The tragic suicide of David Kelly has turned into one more battleground in the war between the BBC and the Blair Administration. Partisans one each side are blaming the other side.
Reporter Gilligan stands behind his report, and says any errors were made by his source Dr. Kelly. However, Gilligan described his source as a “senior intelligence official,” whereas Dr. Kelly is a scientist – not an intelligence official.
So, which side will come out on top? Will Tony Blair resign? Will Greg Dyke, head of the BBC, resign? Will a mid-level person resign? Or, will the whole thing fizzle away after an inconclusive investigation?
Ignoring the blatantly false dichotomy presented in the thread’s title, anyone who watched Dr Kelly’s appearance before the Foreign Affairs Select Comittee would say to themselves “Here is a man who was woefully inexperienced in dealing with journalists, let on a little too much and is now being savaged by perhaps the most uncomfortable interrogative process existent in Western democracy.” After an hour of almost inaudible replies, they must have had to wash his seat-cover down with bleach.
I belive every party in this sad affair was, ultimately, doing their job properly. The BBC journalist was dogged and tenacious in investigating possible government lies. The comittee was similarly unflinching and pursued a rightly aggressive course of questioning.
If there was even a question of whether something in the dossier was known to be false, no blame whatsoever could reasonably be attached to the medium which went in search of it unless their means were actually illegal.
The summary of this sad business is surely that pressure was, rightly, brought to bear on a man who, sadly, had not the capacity to bear it. The only question which stands out was *precisely what, if anything, was inserted the document which was known to be untruthful?
‘Blame’ - rather than deal with the substantive issues surrounding the so-called ‘Dodgy Dossier’ you want to discuss ‘blame’ ? Hmmmm . . . the short answer is we can’t know until the Judicial Inquiry is complete whether there is blame on on who’s side it might lie.
For certain, however, he shouldn’t have been ‘outed’ to the media by his employer, the MOD. Not least becasue they couldn’t have been certain they’d fingered the right source. That’s unacceptable, expecially given it was a politically motivated gambit.
That effectively threw their unprepared employee to the wolves. And, of course, he was unprepared for such unconscionable behaviour by his employer, by the media and by the Labour-dominated FASC.
As to the substantive, not-apportioning ‘blame’ issues . . .
Lord Hutton will conduct the independent judicial inquiry into the events that led to the death of microbiologist David Kelly. He announced that he, and he alone, will decide the scope of the investigation. He said the government had promised the “fullest cooperation” and expected “all other authorities and parties to do the same” - including the BBC.
The judicial inquiry will investigate what government procedures were followed by the Ministry of Defence and Downing Street. Also, they will examine the conduct of the BBC and correspondent Andrew Gilligan.
Kelly’s death is very sad indeed, but Qadgop is ultimately right. If Kelly took his own life, Kelly is at fault. You cannot reasonably blame the government or the BBC if David Kelly had emotional problems that led to his suicide. Certainly nobody tried to drive Kelly to his death.
I agree that no-one could have predicted Kellys death, and therefore, no-one can be said to have caused it.
I do think Alistair Campbell definately needs to go though. It was his attempt to shift the story from the WOMDs to the BBC that has caused this mess in the first place. Since when do journalists have to inform government ministers of whistle blowers? As an unelected official, Campbell was given way too much power and responsibility in the whole mess. He should definately step down, or become an MP.
I don’t think Blair will be forced to resign over this issue. He will scapegoat Campbell and Hoon if he has too, but ultimately he will survive.
I would like to state to any Labour party members reading this I would have voted Labour next election. I will not be voting Labour again as long as Blair is in charge. I don’t think I am alone in this either. If he cares about the fate of his party, he should step down and let Brown take over.
I think this may well seal the Minister of Defence Geoff Hoon’s fate:
"The government made an extraordinarily generous offer: if journalists could come up with a name, it would confirm it.
One hopeful journalist offered to run through a government telephone directory if his contact on the other end of the phone had enough patience. The contact declined.
The Guardian’s Richard Norton-Taylor, a specialist in defence and intelligence, put a more realistic proposition to an MoD press officer in the early evening. He offered only three names. The press office rejected the first two. When Norton-Taylor produced the third, David Kelly, the MoD press office confirmed it.
This runs counter to the claim by the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, yesterday that the MoD had behaved properly. “The appropriate procedures were followed inside the Ministry of Defence to ensure Dr Kelly’s rights were respected and properly handled,” he said.
The MoD wanted Dr Kelly’s name in the public domain. The press officer was acting under instruction from the head of the MoD press office, Pam Teare. She in turn was acting on behalf of Mr Hoon. "
whether Blair/Mandy/Campbell can stop the rot there is unknowable. I suspect not.
But how surprising is it that the MoD did this? From their point of view they’re going to look at Kelly’s behaviour as either woefully naieve or a direct attack. Either way, are you surprised that they went on the offensive, trying to show that either the BBC lied or their source was wrong.
The most straight forward way for them way to do this was to leak who the source was. This suicide actually makes it even better for the government. The BBC have admitted Kelly was the source. Kelly had previously denied making the “sex up” claim, and was not present at any of the meetings where Campbell attended. This means that one of the two has lied.
What’s even worse is that all of this will now detract from the most important part - finding out just how badly the government lied to us.
I feel this way as well, though the feeling has built up over a period of time. Up untill now i have voted Labour in every election. However I really can’t see my self voting Tory either. I wonder if the Lib Dems will get thier largest vote ever next time round.
I know what you mean. I couldn’t bring myself to vote for IDS. I’m usually quite pro-liberal, but Charles Kennedy has been such an ineffectual leader, I don’t really feel very inclined to vote for him either, but I suppose I’ll have to.
The name was leaked solely for partisan political purposes, not:
a) in the interests of furthering the debate over how the Government got the Intel (in relation to WMD) so wrong, and/or
b) to establish Campbell didn’t manipulate (‘sex up’) that Intl
Primary purpose, and all that.
Also, If Blair/Mandy/Campbell wanted to address the BBC position, it was a strangely unpredictable way to do. How did they know what Kelly might say after the fact (to the FASC, etc), or indeed had said to Giliagan ? - what did they - what could they - hope to achieve by outing him ?
Finally, remember, Kelly himself, at the end, was of the opinion that “dark forces” were manipulating him – one assumes he didn’t mean Gilligan and the BBC.
Absolutely agree on a), but on b) I think that’s precisely what they were hoping to show. Hell, what else point was there to this whole sorry affair other than Labour trying to show they didn’t create artificial reasons to invade Iraq?
But the means by Gilligan obtained his information was illegal in that it almost certainly involved a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
It remains to be seen whether the Guardian’s account of how they obtained Kelly’s name is the whole story. The Times has said that they just worked out the name on the basis of the information that had already been made public, partly by the MoD but also partly by the BBC. If the MoD knew that the story was breaking already, confirming it to the Guardian might not have made any difference either way.
The calculation becomes more explicable if Campbell knew for certain that he hadn’t sexed up the dossier. For the Government, the advantage in identifying Kelly would then have been that he was not as well-placed to comment on the preparation of the dossier as Gilligan had implied. At best, Kelly could only have been repeating office gossip, which, as I say, Campbell may well have known was false. For Kelly to have confirmed Gilligan’s version of their conversation would still not have incriminated Campbell. There was a risk that Kelly, having been given a public platform, would have gone on to make other claims, but everything suggests that he was actually in broad agreement with the Government over WMDs. He was the true believer who thought that Saddam might after all have had WMDs until shortly before the war.
Yes, but he was not particularly well-placed to know exactly how it was that his name had become public. Just because he might have thought that he had been mistreated by the MoD doesn’t mean that he had been. I suspect that they hadn’t been exactly sympathetic, but it seems premature to begin apportioning blame over details that we don’t yet know.
So let me get this straight. This guy committed suicide, just to disgrace the English Prime Minister? Good God! Talk about a fucking drama queen. :rolleyes:
Gary - My point is that the name was leaked in defence of Campbell and his career/reputation, not to support (directly) the Iraq WMD policy. Just makes it a little uglier after the death.
Difficulty with The Times on this issue is that Murdoch genuinely despises the BBC. I think it’s best to heavily discount what they say (on the assumption it serves a greater agenda) and unless otherwise established.
The Guardian is identifying the Press Officer and the chain by name up to Geoff Hoon. I think they mean what they say.
Yes, or if he’s fighting for his very career. But I take you point. In truth, I suspect we’re trying to put the pieces together with insufficient information.
I would imagine Kelly wasn’t the type of man to pass on office tittle-tattle to reporters. Also, I do think he, amongst others, would likely to be consulted by MI6 in relation to any potentially interesting Intel coming the way of MI6 may well – one must think that he would have a good chance of seeing most of what MI6 themselves obtained. Even they need advisers so I’d hazard he was inside or on the fringe of that loop as well. This item by Peter Prestonseems valid and, besides offering a reasoned explanation of events, emphasises the human dimension to the tragedy:
"We can’t begin proper textual analysis. But there may, as so often in journalistic and political life, be the muddle of humanity here.
An experienced and angry source who didn’t quite realise what he was getting himself into. A reporter with an eye for hot story giving what he was told full weight (rather more vividly than Ms Watts).
A government already infuriated by what it perceived as unfair BBC war coverage seeing this as the final straw - to “Campbell’s” integrity. And a row spinning haplessly out of control.
We have a human mess, not a malign or contrived mess. We have a quagmire of good intentions. No villains or heroes. We also, in all probability, have reason to lower the decibel count. "