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September 06, 2003 HUTTON INQUIRY WRAPUP....Phase 1 of the Hutton inquiry is over, and a reader has alerted me to this summary in the Guardian. To my surprise, it actually appears to be relatively fairminded, concluding, among other things, that "Andrew Gilligan's story that No 10 wanted to 'sex up' the Iraq dossier has largely been vindicated, but his claim that Downing Street inserted the 45 minute claim knowing it to be wrong has not been substantiated." That sounds about right to me, and the other nine points they make seem basically correct too. (However, it's worth noting that the Hutton inquiry focused on the government, not the BBC, so the Guardian summary doesn't have much to say about how the BBC handled the affair.) The Guardian also has a very nice index to all the evidence and transcripts from the Hutton inquiry here. The evidence is organized only by date on the Hutton inquiry website, but the Guardian has it organized by topic, which, needless to say, is considerably easier to navigate. Posted by Kevin Drum at September 6, 2003 03:43 PM | TrackBackComments
that "Andrew Gilligan's story that No 10 wanted to 'sex up' the Iraq dossier has largely been vindicated, but his claim that Downing Street inserted the 45 minute claim knowing it to be wrong has not been substantiated.",/i> Talk about conflict of terms. This report isn't relatively fairminded, it's stuck in a quagmire of fear...The Guardian says exaggerated instead of lied just like the NYT. It's like the rest of media, except the BBC, afraid to say Blair lied -or Bush lied too. It amounted to lying to parliament, and Mr Blair said he viewed the BBC report as having accused him of having duped the public into the war. But isn't this exactly what Blair did? Blair duped the public, same as Bush did. WHERE are those WMD? Blair didn't did say anything about MMD "programs" in fact he told Americans the last time he was here that even if the US and UK didn't find WMD at least history would judge Blair's and Bush's action okay since Saddam was an evil man-remember? So if Downing Street inserted the 45 minute claim knowing it to be wrong it is in fact substantiated. Saddam appears not to have had any WMD... Josh Marshall said it himself--The scientist would have, at least by now, talked about the WMD- especially the guy that lead the US to old nuclear parts buried under his rose bush. The Guardian said this The claim in the dossier that Iraq could deploy its chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so came from a second-hand and dubious source The claim was controversial before the inquiry, but now looks very tarnished. The government said it came from an Iraqi officer. Possibly, but this is not quite the whole truth. In fact it came second-hand through another source. Dubious means doubtful- a doubtful source. I have a funny feeling Lord Hutton's report will not have the same trouble as The Guardian showed in confirming that in fact Blair did lie to parliament as well as the UN. Blair did this right along with Bush and Powell. Posted by: Cheryl at September 6, 2003 04:35 PM | PERMALINKthe Guardian summary doesn't have much to say about how the BBC handled the affair. Kevin, last I checked the BBC hasn't the power or authority to inavde Iraq, either. Posted by: bmo at September 6, 2003 05:58 PM | PERMALINKbmo: why no, the BBC doesn't have the power to invade Iraq. Are you objecting to a simple sentence pointing out that the Guardian summary didn't cover the BBC end of things? Posted by: Kevin Drum at September 6, 2003 07:01 PM | PERMALINKCarol: the Guardian was pretty clear, I thought, that there was dubious stuff in the dossier and that No. 10 *did* "harden it up." They definitely spun things to make their case. But -- the fact remains that no evidence from the inquiry clearly shows that Blair or Campbell flat out lied. That's just the way it is. So exaggerated, spun, hardened, sexed up? Sure. Lied? No, at least not based on the evidence at hand. Posted by: Kevin Drum at September 6, 2003 07:06 PM | PERMALINKSo exaggerated, spun, hardened, sexed up? Sure. Lied? No, at least not based on the evidence at hand. The question of when exagerations become outright lies isn't straightforward, which is why more cautious commentators (like Kevin) aren't quick to level accusations of lying. I think at some point an extreme exaggeration becomes the functional equivalent of a lie, but it must be at an extreme to do so. Several things that impress me about this. First, there's an acknowlegement by all sides that a Prime Minister using falsehood to push a nation to war is not only wrong, but is so deeply wrong that said PM ought to be immediately removed from office. Contrast this with the utterly blase attitude toward the same question here in the States on the part of both the administration and the press. Second, this inquiry seemed both serious and fairminded, rather than either a dishonest witch-hunt by ruthess partisans, or a cynical cover-up by amoral officeholders. Alas, one could hardly imagine such a proceeding in this country. The U.S. has a deeply sick political culture, and there's no reason why this has to be so. Posted by: jimBOB at September 6, 2003 07:39 PM | PERMALINKjimBOB: I agree. I'm not sure we've really discovered anything all that new during the inquiry, but I sure am impressed with how quickly it's gone and with the apparent seriousness with which everyone seems to take it. Quite different from the U.S., that's for sure. Posted by: Kevin Drum at September 6, 2003 08:56 PM | PERMALINKKevin - FWIW as a Brit, I think your assessment of the balance and accuracy of Guardian reports of the Hutton Inquiry is correct. There is a good audit trail in this with early web publication of transcripts of the Inquiry proceedings together with the huge volume of documentary evidence for those with the time and inclination to check for