Blair Cleared

[Timber Loftis]

The only poodle I like withstood scrutiny again.
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Today's NY Times:

January 28, 2004
Judge Clears Blair of Wrongdoing in Scientist's Suicide
By TERENCE NEILAN

A senior British judge today cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government of any involvement in the suicide of a scientist who revealed information about Iraqi weapons to the BBC, saying no one could have foreseen he would take his own life.

The judge also castigated the BBC for a report saying that the government had exaggerated, or "sexed up," an intelligence dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in order to bolster support for the Iraqi war. The BBC claim, which the judge said was unfounded, had called Mr. Blair's integrity into question and presented him with a political crisis.

Soon after the report by the judge was made public today, BBC News 24 reported that the chairman of the publicly funded British news organization, Gavyn Davies, had resigned. The BBC also apologized for some of its reporting in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Blair, who appointed the judge, Lord Hutton, to investigate the suicide of the scientist, David Kelly, later said in Parliament that he accepted the report in full.

Referring to weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Blair said, "The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on W.M.D. is itself the real lie."

Dr. Kelly, an expert on Iraqi weapons, slit his wrists after being identified as the anonymous source of the information in a report by a BBC correspondent, Andrew Gilligan.

Lord Hutton, reading from a 328-page decision in a hushed courtroom scene that was carried live on national television, said: "I am satisfied that none of the persons whose decisions and actions I later describe ever contemplated that Dr. Kelly might take his own life. I'm further satisfied that none of those persons was at fault in not contemplating that Dr. Kelly might take his own life."

He added: "Whatever pressures and strains Dr. Kelly was subjected to by the decisions and actions taken in the weeks before his death, I am satisfied that no one realized or should have realized that those pressures and strains might lead him to take his own life."

Lord Hutton also said Dr. Kelly had acted improperly by meeting with Mr. Gilligan, breaching rules regarding government employees' contracts and failing to get permission for the meeting from his superiors.

In criticizing the BBC report, the judge said it had been "shown to be unreliable."

He added that "the allegations reported by Mr. Gilligan on 29 May 2003, that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was wrong before the government decided to put it in the dossier, was an allegation that was unfounded."

[Timber Loftis]

You know, between this fiasco and the BBC Worldwide fiasco (reporting the US was not in Baghdad when other nations were showing footage of the Tanks rolling through), it seems the BBC is being laid as low as the NY Times. I really hate it that news sources I have long thought trustworthy simply are getting things wrong.

[Barry the Sprout]

Well, I'd point out that this time I think they got it wrong for the right reasons. Gilligan was attempting to scrutinise the government and Davies supported him on the basis of trust in his journalistic integrity, which may or may not have been correctly placed.

Personally, if Hutton is so sure that Blair acted only on the intelligence he was given then when can we expect an inquiry into why the intelligence he was given was so wrong? The inquiry simply hasn't come to terms with two simple facts: 1. Kelly admitted telling Gilligan he thought the government had sexed up the dossier, and 2. They haven't found any WMDs and the whole of the intelligence reports (if the inquiry is to be believed) stated categorically that they would.

Points I'd hoped would be explained but quite simply aren't.

[johnny]

Bah, quit whining and apologize to Mr. Blair.

[Skippy1]

Call me a cynic, but it all stinks of cover-up to me. The fact as well that Cherie Blair is a member of the Law community might have escaped your notice as well TL. They look after their own mate. The entire report had nothing new in it, and actually proved nothing. Bloody shame from start to finish.

[Donut]

I am absolutely stunned! How can he have come to those conclusions - I am totally baffled!

Of course I never did apologise to OJ about thinking he murdered his wife either.

TL - the BBC reporter made a mistake about the invasion of Baghdad. Do you honestly believe that any western reporter would deny the presence of US tanks if he could see them? The reason why the BBC (and I'm talking specifically about the BBC World Service) is being slaughtered is because it presented a "fair and balanced" view of the conflict.

[ 01-29-2004, 06:06 AM: Message edited by: Donut ]

[Skunk]

NY Times as quoted by Timber Loftis: The judge also castigated the BBC for a report saying that the government had exaggerated, or "sexed up," an intelligence dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in order to bolster support for the Iraqi war. The BBC claim, which the judge said was unfounded, had called Mr. Blair's integrity into question and presented him with a political crisis.

Hutton did not castigate the BBC for the claim, but criticised them for the Editorial supervision of Gilligan and the manner in which they dealt with the complaint.

Hutton also stated that, as a result of Gilligan's inability to prove that Kelly had agreed with the term 'sexed up' (kelly being rather dead and unable to confirm), the allegation was unfounded.

NY Times as quoted by Timber Loftis: He added that "the allegations reported by Mr. Gilligan on 29 May 2003, that the government probably knew that the 45-minutes claim was wrong before the government decided to put it in the dossier, was an allegation that was unfounded."

