Post by Simon RobertsPost by s***@earthlink.netPost by Alain DagherYou two might be interested to know that there have been many very
strong attacks on the Hutton report in Britain. Most of these have come
from conservative journalists.
I don't doubt that may be true. However, have you considered the
possible explanation (by no means the only one, but a valid one) of Tony
Blair being at the moment attacked both by by his own party -- as
exposing too conservative politics for the Labor Party -- and by the
conservatives -- who would prefer that a nominal conservative politician
be the one to enact those policies, and therefore preferring a fallen
Blair, because of his party appurtenance rather than of Mr. Blair's
personal political options?
Sure, but as the former editor of the Daily Telegraph (to continue Alain's
example) observes in today's Telegraph: "Can anyone think of an official report
commissioned by a prime minister that seriously criticises that prime minister
while he is still in office? Prime ministers commission these inquiries when
they are in a tight spot, but they would never do so if there were a chance of
its findings being fatal."
That's a possibility, of course, as much as that is possible that the
gentleman you are quoting thought: "OK, Tony's in trouble with his own
party, let's punch him in the nose ourselves".
I trust that you may find the following comment in today's Telegraph
both more reasoned, elaborate and less partisan:
Since Lord Hutton published his report on the circumstances surrounding
the death of Dr David Kelly, he has been smeared as an Establishment
toady and charged with conspiring in a whitewash. It has been
entertaining to see those who initially hailed the former Law Lord as a
sea-green incorruptible now turning on him as a credulous lackey - for
the simple reason that his report criticised the BBC and exonerated the
Government.
For a start, it is preposterous to accuse the man who organised the most
transparent inquiry in modern times of toadyism. The Government was
deeply embarrassed by Lord Hutton's admirable decision to release
thousands of highly sensitive documents on the inquiry's website. This
unique archive shines a pitiless light on to the inner machinations of
the Blair administration. It is precisely because Lord Hutton chose to
make this material available that others are now able to take such
vigorous issue with his findings.
It should never be forgotten, furthermore, that this was a judicial
inquiry rather than a political show-trial. Its purpose was never to
draw conclusions about the character of the Blair Government, or its
past transgressions. As Alasdair Palmer argues in this newspaper today:
"The reality is that Lord Hutton treated Government officials and
ministers in exactly the same way as he treated the BBC: unless facts
showed otherwise, he accepted that the evidence they submitted to him
was truthful."
The problem for the BBC was that the facts were devastating to their
case. Mr Gilligan's defenders argue that, irrespective of the flaws in
his report on the Today programme on May 29, he performed a great public
service by bringing to light the alleged tensions between the
intelligence services and Number 10 during the preparation of the
September Iraq dossier. In fact, this allegation was an old one. It had
been made, for example, in The Observer in February and The Independent
on Sunday in April.
Everything that was new in Mr Gilligan's report has been shown to be
wrong. The 45-minute claim was inserted late in the process of the
dossier's drafting, not because Number 10 was growing desperate for
material, but because the new information was not received by MI6 until
August 29, 2002. It was inserted by the Joint Intelligence Committee
itself, not foisted upon the JIC by Alastair Campbell and his
colleagues. And Mr Gilligan's claim in his 6:07 am broadcast that the
Government "probably knew" that the intelligence was wrong has been
shown to be utterly unfounded.
Lord Hutton was quite right to conclude that "the BBC failed to ensure
proper editorial control over Mr Gilligan's broadcasts on 29 May". What
is no less remarkable is that - once the Government issued its complaint
- the BBC failed to subject Mr Gilligan's incendiary report to any form
of serious scrutiny. Greg Dyke, who resigned as the Corporation's
director-general on Thursday, did not read the transcript until four
weeks after the broadcast.
Mr Gilligan's notes - which Lord Hutton found unsatisfactory - were not
examined. Last week, Mark Byford, the BBC's acting director-general,
announced a full inquiry into the Gilligan case. The truth is that -
given the gravity of the allegation - that investigation should have
been held last June. Mr Dyke was right to quit his job. The question is
why the BBC governors, who, with the honourable exception of Dame
Pauline Neville-Jones, accepted Mr Dyke's unsatisfactory account at
their emergency meeting last July, feel that they should remain in their
posts.
Since the Hutton Report's publication, it has been routinely claimed
that the BBC still inspires unrivalled trust in the public, and that a
pro-Corporation "backlash" is somehow inevitable. Last Friday's YouGov
poll in The Daily Telegraph showed that 67 per cent trust the
Corporation "a great deal" or a "fair amount". It is striking, however,
that that figure has fallen from 81 per cent since March (the eve of the
Iraq war). O
ver the same period, the percentage of those who trust the BBC "not
much" or "not at all" has risen from 18 to 31. In contrast, another poll
in yesterday's Daily Telegraph showed that the percentage of those who
regarded the Government as "honest and trustworthy" had risen by four
points since the Hutton Report. It would be rash, in other words, to
assume that the public has reflexively rushed to the Corporation's
defence in its moment of trial.
Certainly, the report's verdict that there was nothing underhand about
Number 10's "naming strategy" to confirm Dr Kelly's identity has laid
Lord Hutton open to the charge of naivety. In this respect, his findings
conflicted sharply with the stench of deviousness which emerged from the
inquiry itself. It is not true, however, that the Government has emerged
from the Hutton Report scot-free and liberated from all the problems
which have afflicted it since the Iraq war. Gavyn Davies, the former BBC
chairman, Mr Dyke and Mr Gilligan have all lost their jobs. But so too
did Mr Campbell, the Prime Minister's former director of strategy and
communications, who is now reduced to selling his memories in a "one-man
show".
The very narrowness of Lord Hutton's remit, moreover, means that the
Government will still have to answer difficult questions about the
failures of intelligence that may have led it to overstate the scale of
Saddam Hussein's WMD programme. In this case, that alleged failure did
not lead to disaster: the Iraq war was just and predicated on Saddam's
criminally evasive behaviour as much as the evidence of his deadly arsenal.
Everyone, including France and Germany, agreed that the Iraqi dictator
had such an arsenal: the question was what to do about it. The action
which the US coalition took, in this case, was undoubtedly correct. The
danger, however, is that faulty intelligence might in future lead to the
prosecution of an unjust war. This is a challenge which all Western
governments must now address as a matter of urgency.
The events of the past week have spawned a gooey sentimentalism about
the BBC and a host of lurid warnings about prospective dangers to press
freedom. In practice, neither is in the slightest danger. The
Corporation will reform its procedures, as it must, and continue its
work under a new chairman and DG.
It is preposterous to present Lord Hutton as the villain of the piece.
Had Mr Gilligan told his bosses in June what he later admitted to Lord
Hutton then Mr Davies and Mr Dyke would still be in their posts and one
of the nation's greatest institutions would not have been plunged into
crisis.