themselves. Reports in the Financial Times tend to be relatively sparse and much focused on central issues but are worth following by those who only want the most salient essentials. That leads me to what I regard as an instructive comparison between reporting in the FT and one example selected from the US regional press: "Intelligence officials were deeply unhappy about what they considered Downing Street 'spin merchants' interfering to stop them toning down the controversial dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, it emerged on Wednesday. . ." - from FT (subscription) on 3 September at: http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059479540358 "LONDON - A British inquiry has so far failed to turn up evidence that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government intentionally exaggerated claims in an intelligence dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons with information it probably knew was wrong. . ." from Kansas City Star on 5 September at: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6697949.htm Having folowed press reporting on the Inquiry across many of the papers, the FT report seems to me to be the accurate of those two contradictory reports. Indeed, it is difficult to believe the Kansas City Star was reporting the same events. I trust the Kansas City Star is an unusual example of reporting back to American readers. A politics professor on the late night BBC radio news the other night commented on how Blair's personal rating had slumped in the polls. In response to a question: "Do you trust Tony Blair?" 74% gave an affirmative response in a 1998 poll but only 27% in response to the same question in a recent poll. Allowing for sampling errors, that means almost 50% of the electorate have ceased to trust Blair, which is a huge swing. Posted by: Bob at September 7, 2003 05:04 AM | PERMALINKBob-- I also thought the Guardian summary (unlike much of its Hutton coverage) was quite good and played it pretty straight. Unfortunately, I don't think the article in the Kansas City Star is atypical of the reporting in American newspapers about the Hutton Inquiry. While more accurate and detailed in scope, Warren Hoge's reporting in The New York Times, for example, has had a significant pro-Blair tinge, highlighting testimony favorable to Blair and addressing major problems for the government and inconsistencies briefly near the end of his articles. But the biggest fault in US media coverage is the relative lack of coverage of the Hutton Inquiry. Posted by: Ben Brackley at September 7, 2003 08:28 AM | PERMALINKBen - Years from now, I can foresee all this becoming the grist for many a PhD thesis on journalism as well as international relations and the internal workings of the British government. What set me worrying about the differential treatment in American and British media was a series of reports of polls in America saying some 70% of respondents connected Saddam with the terrible events of 9/11 despite the absence of any supporting evidence. Indeed, the majority of those directly implicated in 9/11 were Saudi citizens. Saddam's self-serving despotism in Iraq had good reason to be especially wary of any close dealings with al-Qaeda least it start to promote an Islamicist agenda there and destabilise Saddam's regime in much the way that the Taliban and al-Qaeda took over Afghanistan. A good reason for caution about the balance of reporting in British media is that each organ has its own special axe to grind. The Guardian and The Independent have been taking much the same line as the BBC throughout and were arguably even ahead it at times, but Alastair Campbell, Blair's erstwhile communications chief, chose to pick a fight exclusively with the BBC, apparently because he regards the BBC as more influential - and, doubtless, because it wouldn't look good if he took on a whole bunch together all at once, particularly since The Guardian and The Indy veer towards left-centre. OTOH the traditionally right-wing press has a long history of continuing hostility towards the BBC, some for business reasons, some because the BBC is regarded as a bastion of "liberal" values. However, there is clear evidence from evidence to the Hutton Inquiry that several officials in the intelligence community here shared concerns about the embellishment of the evidence for Iraq's WMD in the government's dossier published last September to justify war. A banner header in The Indy of 12 August reads: "As probably the most senior and experienced intelligence official working on WMD, I was concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessments for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier of 24 September 2002" - from letter sent to intelligence chief, disclosed at the Hutton Inquiry. For an illuminating pro-Labour but critical-of-Blair assessment of the political fallout from the Hutton Inquiry, it is worth reading this piece in The Guardian by [Lord] Roy Hattersley, who was deputy leader of the Labour Party from 1983 through 1992. He asks why are we having the Hutton Inquiry and suggests it's because: "Ministers wanted to minimise the damage done to their reputations by the growing suspicion that they had taken Britain to war on false pretences. Lord Hutton's inquiry has confirmed precisely what the prime minister hoped it would refute." - from: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1030057,00.html Posted by: Bob at September 7, 2003 10:20 AM | PERMALINKBob-- I wonder how much Hutton will press Joint Intelligence Committee Chief Scarlett to refresh his testimony now that it is clear that key players in the intelligence community thought the first dossier was "sexed up" or at least "over egged" (if there is a difference between the two expressions). Is it possible Hutton may say this is not relevant enough to his inquiry into Dr. Kelly's death, and not press Scarlett harder. I also see that Kelly's family wants