award to the journalists who provided the reports and analysis.

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Jack Fairweather, the youngest in the team, infiltrated Iraq across the Kuwait border and charmed his way into a British combat unit, in defiance of all the rules.

Press:

Telegraph interview that swayed the president

An interview in The Daily Telegraph with the Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi enraged President George W Bush, the book reveals.

By February 2004, when the then Baghdad correspondent Jack Fairweather conducted the interview, Mr Chalabi was in near disgrace because of growing doubts about the intelligence he provided in the run-up to war.

When asked about the faulty intelligence, Mr Chalabi replied: "We are heroes in error. As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important."

The article found its way on to Mr Bush's desk and Mr Bremer writes: "The next time I spoke to [Condoleezza] Rice, she said the Telegraph story had 'really frosted' President Bush. He instructed American officials to distance themselves from Chalabi."