The BBC at war: Lord Hutton blesses Blair's attack on BBC's investigation of Iraq War

Catholic New Times, Feb 29, 2004 by Greg Palast

A call from a colleague at The Guardian was terse: "The future of British journalism is very bleak."

However, the future for fake and farcical .war propaganda is quite bright indeed. Recently Lord Hutton issued his report that followed an inquiry revealing the Blair government's manipulation of intelligence in his claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass murder threatening imminent attack on London.

Based on the Blair government's claim, headlines pumped the war hysteria: "SADDAM COULD HAVE NUCLEAR BOMB IN YEAR, "shouted the London Times. "BRITS 45 MINS FROM DOOM," shrieked The Sun.

These assertions suggested that only a pacifist, a lunatic or a Saddam fellow-traveler would fail to see that Prime Minister "Winston" Blair had no choice but to re-conquer its former Mesopotamian colony.

But these headlines 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 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 public relations officer, 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 was Dr. David Kelly. To save itself after the reports by Gilligan and Watts, the government, including the Prime Minister, 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 U.S., 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 and then allowing reporters to play '20 Questions'--if Kelly's name were guessed, they'd confirm it. Only the thickest reporters failed after more than a couple tries.

Dr. Kelly, who had been proposed for knighthood, was then named, harangued and his career destroyed by the "outing." He took his own life.

But 10 Downing Street is not mourning. Rather, it is pumped with 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.

Yet Blair's mimions 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 U.N. and, by extension, the expert for George W. Bush. The U.S. commander-in-chief leaped to adopt the bogey 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.

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 January 28, the independence of the most independent major network on this planet is under attack. Blair's government is "cleared," and now sports its "kill," the head of Gavyn Davies, BBC's chief, who was forced to resign.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Article abridged by CNT.