This statement stinks - as we acutally have video footage of David Kelly stating that it would take weeks or possibly even days for Saddam to put together WMD's. We also know from emails between himself and his boss that neither were happy with the 45 minute claim and that both were under pressure from Downing street to include it anyway. The evidence CAN BE VIEWED on the Hutton inquiry website!.

This is rather at odds with Hutton and calls into question the integrity of the Judge appointed by Blair to investigate himself (if that alone doesn't raise questions by itself).

As for the conclusions of the inquiry, I'm not the only one baffled by the conclusions which are at odds with the available evidence:

"...Forget all those memos from Mr Campbell to the intelligence chief asking for multiple changes in wording. There was no pressure to harden the dossier, Lord Hutton decided, just a possible twitch of Mr Scarlett's subconscious - and even that tiny "possibility" was remote. It was more likely that Mr Scarlett's sole concern had been to reflect accurately the intelligence available.

For the press benches, this was all too much. Several journalists began first to sniff, then to snort and finally to chuckle their derision. Jeremy Paxman, for once barred from asking questions, was shaking his head in bemusement as each new finding in favour of the government came down from the bench. When Mr Scarlett's subconscious was introduced, the room seemed to vibrate with mockery.

Often when judges hand down their judgments, the lesser mortals arrayed below feel compelled to put aside their own biases or expectations and bow to the sheer logic and coherence of the legal argument. Whatever their final conclusions, long, detailed rulings in high-profile cases are often spellbinding essays in tight, rigorous reasoning.

Yesterday was not one of those days. Observers who had sat through every hour of the Hutton inquiry, reading and hearing the same evidence as his lordship, were left scratching their heads at his final thinking.

For one thing, Lord Hutton seemed to have turned a deaf ear to crucial facts and testimony. Transcripts of interviews that the BBC Newsnight journalist Susan Watts had recorded with Dr Kelly corroborated much of what Gilligan claimed, not least the scientist's statement that the 45-minute claim was "got out of all proportion". But Lord Hutton appears to have put those transcripts out of his mind, preferring to assume that Dr Kelly could not have said what Gilligan claimed he had.

The judge further chose to believe there was no "underhand strategy" to name Dr Kelly, gliding over Mr Campbell's diary entries in which he confessed his desperation to get the scientist's name out. Lord Hutton concluded there was no leaking, even though newspaper reports from last summer show someone must have been pointing reporters very directly towards Dr Kelly.

He ruled there had been no meddling with the substance of the September dossier, just some beefing up of language, even though one expert witness, Dr Brian Jones, testified that, when it comes to intelligence, wording is substance.

On each element of the case before him, Lord Hutton gave the government the benefit of the doubt, opting for the interpretation that most favoured it, never countenancing the gloss that might benefit the BBC. Perhaps the clearest example was Lord Hutton's very judge-like deconstruction of the "slang expression" sexed up. One meaning could be inserting items that are untrue, he said; another could simply be strengthening language. Under the latter definition, Hutton conceded, Gilligan's story would be true. So his lordship decided the other meaning must apply.

The judge also seemed to have a bad case of Wandering Remit Syndrome. The late insertion of the notorious 45-minute claim was within the scope of his inquiry; but whether that claim related to battlefield or strategic weapons was not, even though the reliability of the claim might well turn on precisely that question. Repeatedly, territory that might discomfit the government was declared out of bounds; areas awkward for the BBC were very much in.

The whole performance set you wondering. For this has become a ritual in our national life. If an argument rages on long enough, we soon call for a judge to investigate it for us in the form of a public inquiry. We see and hear the same evidence he does, but still we invest in him some mystical power to reach a conclusive truth we have not seen. And eventually he comes down from the mountain, like the high priest of yore, and delivers his judgment.

Yesterday's show shattered that illusion. Suddenly you found yourself seeing through the grandeur and mystique and wondering, who exactly is this man? Why was he chosen for this task? What made him cast this whole, complex dispute so neatly in black and white?

We are not meant to think this way. We are meant to trust and accept the wisdom from on high. But that is becoming harder to do. For Britons remember Lord Denning's conclusions on the Profumo affair in 1963 and his belief that "people of much eminence" could not possibly have misbehaved. Many remember Widgery's similar whitewash job on the Bloody Sunday case. Or the judge in the Archer trial who believed the "fragrance" of wife Mary made it unimaginable that Jeffrey would have used a prostitute..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/hutton/sto...133932,00.html

[ 01-29-2004, 08:05 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[Skippy1]

Well Greg Dyke has just resigned.

Guess who gets to select the new Director General of the BBC?

Yep, you guessed it! Take a bow Tony Blair.

Yes, I am a cynical bar steward.

[Donut]

I reard a caller on Radio 5 this morning state: "It's time the BBC started to support our Government"

Is this what we've come to?

[Davros]

Originally posted by Donut: I reard a caller on Radio 5 this morning state: "It's time the BBC started to support our Government" Is this what we've come to?

Maybe the good ole Beeb is heading for a dose of FOXification .
Perish the thought.