The Hutton Report on the BBC’s actions over Iraq intelligence has led to the BBC’s chairman Gavyn Davies stepping down. The BBC accused the Blair government of "sexing up" their reports on Iraq and the investigation led by Lord Hutton found that the BBC’s accustion was "unfounded"
The Hutton Report includes some exceptionally damning evidence that shows how the BBC was willing to spin the news to try to bring down the Blair government.
Andrew Sullivan says this is a major vindication for the Blair government and it’s clear he’s right. The BBC engaged in a political witch hunt that led to the suicide of Dr. David Kelly and was based on entirely unfounded claim.
The British government should do the right thing and revoke the BBC’s charter. A governnent news monopoly with a decidedly political bent that ignores the truth and spins the news is not something that belongs in a free democracy. The Beeb’s arrogance has led to this scandal, and such arrogance deserves to be punished.
yeah right!! the BBC obviously lied: stocks of WMDs really are all around the place, ready and operational just like Blair said!!
“spins the news is not something that belongs in a free democracy”
remember that sentence, you may see it again someday soon…
The BBC lied when they claimed that Blair overstated claims about Iraq’s weapons. As both the Hutton Inquiry and David Kay determined, the conclusions about Iraqi WMDs were justified by the evidence that existed at the time.
thank you Jay, I’ve read the report. It IS a piece of crap (in legal terms, it’s a pure beauty: un chef d’oeuvre, but from an ethical point of view…). It IS irrelevant to the whole situation. It IS a fucking distortion of reality. I cannot believe that this judge is independant. The definition of what can be considered as “sexying a file” is a pure covering up.
What Mr Kelly said and suicided for is that the government wasn’t telling the truth about WMDs. They had no evidence of their existence at this time, and they obviously exagerated the threat since there is still not a drop of poison found in Irak. I don’t need someone to tell me what to think about it. I don’t believe the Britts are stupid enough to believe this report either. And they call it justice…
The BBC may have been too far (which I’m not really sure about), but still: There are no WMDs, and even if we find a few barrils in the desert in a few months (I’d say right before US elections), it’s nothing like the images Colin Powell showed at the UN, like if the threat was imminent. WMDs could not be used in 45min, and whoever built this case lied. May I remind you that part of the british case was built on a thesis by a californian student in ’91!!! If this is not a lie!
Either you didn’t read the report, or you have a very bad memory. Dr. Kelly himself believed that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction, and he killed himself because he was being hounded by the BBC.
The Hutton Report doesn’t have anything to do about whether or not Iraq had WMD, it is about the fact that the BBC deliberately lied in saying that the Blair government was overstating the case. All the evidence available indicated that Iraq had significant WMD capabilities – the UN believed it, Chirac believed it, the CIA believed it, Dr. Kelly believed it, and so on.
Both the Hutton Report and the Kay Report say that the intelligence that was on hand indicated Iraq was a threat and that there were WMDs in Iraq. Perhaps that intelligence may have been wrong, but it is clear that those who call such claims a “lie” are the ones who are lying through their teeth, and Gavyn Davies, Greg Dyke, and hopefully soon Andrew Gilligan will all lose their jobs because of it.
“the Kay Report say that there were WMDs in Iraq”
and this is so supported by facts!!!!
Yes, it is: