palast@gregpalast.com
1-29-4
He did not say, "hello," or even his name, just left a one-word message: "Whitewash."
It came from an embattled journalist whispering from inside the bowels of a television and radio station under siege, on a small island off the coast of Ireland: from BBC London.
And another call, from a colleague at the Guardian: "The future of British journalism is very bleak."
However, the future for fake and farcical war propaganda is quite bright indeed. Today, Lord Hutton issued his report that followed an inquiry revealing the Blair government's manipulation of intelligence to claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass murder threatening immanent attack on London.
Based on the Blair government's claim, headlines pumped the war hysteria: SADDAM COULD HAVE NUCLEAR BOMB IN YEAR, screeched the London Times. BRITS 45 MINS FROM DOOM, shrieked the Sun newspaper.
Given these facts only a sissy pacifist, a lunatic or a Saddam fellow traveler would fail to see that Prime Minister "Winston" Blair had no choice but to re-conquer it's former Mesopotamian colony.
But these headline were, in fact, false, and deadly so. Unlike America's press puppies, BBC reporters thought it their duty to check out these life or death claims. Reporters Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts contacted a crucial source, Britain's and the United Nation's top weapons inspector. He told reporter Watts that the Weapons of Mass Destruction claims by Blair and our own President Bush were, "all spin." Gilligan went further, reporting that this spin, this "sexed up" version of intelligence, was the result of interventions by Blair's PR henchman, Alistair Campbell.
Whatever reading of the source's statements, it was clear that intelligence experts had deep misgivings about the strength of the evidence for war.
The source? Dr. David Kelly. To save itself after the reports by Gilligan and Watts, the government, including the Prime Minister himself, went on an internal crusade to out the name of its own intelligence operative so it could then discredit the news items.
Publishing the name of an intelligence advisor is serious stuff. In the USA, a special criminal prosecutor is now scouring the White House to find the person who publicly named a CIA agent. If found, the Bushite leaker faces jail time.
Blair's government was not so crude as to give out Dr. Kelly's name. Rather, they hit on a subterfuge of dropping clues then allowing reporters to play '20 questions' - if Kelly's name were guessed, they'd confirm it. Only the thickest reporters (I name none here) failed after more than a couple tries.
Dr. Kelly, who had been proposed for knighthood was named, harangued and his career destroyed by the outing. He then took his own life.
But today is not a day of mourning at 10 Downing Street, rather a day of self-congratulations.
There were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear warhead just short of completion, no "45 minutes to doom" bombs auguring a new London blitz. The exile group which supplied this raw claim now calls the 45 minute story, "a crock of shit."
Yet Blair's minions are proclaiming their vindication.
This is not just a story about what is happening "over there" in the United Kingdom. This we must remember: David Kelly was not only advisor to the British but to the UN and, by extension, the expert for George W. Bush. Our commander-in-chief leaped to adopt the Boogey Man WMD stories from the Blair government when our own CIA was reticent.
So M'Lord Hutton has killed the messenger: the BBC. Should the reporter Gilligan have used more cautious terms? Some criticism is fair. But the extraordinary import of his and Watts' story is forgotten: our two governments bent the information then hunted down the questioners.
And now the second invasion of the Iraq war proceeds: the conquest of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Until now, this quasi-governmental outlet has refused to play Izvestia to any prime minister, Labour or Tory.
As of today, the independence of the most independent major network on this planet is under attack. Blair's government is "cleared" and now arrogantly sport their kill, the head of Gavyn Davies, BBC's chief, who resigned today.
"The bleak future for British journalism" portends darkness for journalists everywhere - the threat to the last great open platform for hard investigative reporting. And frankly, it's a worrisome day for me. I'm not a disinterested by-stander. My most important investigations, all but banned from US airwaves, were developed and broadcast by BBC Newsnight, reporter Watts' program.
Will an iron curtain descend on the news? Before dawn today, I was reading Churchill's words to the French command in the hours before as the Panzers breached the defenses of Paris. Churchill told those preparing to surrender, "Whatever you may do, we shall fight on forever and ever and ever." This may yet be British journalism's Finest Hour.
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His reports for BBC Newsnight and The Guardian papers and other writings may be viewed at www.GregPalast.com.
Join Greg, Janeane Garafalo, Tom Tomorrow, and others for the launching of the Greg Palast Non-Profit Investigative Foundation and Release of his new CD from Alternative Tentacles, "Greg Palast, Weapon of Mass Instruction - Live and Uncensored." For more details on the party check out: http://www.gregpalast.com/store.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
56% Of British -
'Hutton Report A Whitewash'
By George Jones, Tom Leonard and Matt Born
The Telegraph - UK
1-29-4
A majority of voters thinks the Hutton report on events leading to the death of Dr David Kelly is a "whitewash", a YouGov poll for The Telegraph says today.
The public expressed doubts about the report's one-sided verdict, which savaged the BBC while exonerating the Government, as Tony Blair claimed a second scalp with the resignation of Greg Dyke, the BBC's director-general. He also secured an "unreserved" apology from the corporation's governors.
The survey found that 56 per cent of people interviewed said Lord Hutton, as a member of the Establishment, was too ready to sympathise with the Government.
Only 34 per cent thought his report represented a thorough and impartial attempt to discover the truth about Dr Kelly's death.
After the BBC suffered the most traumatic 24 hours in its history, the poll shows that the corporation is still trusted more than the Government.
YouGov found that 67 per cent trust BBC news journalists to tell the truth, compared with 31 per cent who trust the Government.
The finding is a blow to the Prime Minister, who had hoped that the report would enable him to rebuild trust, badly damaged by the controversy over the Iraq conflict.
He called a halt to his eight-month war with the BBC after what amounted to an unconditional surrender by the corporation's board.
Sir Christopher Bland, a former BBC chairman, said Lord Hutton had whitewashed the Government and "tarred and feathered the BBC".
Lord Rees-Mogg, a former vice-chairman of the BBC board, said the report was a "bad bit of work". Clare Short, who resigned from the Cabinet over the war, described it as "completely one-sided".
Mr Dyke resigned after Downing Street and Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair's former communications chief, pressed for more heads to roll at the BBC.
Officials made clear that Mr Blair was not satisfied with the resignation of Gavyn Davies, the chairman of governors, or a qualified apology issued by Mr Dyke immediately after Lord Hutton had criticised the BBC's management from top to bottom.
Mr Dyke offered his resignation to the governors on Wednesday but was "disappointed" when they made clear that they would accept it.
After Mr Dyke announced that he was going, Lord Ryder, the corporation's acting chairman and a former Tory MP, said: "On behalf of the BBC I have no hesitation in apologising unreservedly for our errors and to the individuals whose reputations were affected by them."
There were emotional scenes at the BBC Television Centre when he said farewell and staff around the country staged protests. In an email to employees, he confirmed that he did not want to go but acknowledged that the BBC needed a new start. He urged staff not to be cowed and said his aim had been to defend the corporation's editorial independence.
Interviewed later, he said he did not regret backing Andrew Gilligan's report that led to the whole affair by accusing the Government of "sexing up" its dossier on Iraq's weapons. But he admitted "it was not as accurate in places as it should have been".
Mr Dyke, who was criticised as a Labour "crony" when he was appointed four years ago, said he felt justified in "going to the barricades because [Mr Campbell] attacked us for having an anti-war agenda and accused many of the BBC's journalists of being liars".
Welcoming the BBC's apology, Mr Blair said that all he had ever wanted was the withdrawal of the serious accusation of deceit and duplicity made against him.
He fully respected the BBC's independence. "I have no doubt that the BBC will continue as it should do to probe and question the Government in every proper way. What this does now is allow us to draw a line and move on."
Downing Street said Mr Blair regarded Mr Davies and Mr Dyke as "honourable and decent men who had done the decent and honourable thing".
Mr Campbell, who launched an intemperate attack on the BBC after being accused of "sexing up" the Iraq weapons dossier, accepted that the affair was over. All he had wanted was the stain on his character removed, he said.
The departure of the BBC's two top executives has left it rudderless as it prepares to renegotiate the renewal of its charter. No 10 said it hoped to appoint a new chairman of governors by Easter and that the post would be advertised.
A new director-general will then be appointed by the governors. Mark Byford, the deputy director-general, will step in temporarily.
Richard Sambrook, who had been expected to go, will keep his job as the head of news, his staff were told.
Judge Who Cleared Blair, Blamed BBC Accused Of Whitewash
1-29-4
LONDON (AFP) -- The judge who probed the suicide of arms expert David Kelly was accused of a "whitewash" by much of Britain's daily press for clearing Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of wrongdoing while rebuking the BBC.
The rightwing Daily Mail said that judge Brian Hutton's long-awaited verdict, delivered Wednesday, had attracted "widespread incredulity."
"Justice?" the paper asked in a front page headline. It said Hutton's report "does a great disservice to the British people. It fails to set its story in the context of the BBC's huge virtues and the government's sore vices."
The British Broadcasting Corporation was plunged into turmoil, with its chairman Gavyn Davies resigning, after Hutton severely criticised the world's biggest public broadcaster.
The judge said that a BBC radio report claiming that the government deliberately exaggerated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the US-led invasion on March 20 last year was "unfounded".
"We're faced with the wretched spectacle of the BBC chairman resigning while Alastair Campbell crows from the summit of his dungill. Does this verdict, my lord, serve the real interest of truth?" asked the Daily Mail.
Campbell is Blair's former communications director and one of the principal figures in a bitter row between the government and the BBC during which Kelly took his own life last July.
In a comment piece for the leftwing Daily Mirror tabloid, journalist Paul Routledge accused Hutton of an "establishment whitewash" which "stinks to high heaven".
Hutton's judgement "makes me feel physically sick, like a victim of a crime who knows that justice will never be done", said Routledge.
The Mirror said that the BBC had been left "shamed", but the narrowness of Hutton's remit during his inquiry "meant that the real issue -- the existence of weapons of mass destruction -- wasn't even touched on".
"Hutton's whitewash leaves questions unanswered" said the rightwing Daily Express, referring to issues such as whether the government was right to enter the war given that "there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, let alone anything to suggest Saddam Hussein could have launched a deadly attack in just 45 minutes, or even 45 days."
In a controversial report last May, BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan claimed the government had "sexed up" a September 2002 dossier on Iraq by claiming that Baghdad could deploy chemical weapons within 45 minutes.
In a striking front-page article, with a white space left where normally a photograph would appear, the Indepenedent asked Thursday if the Hutton report was an "establishment whitewash".
The paper called Hutton's conclusions "curiously unbalanced", and said they had strengthened the case for an "independent inquiry into the intelligence failures that took this country to an unjustifiable war."
The leftwing Guardian said that Gilligan "got more right than he got wrong" in his reporting, adding that the BBC should now ensure "there is no collective failure of nerve in the corporation".
"BBC jouralists must go on probing, must go on asking awkward questions -- and must go on causing trouble," the Guardian urged.
It added that Hutton's report had a "certain naivety of tone and approach".
The government may have been cleared over Kelly's death, "but that does not mean it was honest about Iraq. It was entitled to Hutton's narrow vindication, but it still has a lot to prove."
Like much of the press, the Financial Times said the BBC had been plunged into the most serious crisis of its 80-year history by a report from Hutton that took the political world by surprise in its sweeping vindication of the government.
The Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Sun, all rightwing papers, called for BBC director general Greg Dyke to follow in the footsteps of chairman Gavyn Davies and resign.
Many dailies agreed that Hutton had exposed serious failings within the BBC, with the Sun saying he had put the spotlight on the broadcaster's "culture of sloppiness, incompetence and arrogance".