Blair recalled as a witness to clarify the discrepencies in his testimony about the naming of Kelly as a BBC source. I also fear that Blair will use the Hutton Inquiry to forestall any broader judicial inquiry into the intelligence basis and legality of the war. Posted by: Ben Brackley at September 7, 2003 01:17 PM | PERMALINKBen - The Inquiry has already turned out to be more wide ranging and potentially embarrassing than Blair likely intended or hoped. He is probably banking on not too many of the electorate following the Inquiry proceedings during a popular holiday period and that the media headlines following the final report is what will count in the political arena. It rather looks as though Hoon, the defence minister, is being set up to take the rap for the naming of Dr Kelly even though Downing St was in on the discussion and approved the strategy. The BBC will likely take criticism for being wrong on some details but the substantive news line that last September's dossier embellished claim's about Iraq's possession of WMD appears thoroughly vindicated by the evidence from some intelligence officials and the continuing failure of Coalition forces to discover any in Iraq. In recent Blair speeches, he speaks of Iraq's "programme" for WMD - which was, apparently, the originally intended title for the dossier. "Programme" got deleted out because it sounded to weak. The official line is being quietly shifted on a notch or two. My impression is that the intelligence community here feels that it has already had more than enough exposure and will wish to retreat to its customary opaque status with the government taking the traditional impenetrable line of refusing to comment on any intelligence matters for reasons of national security. Scarlett does not appear implicated in the naming of Dr Kelly and could therefore escape recall. However, Dr Kelly's family is pressing for the recall of Blair who seems to have been far more closely implicated than he led reporters to believe when he first learned news of Dr Kelly's death during his Asian tour. A little noted sub-text is that Blair and New Labour have special reason to worry about sensitive leaks from the civil service because Labour made much of such leaks when it was in opposition during the previous Conservative administration and would doutless not wish to be on the receiving end of a political tactic it often applied to discredit the then government. The unstated message will be that the pressures to which Dr Kelly was subjected is the fate that will befall civil servants who leak on sensitive issues without prior political authorisation. Downing St will continue to take a very active interest on such occasions. The most likely lasting political fallout will be loss of public trust in Blair as an honest politician, perhaps especially because he made reform of public services the primary issue in his 2001 election campaign and has focused in government on international issues instead. An unintended consequence of the loss of trust is that Blair will not dare risk a referendum on Britain joining the Euro in this Parliament after a long succession of opinion polls report a two to one majority against. The Downing St communications machine is being revamped in response to the persistent accusations of news manipulation but it will take a long time before most news watchers will accept the changes are anything other than cosmetic. Posted by: Bob at September 7, 2003 09:04 PM | PERMALINKKevin: I should have been more clear in my remarks re: the BBC and Blair's gov't. in this affair. The BBC and the Labour gov't locked horns here. Gilligan overstated his case, the beeb's higher ups defended their managers, Blair outted Kelly, and an odd, sad, dedicated, competent, private civil servant killed himself - it's all straight from an dark episode of Yes, Prime Minister. There'e a neat little summary on the same Guardian site regarding the evidence given at the inquiry, and the inconsistencies of that evidence - a fair bit of it from the individuals involved at the Beeb - so hence my 'objection' to the notion that somehow the Guardian was ignoring this aspect of the affair. As well, some speculation on phase two of the inquiry. My point: the Hutton inquiry wasn't (isn't) just an inquiry into the
behaviour of government officials and bureaucrats at the MoD - it does
seem, however, that this is where the greater inconsistencies lie. In
fact it appears that those at the Beeb have come clean - or, have come
somewhat more clean, ugly phrase I know, forgive me - than the
government officials. (I suspect you may feel the Guardian has
overlooked or turned a blind eye here) Sexing up a document people can handle - everyone shapes their arguments on a near-daily basis. But just how the hell did that 45 minute claim get in there? Now we'll get No 10 blaming the MoD and vice versa. That's trouble. Britons may in the end find Blair's behaviour in regard to the Kelly affair at best unseemly, despite his honesty - he's toast in the next general election at any rate- but they will absolutely be demanding his head if he tries to shift blame to the JIC with regard to the ownership of the dossier. He owns it. Hence my remarks Posted by: bmo at September 8, 2003 10:19 AM | PERMALINKonline casinos | casino bonus | casino directory | high roller casinos | casinos Posted by: doi at May 23, 2004 11:18 AM | PERMALINKcollegefucktour college fuck tour college fuck tour ashley college fuck tour cathy college fuck tour crystal college fuck tour galleries college fuck tour gallery college fuck tour jenny college fuck tour julianna college fuck tour missy collegefucktour movie clips college fuck tour movies collegefucktour movie samples college fuck tour movie samples college fuck tour movs college fuck tour pics collegefucktour pictures Posted by: street blowjobs at June 30, 2004 10:35 AM | PERMALINK
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