What this Peter Preston article is telling me is that the BBC used the same tactics it is accusing the Blair administration of, which is “sexing up the documents” by calling Dr Kelly a “a senior and credible “intelligence” official when in fact, He was a boffin working for the Ministry of Defence”.
So now the BBC has “sexed up its news reports” with a not so credible source and is hiding behind its legal rights to do so. Very much like the Blair administration has been doing about its intelligence reports boondoggle.
X~Slayer(ALE) - My point is that Kelly – as pre-eminent scientist in his field within the UK, at least – would likely have worn several hats. Sure he was employed by the MoD but that doesn’t mean he didn’t inform Intelligence perspectives when MI6, etc. came to him with Intel for to assessment of their own.
If Dr Kelly didn’t do work for MI6 (on at least an ad hoc basis), I’d suggest very tough questions need to be asked. In fact, one could argue Kelly was the loop and everyone/everything came to him. They’re really aren’t too many people with his range skills, knowledge and experience.
Second point, fingering the ‘BBC’ for ‘sexing up’ what Keely said is a little like blaming the ‘French’, it’s stinky. This isn’t a monolithic edifice in the sense some seem to suppose, it’s the BBC standing by one, maybe two, of their journalists (for as long as they can . . . .) who made their own personal judgement calls.
Ok, this has come up twice now, both times presented in quote marks, but with no actual cite to back up the quotes. Could that be because it’s not true that Andrew Gilligan described Dr Kelly as an intelligence official?
Here is a report on Gilligan’s evidence to the FAC and here is a transcript of a Today interview between John Humphries of BBC Radio and Government minister John Reid. Humphries (who may not have known the identity of the source) refers to an intelligence officer, Reid corrects him, pointing out that Gilligan did not give this description.
I’m a little tired now, could someone help me; is that two blogs and no meaningful cites, or one blog, an unsubstantiated opinion piece (who is Denis Boyles ?) and no meaningful cites ?
Even though I’m not sure what the difference is between blog and opinion.
**Full transcript of Gilligan’s ‘sexed up’ broadcast **
A complete transcript of Andrew Gilligan’s claims against the government on Radio 4’s Today programme, 29th May 2003. John Humphrys (Presenter)
Are you suggesting [the dossier] was not the work of the intelligence agencies?
*Andrew Gilligan (Journalist) *
Recommed reading the full text but:
“I’ve spoken to a British official who was involved in the preparation of the dossier and he told me that in the week before it was published, the draft dossier produced by the intelligence services added little to what was already publicly known. He said:
“It was transformed in the week before it was published to make it sexier. The classic example was the claim that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes. That information was not in the original draft. It was included in the dossier against our wishes, because it wasn’t reliable. Most of the things in the dossier were double-sourced, but that was single sourced, and we believe that the source was wrong.”
Now **this official **told me the dossier was transformed at the behest of Downing Street, and he added:
“Most people in intelligence were unhappy with the dossier because it didn’t reflect the considered view they were putting forward.”
Two:
A **BBC news report, timed at 17:16 GMT on Thursday, 29 May, 2003 **(assuming you accept it won’t have been doctored): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2945996.stm
“A dossier compiled by the government on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction was rewritten to make it “sexier”, a senior British official has told the BBC.”
The BBC claimed that the USA hadn’t taken the airport at the time we were watching it on TV. The BBC reported that that government had “sexed up” the intelligence based on a single source, who denied under oath that he had said that.
Thank goodness the Mods and Admins are of the opinion you don’t **troll **because otherwise some posters might get the wrong impression, you sad, silly little man.
Whether or not he worked with MI-6 is besides the point. Dr Kelly is not a senior intelligence official.
Thats tantomount to saying that Iraq definitely has weapons of mass destruction.
If both sides are wrong here, neither can claim the moral justification to impeach the others position. If the watchdog cannot be trusted, how are we to believe the accusations it levels on officials?
If the BBC transcript is accurate then Andrew Sullivan was wrong to put the words “senior intelligence official” in quotes. OTOH according to an article in the Times, the BBC Board of Governors was told that the source was an intelligence person. Apparently the Board put out a statement on July 6 implying that the source was a senior intelligence person.
I believe that Dr. Kelly was a senior official, but he himself denied being an intelligance official. (C-SPAN sorry no cite for his denial.)
Apparently, Dr. Kellywas instrumental in exposing clandestine Cold War Soviet biological weapons programs. He has been called politically savvy. After watching him though I don’t think that the camera loved him. He may have had a savvy understanding of politics and may have been a gret behind the scenes player though.
In short, this eulogy of sorts makes him out to be a smart crafty old codger who knew his ass from a hole in the ground. He was involved in some of the biggest events at the cross roads of international; politics and biological warfare of this past century.
Since the BBC tried to keep his name secret from the start its kind of hard to fault them.
If you want conspiracy theory though try this.
Kelly knows he has broken the official secrets act, knows he is in trouble. Government keen to have his denial extracts promise of retraction of his statements to Gilligan in front of FASC.
These are the “dark forces” he says were manipulating him.
It was said on Newsnight last night that the BBC has admitted to some of it’s reporters Paxman on Newsnight was one called Kelly an intelligence source. This they now admit was a mistake. Not one made by any of the reporters who actually talked to Kelly but a mistake of reporters/writers on BBC programmes.
And by a lot of news agencies around the world. But I’m not sure how wrong that description actually was given that Dr Kelly almost certainly worked for ‘Intelligence Services’ on secondment/as adviser/etc on an ad hoc basis. He almost had to, given their need of top-class assessments of their Intel.
He also worked for the UN, presumably he was an academic at some point . . I’m not sure hanging his hat on just one MoD peg is reasonable.
But that’s not smearing Gilligan, as his supposed but wrongly attributed (to him) mention of ‘intelligence sources’ in this thread was supposed to do.
Irrelevant smokescreen. This is argumentum ad hominem. You’re saying “The BBC [once might have] got something wrong. Therefore the BBC is less accurate than a blog.”
Hogwash.
Get back to the real debate - the one that you started. Here’s some other stuff that I think is smokescreen: debate over the word “intelligence” WRT Dr Kelly’s profession is irrelevant. Gilligan didn’t use this word - he said:
If the word “intelligence” official got attached somewhere along the line, it’s wrong, but a minor point. Kelly was involved in intelligence, even if he didn’t work directly for the intel services.
The implication that Campbell and Kelly met is also smokescreen:
It’s now being rumoured that it was Geoff Hoon who leaked Kelly’s name. In interviews this weekend, he didn’t rule out his resignation.
The BBC may have erred, but they’re only bit-players in this debacle.
Oh, come now. This herring is as red as Chairman Mao’s curtains.
We are debating whether Kelly was a “senior intelligence official” or not, with a view to labelling Gilligan an outright liar if Kelly was senior in Defence and had access/input to intelligence reports but was not senior in intelligence.
This is of an entirely different magnitude to the question “Where did this evidence of weapons able to be fired within 45 minutes come from?”, agreed?
Couldn’t agree more. It seems Campbell has managed to spin his way out of trouble by starting a debate on spin. Surely rather than focussing on one dead scientist (sad though it is), we should be far more concerned with the hundreds of dead servicemen and iraqis that this war caused.
If the dossier was falsified then the war may have been illegal (cite ). Doesn’t this essentially make Blair a murderer?