Where are the Blair bashers now??

[jbooma]

Look as if the BBC was at fault not Blair.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55902-2004Jan28.html?nav=hptop_ts

Inquiry Clears Blair of Altering Iraq Intelligence

By Glenn Frankel

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, January 29, 2004; Page A01

LONDON, Jan. 28 -- A judicial inquiry cleared Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday of allegations reported by the British Broadcasting Corp. that he and his aides had exaggerated intelligence claims about Iraq's access to weapons of mass destruction and drove to suicide a British weapons expert who raised questions about those claims.

While exonerating Blair, Lord Brian Hutton blamed the BBC for broadcasting what he called "unfounded" allegations against the government in a report last May. In that report, the broadcaster accused the Blair government of publishing a "sexed-up" intelligence dossier -- claiming that Iraq could launch such weapons within 45 minutes of an order -- despite knowing it was probably not true. After the inquiry findings were issued, the BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies, submitted his immediate resignation.

Hutton ruled that BBC editors had not adequately scrutinized the allegations before they were broadcast and that editors and senior officials -- including the BBC's board of governors -- had failed to sufficiently investigate after Blair and others in the government heatedly denied the report. On Wednesday, the BBC, one of the largest and most respected news organizations in the world, issued an apology for inaccuracies in its original report last May 29 but insisted that most of its reporting had been accurate and in the public interest.

The BBC report and the government's reaction set off a major political controversy here and led to a chain of events that resulted in the apparent suicide in July of David Kelly, a weapons expert in Britain's Defense Ministry, after he was identified publicly as the source for the story. Following the suicide, Blair appointed Hutton, a retired senior judge, to head an independent inquiry.

The outcome was a stunning victory for Blair, who claimed complete vindication. As Hutton released his 328-page report and 412-page appendix, Blair appeared before the House of Commons. Citing Hutton's statement that "there was no dishonorable or underhand or duplicitous strategy on the part of the prime minister" in the Kelly affair, Blair demanded that political opponents retract claims he had lied in denying involvement in leaking Kelly's name to reporters.

But the opponents said the report left unresolved the question of why British intelligence had failed to accurately assess Iraq's weapons programs. "We are still no closer to determining whether this country went to war on a false prospectus," said Charles Kennedy, leader of the third-party Liberal Democrats.

Hutton held more than two months of public hearings in the summer and fall, called 74 witnesses -- including the prime minister -- and published thousands of pages of e-mails, memos and other internal documents that provided an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the government. His findings surprised many lawmakers and analysts, who had expected him to apportion blame more evenly between the government and the BBC. Instead, Hutton's report seemed to accept virtually without question the government's narrative of events and directed almost all of its fire at the BBC.

Hutton said the weapons dossier prepared for release in September 2002 had been the product of the top-secret Joint Intelligence Committee and, contrary to the BBC report, had not been subject to political interference. Aides in Blair's Downing Street office had suggested strengthening or clarifying the language of the dossier, but Hutton concluded that the committee's chairman, John Scarlett, had had the final say on what it contained and had not embellished its findings.

Hutton concluded that Kelly had acted improperly in meeting with BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and discussing intelligence matters without official authorization. But he said Gilligan's notes of the meeting did not substantiate the reporter's claims that Kelly had accused the prime minister's office -- and specifically Alastair Campbell, then the prime minister's communications director -- of knowingly publishing false intelligence.

Among other things, Hutton faulted BBC managers for not examining Gilligan's notes before issuing a vigorous defense of his report, and for failing to take into account an e-mail from Gilligan's editor that criticized the journalist's reporting methods, "loose use of language and lack of judgment in some of his phraseology."

Campbell made several emotional attacks against the BBC, which "raised very considerably the temperature of the dispute," the report said. Hutton said the BBC's board of governors had been correct in seeking to defend the independence of the broadcaster from those attacks. But the judge said the board should have undertaken its own investigation of Gilligan's notes "rather than relying on the assurances of BBC management."

Kelly came forward at the end of June and told his superiors he might have been the reporter's source. His disclosure set off a flurry of government meetings, some of them led by Blair, who eventually decided that the government should issue a statement disclosing that someone had come forward. Defense Ministry officials disclosed enough details that journalists were able to guess Kelly's name, which officials then confirmed.

Hutton said the Defense Ministry could have done a better job of protecting Kelly from press scrutiny and should have told him it was preparing to disclose his identity. But Hutton exonerated officials -- including Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon -- of the charge that their actions were responsible for Kelly's apparent suicide in July.

"Whatever pressures and strains Dr. Kelly was subject 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 these pressures and strains might have driven him to take his own life or contribute to his decision to do so," Hutton said in a 90-minute summary he read to a packed hearing room on Wednesday afternoon.

Kelly's wife, Janice, had testified before the inquiry that her husband had felt betrayed by the Defense Ministry for allowing his name to become public. "No other person should have to suffer the pressure he experienced," said Peter Jacobsen, a lawyer for the family, expressing its response to Wednesday's findings.

The report brought to a climax two days of intense political drama for Blair. On Tuesday, the House of Commons narrowly approved his flagship reform proposal to raise tuition at British universities. Analysts said the slim margin of that victory -- five votes -- had wounded Blair politically and made his vindication Wednesday more crucial.

"The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie," Blair told lawmakers.

