It's Official - Saddam Was Not An Imminent Threat

[Andy_Stephenson]

By Clare Short
The Guardian - UK
8-24-03


After eight days of the Hutton inquiry and enormous quantities of media coverage, it is worth pausing to try to take stock. Many of us have said that, deliberately or otherwise, Alastair Campbell's decision to go to war with the BBC had the potential to distract attention from the most important questions arising from the Iraq crisis - whether the nation was deceived on the road to war, and where responsibility lies for the continuing chaos and loss of life in Iraq.

Lord Hutton has been charged with inquiring into the narrower question of the circumstances that led to the death of Dr David Kelly and will report on this very important question. But his inquiry is revealing important information that casts light on the bigger question of how we got to war.

There is an unfortunate tendency among some commentators to seek to narrow the issue to a blame game between the BBC and 10 Downing Street. This has led to comment to the effect that Dr Kelly was the unfortunate victim of a battle between two mighty institutions, accompanied by a campaign of vilification against Andrew Gilligan and the Today programme. It is important to remain constantly aware of the vested interests at play: the Murdoch empire and other rightwing media operations would like to weaken and break the BBC so that British broadcasting might be reduced to the sort of commercially dominated, biased news reporting that controls the US airwaves. It is extremely unfortunate that a Labour government has been willing to drive forward this campaign against the BBC.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1028114,00.html

[wryter2000]

1. Why is it...

Why is it The Guardian gets it right over, and over, and over? Can we have Clare Short over here for a little while?

[never cry wolf]

2. Agreed

n/t

[Andy_Stephenson]

3. Lemme get her on the phone...

and see if she will ride in and save American journalism.