Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 08:05 PM CST

Brilliant article, anarcho.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 31 2004 @ 01:56 AM CST

Agreed. It sounds like the Beeb\'s editorial policies fell apart in the face of a \"hot\" story, and I\'m not sure if we\'ll ever know precisely what Kelly said to Gilligan, but everything else before and since seems to indicate that the reports were, for the most part, accurate. The Beeb\'s directors fell on their sword for Gilligan\'s journalistic fuckups, questionable actions that I strongly suspect take place on a regular basis at every other \"respected\" media organization, including several in the UK that have been taking potshots at the BBC\'s credibility for a long time (Rupert Murdoch\'s BSkyB, par example?).

I\'m seeing the word \"whitewash\" used with increasing frequency. In particular, the exposure of Operation Rockingham by former Blair cabinet minister Michael Meacher seems to indicate that the propaganda operation leading to the September Iraq dossier was but the latest in a series of misleading reports and comments produced by the UK government and military.

It looks like Lord Hutton took the government ministers\' protestations of innocence at face value, without giving the same benefit to the BBC staff called to testify. Perhaps the complaints can be considered whining by people who didn\'t get the report they expected, but it is becoming clear that Lord Hutton actively avoided looking into whether Blair\'s government would have had any motive to puff up the available intelligence in their favour. By failing to look into whether the available intel pointed to different conclusions than the information presented for public consumption by the government, Hutton left it to Blair and his cronies to incriminate themselves. I think this is a serious lapse in his investigation into whether the government had any reason to leak Kelly\'s name via a game of 20 Questions With Hints, and whether Blair had something to hide.

Hutton said looking at the intel was outside the scope of his investigation into what drove Dr. Kelly to suicide. Even given that limit, I don\'t think he looked hard enough at the government players, while giving the media the hard look that everyone deserved, Blair\'s folks included.

I think this will ultimately boomerang at Blair.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 01 2004 @ 12:44 PM CST

Hey anarcho, why dont you try to submit your excellent articles to zmag? I know that it is a radical liberal website at best, but this would give you a chance to reach a much wider audiance.

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