But Michael Howard, leader of the opposition Conservatives, refused to back down from his claim that the Kelly affair was a black mark against the prime minister. "No one in government can look back on this episode with pride," he said. "The nation will, in due course, deliver its verdict."

Gilligan, who has not been on the air since the inquiry began, did not comment directly, but the National Union of Journalists issued a statement on his behalf branding the Hutton report as "grossly one-sided and a serious threat to the future of investigative journalism."

"Whatever Lord Hutton may think, it is clear from the evidence he heard that the dossier was 'sexed up,' that many in the intelligence services were unhappy about it, and that Andrew Gilligan's story was substantially correct," said Jeremy Dear, the union's president.

In his resignation statement, Davies, the BBC chairman, questioned whether Hutton's "bald conclusions" could be reconciled with the evidence and whether they might damage press freedom in Britain. Still, he explained his resignation by saying, "I have been brought up to believe that you cannot choose your own referee, and that the referee's decision is final."

Because the BBC is overseen by the government and raises most its funds through a compulsory licensing fee, Blair will have the principal role in choosing a successor to Davies. The BBC has already announced plans to strengthen its accountability and editorial procedures by putting a senior executive in charge of complaints. But critics are expected to demand many more changes. In a statement claiming exoneration, Campbell, the former communications director, demanded "several resignations at several levels."

"What I fear in all of this is that Hutton will unleash a frenzy of attacks and that the BBC will become a whipping post for everyone who's had it in for them," said Chris Smith, a lawmaker who was formerly cabinet secretary for culture and media. "My own belief is the BBC made particular mistakes that need to be corrected, but I defend to the hilt the BBC's right to be independent and practice robust journalism."

[Johnny Punani2]

Heads should roll at the BBC for this crap...

[jbooma]

Originally posted by Johnny Punani

Heads should roll at the BBC for this crap...

The sad thing is the damage is already done to Blair, he may not survive either.

[codeorama]

I'm not sure I understand.. (first, I'm not a Blair basher).

So, the BBC, a news organization, fluffed up the claims of the WMD, to make it look more glamourous, not Blair, but Bush bought into it??? Bush read the BBC piece and decided to go to war in Iraq??

I mean, seriously, if the BBC made the WMD issue look worse than what it was, what does that have to do with anything. Decisions are not made by media reports, they are made from intelligence reports. So if the media made the WMD case look worse, what does that have to do with anything?

[jbooma]

Originally posted by codeorama

I'm not sure I understand.. (first, I'm not a Blair basher).

So, the BBC, a news organization, fluffed up the claims of the WMD, to make it look more glamourous, not Blair, but Bush bought into it??? Bush read the BBC piece and decided to go to war in Iraq??

Bush went to war because of what his intell said, the same as France, Germany, and the same information that Clinton agreed upon.

[codeorama]

I understand that, and in hindsight and by some info that we have been hearing, it looks like our intell was faulty too..

But the point remains, what does the BBC's overexaggeration of the WMD have to do with anything? Decisions are not made from the media. I'm not being a smart ass, I honestly don't understand.

[OURYEAR#56]

So the BBC is the KGB, or another type of intelligence organization. This is not an excuse for the mess we're in Iraq. Why were we acting on news information....are you serious? Time for some real answers. I told you it was over oil.

[Kilmer17]

Paul Begala had a great quote this morning.

"If it was all about oil, we would have attacked Venezuela. They dont even have an army."

[jbooma]

Originally posted by codeorama

I'm not being a smart ass, I honestly don't understand.

What happened is the BBC accused Blair of making the intell look better to go to war. They were trying to convince the public much like our media that Blair and Bush wanted to go to war and would do anything they could to do it. They put out this story about "sexing up" the intell which was completely false.

The people of England were furious because the believed that report by the BBC. Then because of all the craziness the WMD guy in England killed himself.

What the court found out is the BBC was wrong in their story. Blair was going be the intell he had as well as Bush and Germany and France.

France didn't want to go to war because of the secret handshake deal they had with Iraq.

Turns out everyone was wrong about Iraq and nobody knows why. Kay even said it wasn't the white house's fault but the intell and why was it so off for the last 12 years?

[jbooma]

Originally posted by OURYEAR#56

So the BBC is the KGB, or another type of intelligence organization. This is not an excuse for the mess we're in Iraq. Why were we acting on news information....are you serious? Time for some real answers. I told you it was over oil.

must not reply to this :doh:

[OURYEAR#56]

Why would we attack Venezuela. If I remember correctly they only produce a small percentage of our oil supply. Besides how would we vilify them? Maybe we could say that their leader is responsible for 3000 death through bad tacos. I know it sounds outrageous, but so did hiding WMD in the sand, and connections to AL Quieda.

[Kilmer17]

Are you really this stupid?

[aREDSKIN]

Originally posted by Kilmer17

Are you really this stupid?

LOL

[codeorama]

Jboom... Thanks.. I just wasn't "getting it". Now I understand, I needed the cliff notes version.

BTW, I said WAY back that France, Germany and probably Russia, all had oil deals with Iraq. I'm not suprised by these revelations.

[Ancalagon the Black]

Tacos come from Mexico, not Venezuela.

But they both speak Spanish, so they're the same, right?

[Soliloquy]

Originally posted by Ancalagon the Black

Tacos come from Mexico, not Venezuela.

But they both speak Spanish, so they're the same, right?

Classic! :rotflmao: