Hutton defends his report against whitewash claim

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Lord Hutton has broken a two-year silence to defend himself in the face of the media verdict that his report into the death of the weapons expert David Kelly was a “whitewash”.

In a vigorous critique of the media coverage of his report, which was published in January 2004, the retired law lord says that he would have been failing in “one of his cardinal duties as a judge” if he had written a report critical of the Government.

This, he says, would neither have accorded with the evidence nor taken account of his limited terms of reference.

(snip)
If, he says, he had “delivered a report highly critical of the Government in terms which conformed to the hopes of some commentators I have no doubt that it would have received much praise. However, in reality, if I had written such a report I would have been failing in one of the cardinal duties of a judge conducting an inquiry into a highly controversial matter which gives rise to intense public interest.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2433856,00.html