10 questions the MPs will not ask Murdoch

[JohnyCanuck]

When Rupert Murdoch appears before the parliamentary committee on 19 July 2011, here are ten questions the MPs certainly will not ask about the relationhip he had with Tony Blair during the run up to the Iraq war, when Murdoch was, in the words of Blair's former press officer Lance Price, "the third most powerful figure in the Labour government", after Blair himself and Gordon Brown.

In 2002-3 all of your 127 newspapers around the world, with a combined circulation of 40 million a week, supported the Iraq war. We now know you were often in direct contact with the then prime minister Tony Blair, who you said at the time was "extraordinarily courageous and strong" and who had "shown great guts" in planning the war on Iraq. How much coordination was there between Downing Street and News International on the media presentation of what was widely regarded as an illegal war?

You said when interviewed in the run up to the war that Iraq's oil was central to the rationale for overthrowing Saddam Hussein: "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy...would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country." Tony Blair always insisted in public that Iraq's oil played no part in the decision to attack Iraq. To what extent did he agree with you in private that getting control of the world's second biggest oil reserves was at the heart of the war aims?

All of your newspapers used Tony Blair's "dodgy dossier" of September 2002 to try and generate a war fever with the bogus claim that -- in the words of The Sun headline -- "BRITS 45 MINUTES FROM DOOM". The hand of Alistair Campbell, Blair's press officer, is widely regarded as having been responsible for the dossier's fabrications. There was no coverage in the Sun or the rest of News International's outlets, when it was revealed that some of this dossier, which was supposed to present a cast iron case for attacking Iraq, was drawn from a 12-year old thesis, published on the internet by a PhD student. Was this because you and Blair made a pact that News International would be relentless in promoting the war, even if this meant using lies and distortion?

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/iraq/645-10-questions-the-mps-will-not-ask-rupert-murdoch

[damntexdem]

1. Here's one: what did you find on my phone?

Of course, the MPs don't have to ask that because they already know from when Murdock's minions blackmailed them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. That's careless of Stop The War; they've got the September and dodgy dossiers mixed up

September 24: The dossier is published, including the statement that Iraq can deploy WMD within 45 minutes. Blair describes the threat as "serious and current".
· The September dossier

February 2003: A second, the so-called "dodgy", dossier is published, containing passages lifted from a 12-year-old PhD thesis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/jan/29/davidkelly.radio

Thursday, 3 July, 2003

Earlier this year it issued a document about Iraq's concealment of weapons of mass destruction that was written using Microsoft Word.

This document was found to be largely based on a journal article by Ibrahim al-Marashi, a postgraduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
...
Dr Glen Rangwala, who discovered that the February Iraq document was copied from the journal article of Mr al-Marashi, said the government seems to have learned its lesson and now issues documents in the Adobe Portable Data Format (PDF) format.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3037760.stm

I know others often make this mistake, but Stop The War are meant to be on top of the facts about Iraq.

[Aerows]

3. Interesting

This is the second thread I've been in today where you are attacking someone who criticizes News Corp.

Mind if I ask what your horse in this race is? It sure looks like you have one.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Yes, my horse is 'correctness'

I don't want to see the British government let off the hook for the September WMD dossier with just "it was an out-of-date PhD thesis". They laboured long and hard to sex up the uncertain and sparse intelligence they had; that's what the David Kelly affair was about. Look at the Guardian link again; Campbell demanded a rewrite.

[Aerows]

6. Even more interesting

Yes, the appeal of virtuous pursuits is always why we do the things we do, and defend the things we defend.

We never do things or defend organizations for concrete reasons, such as protecting our own interest.

News Corp certainly proved that one - they were just defending truth, justice and honesty in reporting!

[Gregorian]

4. Somewhere in this mess Parliamentary privilege might play a role.

I'm pretty sure a few people will pay a price, and the rest of the racket will continue on.

After all, everyone including the police is involved.