Are we all mad, or is it Hutton? (must read!)

[T_i_B]

Great article that tears the Hutton report a new one!

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1136400,00.html

Quite simply, Hutton did not, in the legal phrase, take due cognisance of the obvious: the political and journalistic cultures of Britain were both responsible for Kelly's death. Anyone who paid attention to the inquiry understands that, and even the intelligence services are open-mouthed at Hutton's credulity when it came to assessing the motives and methods of the political establishment. Hutton's inquiry and report are so distant as to appear unrelated. Those who read the daily transcripts wonder at the law lord's spectacular failure to represent the balance of evidence heard in Court 73 and ask themselves if there is not some kind of cognitive dissonance at work.

At the heart of the process is a mysterious lack of logic. On the one hand Hutton spent weeks listening to evidence about the preparation of the Government's case against Saddam in the September dossier, but when it came to writing his report he rejected the need to address the issue of the dossier's truth. 'A question of such wide import ... is not one which falls within my terms of reference.'

Two points need to be made:

1. If he was not going to rule on this, why go into the facts at such length?

2. The truth of the dossier's contents is the essence of the circumstances of Kelly's death because that issue propelled the BBC and Campbell to escalate their running battle to open war. Owning the truth was what that was all about.

[GoBlue]

1. Wonderful read - thanks

The Brits can be such wonderful wordsmiths.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Thank you, TiB

At the heart of the process is a mysterious lack of logic. On the one hand Hutton spent weeks listening to evidence about the preparation of the Government's case against Saddam in the September dossier, but when it came to writing his report he rejected the need to address the issue of the dossier's truth. 'A question of such wide import ... is not one which falls within my terms of reference.'

Two points need to be made:

1. If he was not going to rule on this, why go into the facts at such length?
2. The truth of the dossier's contents is the essence of the circumstances of Kelly's death because that issue propelled the BBC and Campbell to escalate their running battle to open war. Owning the truth was what that was all about.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the second point. The purpose of the Hutton inquiry was to determine who did what to Dr. Kelly and why. That is a separate matter from the actual truth of the dossier. The first question is still a good.

We know the dossier was full of crap. The question is whether this crap was put there by Number 10 in order to make a strong case for invading Iraq that did not jive with the facts at hand or whether MI6 just got it all wrong.

It is a parallel situation to what is happening here. Dr. Kay's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee and his remarks to the press are not so dramatic as Lord Hutton's inquiry, but they are being used for the same purpose: clear the war planners and blame the intelligence agencies.

Never mind the findings of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

The dramatic shift between prior intelligence assessments and the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), together with the creation of an independent intelligence entity at the Pentagon and other steps, suggest that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers’ views sometime in 2002.
-- WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), p.50

Never mind the mission of the Office of Special Plans:

They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal—a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. As of last week, no such weapons had been found. And although many people, within the Administration and outside it, profess confidence that something will turn up, the integrity of much of that intelligence is now in question.
-- Seymour Hersh, "Selective Intelligence", The New Yorker, May 12, 2003

Never mind that the junta's case for war was unraveling even before the invasion. There were good reasons to doubt Saddam's military capabilities long before the March 2003. Scott Ritter was telling the world that Saddam's arsenal had been almost completely eliminated by the end of 1998; in the wake of General Powell's testimony to the UN, a British expert released the Hussain Kamel interview with UNSCOM in which General Kamel stated that he had ordered Iraq's chemical weapons destroyed. We knew that the stories about a meeting between a September 11 terrorist and an Iraqi intelligence agent were false. Add to that the questionable nature of what Blair presented in his dossier. Plagerizing from a postgraduate thesis seems unworthy for the leader of the British nation.

In short, before March 2003, the information was available, much of it in public, to credibly challenge the case for war as presented by Bush, Blair and their aides. They were lying and they knew they were lying. There was no case for war and they knew there was no case for war.

The intelligence was not wrong. It was cooked.

[baby_bear]

4. Nice compilation and summary, Jack Rabbit

It does all seem to fall together, particularly with Hersch's observations.

This does not seem to be having any fallout on the Bush administration, though. Maybe it's too soon. Or maybe the media are ignoring it because to do otherwise would require an admission of media complicity in the first place. (By complicity I mean looking the other way in the face of abject lies by the administration regarding WMD, Al-Qaeda/Iraq connections, and 9/11 terror-mongering in general.)

The irony, I still feel, is ultimately that the British press has no first amendment rights but seems more intent on publishing the truth than does the American press. Goes to show that the difference is in integrity, and I suppose, the willingness to be bought.

s_m

[Jack Rabbit]

5. The real question is institutional integrity

The First Amendment prohibits Congress from passing laws infringing on the freedom of the press. It does not guarantee that there will be diverse opinions expressed in the press.

The situation we have now in America is that more and more of the media, print and broadcast, is falling into fewer and more homogeneous hands. There's no violation of the First Amendment, but the effect is the same as if there were government censorship.

Many, including your humble servant, refer to this as corporate censorship. It is just as undesirable and a grave a threat to democracy. It is a problem that we, as a democratic society, must address.

[baby_bear]

6. Doing away with the Fair Doctrine didn't help, either.

Thanks, Reagan. They knew exactly what they were doing. And now the increased ownership rules the FCC passed as well, as icing on that cake.

I even notice the difference in local television news over the years. Part of it is a simple matter of dumbing down to the public, and part is increased profits (less money to show entertainment bits than hardhitting journalism). But part of it is the corporate ownership that seems to be more and more aligned with Republicans.

This is a very frightening trend that cannot easily or quickly be undone. It will take a very independent Congress to address this. And probably some wealthy Demoncrats or Independents to start up a liberal cable station that can rival FOX.

In the meantime, the newspapers are more slowly falling into line. All we need to do is remember the lack of outrage over the 2000 selection and realize that we are definitely not needlessly paranoid over this subject.

s_m

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Be sure to read Terry Jones commnentary re. the Hutton report as well

Discussed on this thread in EAOA:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=32398

It looks like the Hutton report has really had the opposite effect than the one Tony Poodle expected. Thanks to Mr. Hutton it's become clearer than ever that politicians and thir flunkys manipulate and spin facts as needed to produce desired results. Good going Tony. Don't let the door to #10 hit you on the ass on your way out.

[T_i_B]

7. Thanks JohnyCanuck

:kick: