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Originally Posted by Nor
This issue was about the BBC saying the government lied about inclusions in the dossier.
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Yes, because the government ringfenced Hutton so completely that he could *not* consider anything outside the remit they gave him.
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what you seem to be saying is that its apparantly okay for the BBC to lie and sex up its own stories because deep down what they are saying is right, that the government are liars. Hardly impartial journalism is it to lie yourself to try and prove the government are liars.
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I most definitely am *NOT* saying anything of the sort.
I have written elsewhere in these forums about "journalistic integrity" and I do *NOT* and *WILL NOT* in any way, shape or form, support news media "sexing up" their own stories any more than I support the government doing it.
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The BBC are the only news organisation who govern themselves, but despite it being obvious that they lied and sexed up their own story people still say its a whitewash and believe what they say, I guess because it confirms their own prejudices.
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The BBC made mistakes, I don't deny it. But the government effectively fixed the result of the enquiry from the start and I have watched a lot of the news coverage in the past couple of days which has had people, *including* government supporters, utterly *astonished* to see just how one-sided the Hutton report finally was.
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But, being objective, I cannot see where he has lied to us. I'm coming round to the realisation that there are no WMD in Iraq. But... the intelligence said there was. The US intel, the British intel, the French intel, the German intel all thought there was WMD and WMD programs in Iraq. Blix thought there was WMD in Iraq.
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Blix thought nothing of the sort! The US had to retract the claim that Saddam had been trying to get nuclear material from Africa, information that they got from *our* intelligence service!
Blair told us that Saddam had WMDs ready to deploy within 45 minutes, but it was based AIUI on a *single source* (something they criticised Gilligan and the BBC for!), yet he "sold" the war to Parliament on that basis.
Hutton glossed over this with the ridiculous assertion that there may have been a "subconcious" desire for Blair to hear what he wanted from the intelligence services, which is utterly nonsensical IMO and certainly not an excuse to start a war! Which, whilst it may not be a lie of "commission" was certainly a lie of "omission".
Finally Blair claimed (and Hutton accepted) that there was no deliberate plan or intent to leak Dr Kelly's name, but frankly, given the information they provided and what they told the papers (if you guess the name, we'll confirm it) it was *inevitable* that someone would come up with Kelly's name and he would be "outed". I *cannot* accept that this was simply accidental.
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Saddam insisted he destroyed his stockpiles and programs but wouldn't show UNSCOM where he destroyed it or any evidence that he had destroyed it. He broke 16 our of 17 UN chapter 7 resolutions over 12 years, so I think its a fair assessment that Iraq had WMD programs.
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Rubbish. There's no logical conclusion that can be drawn from this complete *lack* of evidence!