Blair and the BBC

The BBQ Pit
21

call me a cynical bollix, but I’m not in the least bit suprised that the government came out with sentless feces after this.

did anyone really expect the report to actually call Blair et al. lying bassas?

not a chance.

Just interesting to see what blair will do with Hoon next. After he dodged the bullet over the short supply of army gear, it will be interesting to see what they will get rid of him with. If he resigns it will show be admitting blame.

He’ll probably end up wiuth the Northern Ireland portfolio, and then we’re all up the shitter.

22

London Calling, as a Yank with little exposure to the whole controversy, and as a person who went to the official website to see what was going on but who was throughly intimidated by the bulk of the whole thing, I for one would appreciate a concise summary of this mess if it is not asking to much. For instance:

What did the BBC broadcast that got the government’s shorts in a bunch?

What was Lord Hutton supposed to look into?

How did the investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Kelly’s death some how vindicate the PM’s claim of good and reliable intelligence to support his claim that Iraq was a danger to the UK?

There is an excerpt in the Great Debates thread on this thing that indicates that the Judge drew some sort of distinction between “sexing up” a public statement to the Parliament and to the nation and “sexing up” a classified intelligence report-- and that it was the public statement that was “sexed up” and not the classified report and therefore the BBC report of “sexing up” the classified report was false. Am I misreading the commission report?

There is a lot of talk about Lord Hutton having a bias in favor of the government–that he was likely to whitewash the government. What is that about?

If it has been established, either inside or outside some judicial or quasi-judicial inquiry, that the rational given by the PM for the war was false/wrong/ erroneous why is the Hutton Report regarded as such a huge victory for Blair’s government?

Are we dealing with anything here except the opinion of a 70+ year old Northern Irish prosecutor turned judge and appellate judge as reward for long and faithful service to the government? Why is his judgement important? Why should he be regarded as a rubber stamp?

I hope this isn’t too rational for the Pit, but this forum give so much more latitude in formulating a cogent, memorable and expressive answer.

23

I will concede that point, but I really needed to let off some steam.

I genuinely believe that the whole report in to the death of David Kelly is a whitewash to draw a line under the whole issue of Britain going to war with Iraq for fictitious reasons. This is a very complicated issue, and it could be very many years before anyone gets any perspective on the events of the last two years, what it means for the future of democracy and the relationship between government and media. My post was just an angry burst of swearing and groundless opinions because the Hutton report pissed me off. Pissed off at realising that the world is too complicated to understand, not knowing what good or evil is, a general dislike of Blair, Hutton and the government, and the feeling that we’re all being bullshitted to without having a shred of evidence to back up this feeling. Apologies for sounding like another newbie troll.

24

Well, in theory it’s still a Parliamentary democracy so, unless something unexpected becomes known, the only arbiters are his own Parliamentary party and the public (should Blair last in office until the next election – and I do not believe he will).

Bricker – You may find one or two answers in the context I offer below, though it’s not exactly on your points. I’ll get back to you over the weekend – you might find one or two of the links below helpful, though. Especially towards the end.

It’s a very big topic now, Spavined Gelding, and even the broad context is nuanced with cultural peculiarities – it’s a handful for us, never mind you poor innocents. I’ll give it a whirl. Context:

Dr David Kelly was interviewed by a BBC reporter (by the name of Gilligan) on a deep background basis. As a result of that interview, Gilligan broadcast hat the Government had lied about the so-called 45-minute warning. Dr Kelly, while having serious reservations about the politicisation of Intelligence data *in general * (the ‘sexing up’ allegation), claimed he never said the Government had outright lied – the distinction being between sexing up and lying e.g. that Blair had taken the UK to war on a false premise.

About that, we don’t know but we do know Dr Kelly lied on other matters (for example to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee) and that he was, t some extent, squirming away – trying to reduce the impact of what had been unleashed.

But this is what Kelly actually said:

*"Dr Kelly’s concerns were reported by Andrew Gilligan in his Today programme broadcasts and by ex-Panorama reporter Tom Mangold. Mr Mangold said that Dr Kelly had agreed with him that the 45 minute claim was “risible.”

Direct evidence of Dr Kelly’s view came from the transcript of a recorded interview with Susan Watts of Newsnight. In this Kelly explained that there was “concern about the statement…it was a statement and it just got out of all proportion. They were desperate for information.”

He said of whoever debriefed the source of this material. “Quite often it’s someone who has no idea of the topic…I could give other explanations… that it was the time to erect something like Scud missile or …to fill up a 40 barrel, multi barrel rocket launcher.”

The concern referred to by Dr Kelly was evident in documents from the Defence Intelligence staff who assess raw intelligence"*
Government took umbrage at being accused of lying to the public, big furore, G’mint keen to get Kelly’s name in the public domain so he would refute the worst of the story, eventually succeed. Kelly lies before the parliamentary but didn’t know he’d be caught out by another BCC reporter (Susan Watts). Kelly caves in to pressure and kills himself.

Blair announces an Inquiry – Terms of Reference “To examine the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly”. Inquiry headed by arch Establishment character, loyal Ulster Unionist and all round Safe Pair of Hands Lord Hutton. A this point Blair has:
[ul]
[li]Defined the limited remit of the Inquiry – remember the only slightly broader circumstances included the 45 minute malarkey and the rest of the so-called Dossier[/li][li]Put in charge a good ol’ boy[/li][li]Established who would produce what evidence (some hard drives were examined, those of Blair and his people were not)[/li][li]And, imho, had his ‘Director of Communications’ (Campbell) make sure there was nothing to be found and that everyone was watertight on the agreed story – and they were; Scarlett, Tebbit, Campbell and Blair.[/li][/ul]

So we wind up with this: ** Key points: The Hutton report - take a long look becasue its the crux of where we now are.

But then take this as a single example from May last year: MI6 led protest against war dossier – There’s a ot of this kind of thing around and Hutton did not even consider this kind of information, view or indication of concern within the Intelligence community.

And indeed, I refer you again to the full contents of this page:
What have we learned about the dossier?

So, some think Hutton a whitewash, I tend to think Blair was cleverer than that; Hutton covered very particular ground and it wasn’t the ground many assumed he might cover – it’s only a ‘whitewash’ in my view, if you don’t accept Hutton should have limited himself to the deigned ambit.

To date, no Inquiry has been forthcoming on the more urgent and bigger question of how the Intelligence data came to be so ‘wrong’ <cough>. Nor will it do so while Blair remains in power.

That’s some of the context. Phew.

25

That was very odd, the cut and paste, pasted selectively. Hey ho. Under the list in my post, this was supposed to happen - note particularly the link to the summary of the Hutton Report:

So we wind up with this: ** Key points: The Hutton report** - take a long look becasue its the crux of where we now are.

But then take this as a single example from May last year: MI6 led protest against war dossier – There’s a ot of this kind of thing around and Hutton did not even consider this kind of information, view or indication of concern within the Intelligence community.

etc. (as above)

26

Have to say, I think Greg Dyke’s behaved entirely honourably throughout … stood by his reporter and his story against the initial political pressure (as he undoubtedly should have done, at the time); confronted with an official decision that the story was wrong, he’s straightforwardly accepted the consequences. Can’t fault him.

Can’t really fault Hutton, either, for sticking carefully to his remit … though I can’t help thinking things would have been different if we’d had, say, Kenneth Starr in the job. (Can you imagine Hutton as Whitewater Special Prosecutor? "No, no, no … my brief is to investigate a real estate deal … I’m not going to be distracted by sordid stories about blowjobs … ")

The only person, it seems to me, who hasn’t behaved honourably is … well … the guy who set the limits on Hutton’s inquiry. Who, coincidentally, is the same guy who (ahem) repeated misleading intelligence information to the House of Commons … our never-to-be-sufficiently-despised Dear Leader, Tony Blair.

Does anyone think the Lib Dems have a chance at the next General Election? Because, if not, I might have to bite the bullet, break the habit of a lifetime, and vote Conservative at the next general election. Lifelong socialist though I am, I’d rather have Michael Howard than Tony Blair right now. Blair has got to go.

27

Has to be crazy that the two most senior people at the BBC go because of one rogue report – which really wasn’t that off the mark, anyway.

The immediate contrast for me is with Geoff (Buf)Hoon who, last week wouldn’t say sorry to the wife of the soldier who died in Iraq because his body armour had been ‘redeployed’ to the Infantry.

Now, I’d accept it wasn’t Hoon’s responsibility and he shouldn’t have to apologise for errors at the dockside (the body armour was in the region, but it had been caught up in a logistical mess), let alone lose his job, but it Blair wants Dyke to apologise and if Campbell wants two resignations . . . I’m baffled by the inconsistent application of ‘corporate responsibility’ and the ‘buck ultimately stops at the top’. Only if Blair says so, it seems.

But that’s just small change in this ruddy great seething mess.

God I hate Blair and Campbell and I’m with Steve – I detest Howard but I’m sorey tempted.

However, I do think the opinion polls will see the end of Blair by next summer and I’ll vote for Gordie Brown from now until all my sacred cows come home.

28

Steve’s mention of Michael Howard reminded me.

Our own PM, the slimy little fucktard John Howard, had this to say:

Disgusting, lying little fucker.

29

You have to admit, he’s absolutely right about that, you know … I suggest you give John Howard just as much of an apology as I’ll give Blair.

30

Excellent point, Steve. :slight_smile:

31

When any senior government official makes unautherised briefings to the media with allegations as serious as Dr Kelly did, then that official can certainly expect to defend that point of view in public.Someone at Kellys level of intellect and seniority must surely have known that.

In that sense I think that the naming of Kelly was proper.

What was not proper, shameful in fact, was the way his name was released.
Journalists were briefed that if they guessed the name correctly, it would be confirmed, and it was just a simple matter of elimination.

This gave the tissue thin cover that Kelly had not been overtly named as such, but that the media had discovered the source and it had merely been confirmed.

This is just a play on words and the true intention was to make Dr Kelly’s name public, however it should have been given in an official briefing, a statement along the lines of.

“Following unauthorised leaks of information, very serious allegations were made against Blair, Campbell, Her Majesties governments (whatever) and an internal inquiry was held to discover the source.
That source is now known to be Dr Kelly and we have recieved a written reply from him”

Dr Kelly should then have been available for interview to the media, with departmental backup and briefing. There he could have explained himself, or justified his actions, whatever was appropriate.

The government completely abrogated its responsibility to manage such a serious and damaging allegation, but in doing so it made it impossible for Kelly to have any kind of platform to either oput up or shut up - perhaps the government wanted it this way, it certainly appears so.

Blair being a former lawyer is familiar with the concepts of evidence and degrees of proof, yet he still insists that he believes that the Niger allegations are true
and being a former lawyer he know that it is impossible to definitively prove that he knows that story to be untrue.

The way those Niger unranium allegations were initially discredited, before in depth confirmation makes the Western intelligence services a laughing stock.

When the report was handed to the AEA, after much pressure, the invesitgators saw some familiar looking material which set out some terms as they applied to the Niger constitution.
Putting that text into GOOGLE!!!

32

Ooops, hit a wrong button too soon,

anyway, GOOGLE returned links to identical text, this being exerpts of the Niger consitution, however it should be noted that this was rewritten in the mid 1980’s and before the first gulf war.
So at best we had allegations from a period nearly 20 years ago, and at worst, a very poor bunch of document forgers whose aim was to produce evidence that could be used to justify an illegal war on Iraq.

Somehow CIA and MI6 missed this, just what the fuck are they being paid large amounts of money to do?

I cannot believe that such a matter would not have been raised at some point with Bush and Blair as they would have to be kept informed of any information that might affect their decision to go to war, of course such briefings would be secret, so how would anyone know?

33

I used to be a Blairite, and I still support most of the Labour party’s domestic policies, minus a few anti-immigration things and so on, but recently - and especially in the light of the Iraq war bullshit and the Hutton report and its pathetic remit - I have had to conclude something I suspected before, but didn’t quite believe:

Tony Blair is a cunt.

34

Anyone remember the New Labour ethical foreign policy . . . do you laugh or cry ?
To carry on from jjimm, one thing I realised yesterday is that, as a result of all this business, I’m finally free of the New Labour/Blair clutches. It’s a strange feeling of release, evangelical if I wanted to go completely overboard . . . But it’s nice.

It’s finally over. And it feels great!

35

Well, all our fears have just been confirmed.

[spoiler]Satire warning!

Got this from a FoF, who writes: “a girl here forwarded it yesterday to a friend who works on a newspaper in Japan. She printed it out, left it on the editor’s desk, and went home. The editor called her later that night to double check the spelling before running it on THE FRONT PAGE. Luckily they got to it in time”[/spoiler]

36

So if he hadn’t made the call, would the editor have had to resign?

37

It’s worth noting that Gilligan’s transgression occurred not in his original report of the interview but in unscripted comments on a live radio program.

It’s also worth noting that 1) according to at least one report three times as many people currently trust the BBC as trust the Prime Minister, and 2) when Greg Dyke resigned hundreds of BBC employees came out in support of Dyke, protesting the BBC Governors’ acceptance of Dyke’s offer to resign. You think if Blair stepped down any of the Labour MPs or civil servants would miss him?

Why is it that the BBC fails to step on one unscripted comment and the Government expects the entire line of command to resign, but they can fuck up pretty much continuously and only offer up a token scapegoat when cornered? Fucking hypocritical bastards.

And for God’s sake, Steve, even Tony isn’t so bad as to justify voting for Michael Howard. Vote Lib Dem, vote Green, vote Monster Raving Loony Party, but never Howard!

38

(wakes up)

Wha . . . wha’d I do?

39

Gyrate: William Hague … Ian Duncan Smith … now Michael Howard … and Boris Johnson waiting in the wings … let’s face facts here, the Conservatives are the Monster Raving Loony Party.

40

They might be starting to realise that they fucked up in a big way: