Hutton Report: Dyke Quits

[downquark1]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3441181.stm

There have already been some opinions here:
http://forum.nthellworld.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6871

[Nugget]

Not really a surprise - it always seems to be the way that, as soon as the blame has been laid, there's effectively a clear out at the top. (Don't think it would have happened on the other side if the report had been different though!)

[Nor]

Its just stupid that it came to this really. If Dyke had done is job properly and actually checked the Gilligan story at the time we'd never have got here.

[altis]

Let's hope this is a wake-up call to all journalists. They are in a position of enormous power and have a duty to act responsibly. IMHO they have far too much power and often act irresponsibly.

[Scarlett]

Originally Posted by Nor

Its just stupid that it came to this really. If Dyke had done is job properly and actually checked the Gilligan story at the time we'd never have got here.

True but I love the way that the government is still trying to take to moral high ground and demand a full apology from the BBC. They're not happy with the ' I'm sorry, it was my fault, I'll go' that they got from Dyke.

Lord Hutton's report cleared the government of "sexing up" its Iraq weapons dossier with unreliable intelligence.

How can the government be cleared on this point though ?

Fact: No WMDs or proof of there recent development have been found in Iraq

Is Hutton saying that the government didn't 'sex it up' but rather that the dossier was already completely unreliable in the first place and that they did nothing to 'imprrove' it ? in which case they must have known it was shaky evidence to be basing a war on.

I think we should be told!

[Nor]

The BBC have unreservedly apologised now. Thing is... once Dyke realised he was backing a journalist who was wrong he should have said, hang on a minute, lets just stop this now. The independance of the BBC is very important and something the BBC should fight to protect, but Dyke et al should have done it on an issue where they weren't wrong. This has just made them look like complete muppets by backing a journalist who was sexing up his own story, who was lying about what a source had told him and actually accusing the government of something by doing the same thing himself. They aren't values that should be defended.

With regards to the Hutton report vindicating Blair. Well.. true the report doesn't cover everything, but it did cover the sexing up of the dossier. One of the main arguments used by the anti war camp that hte government was lying about WMD. If Blair has been cleared of sexing up the dossier, doesn't that show that they didn't lie about the case for war ? Granted, through hindsight its looking increasingly likely that there isn't the WMD and WMD programs that everyone thought, but because we haven't found WMD doesn't mean that Blair lied about it, it looks to me like he following poor intelligence. But who do you rely on but your inteligence services when it comes to making decisions like this ? If your intelligence services are saying Iraq has WMD wouldn't it have been wrong for Tony Blair to say, ah nah I doubt it, lets just leave them alone. I suspect the prospect of a dirty bomb originating in Iraq being detonated in London kept him awake at night.

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by Scarlett

How can the government be cleared on this point though ?

Fact: No WMDs or proof of there recent development have been found in Iraq

Is Hutton saying that the government didn't 'sex it up' but rather that the dossier was already completely unreliable in the first place and that they did nothing to 'imprrove' it ? in which case they must have known it was shaky evidence to be basing a war on.

I think we should be told!

I agree we should be told .... but the Hutton report was not there to delve into the authenticity of the information that built up the dossier on WMD.

This being the case ... there needs to be some kind of investigation into it.

[Scarlett]

Lord Hutton's report cleared the government of "sexing up" its Iraq weapons dossier with unreliable intelligence.

Having read the summary of the report, I can see that while it is true that the government didn't deliberatly insert false or shaky allegations into the document to make it look better (As implied by Gilligan) they may well have 'glossed over' some of the holes to make the case look stronger than it actually was.

I still find it laughable that they are trying to say that they were not guilty of any wrong doing in this respect.

Clearly they don't count deciding to take a country to war and then making the facts justify the action as important then...

Well it all comes down to who we trust.Politicians or journalists.

Frankly I trust neither these days.

Politicians will say and do just about anything to get into power

Journalists will do and say just about anything to get a story published.

I'm sick of both sides trying to tell me what to think.Just give me the FACTS and I'll put my own interpretation on them,thanks.

True journalists do just that.What passes for journalism (even at the BBC) isn't what I call good journalism.It's mostly gossip,innuendo,supposition and pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Incog.

[Nor]

Its just a pity the BBC seem to be competing with Sky these days for sensationalist stories rather than just doing what they should be doing and what they used to do best, reporting the facts impartially. Too many news organisations have an agenda these days, the newspapers being the worst offenders.

[Richard M]

If nobody has seen it yet:

http://www.welshcommunists.co.uk/hut...on-enquiry.asp

[Nor]

Another one of the many completely one sided biased sites Plenty on both sides of the debate.

[Nor]

Talking about alternative hutton link btw.

[ntluser]

The Hutton Report was a whitewash for the government. The narrow brief at the outset meant that Hutton would never get near the truth.

The fascinating thing for me was the confirmation by British Intelligence that the 45 minute warning in the dossier was a legitimate piece of evidence from them.

One has to ask, given that no weapons of mass destruction have been found, how British intelligence could have drawn that conclusion.

I suspect that they were using old information from the archives and assumed that Saddam still had the weapons revealed in the 1991 conflict.

In effect we went to war because the information on which the dossier was based was 12 years out of date.

Blair repeatedly stated that Sadaam definitely had weapons of mass destruction. He also stated that they could not reveal too much information as it would give away their agents in the field. If that's the case how is it that when the conflict was over the agents could not point to the location of the weapons?

Personally,I feel sorry for Greg Dyke and the BBC Chairman that they have been scapegoated so that the government could appear to be 'whiter than white' Even though they did not get everything right they had reported the fundamental truth that the dossier was 'sexed up'.

If it wasn't why hasn't the Head of British Intelligence been asked to resign as the country went to war on the basis of his/her department's faulty evidence. The answer,I believe, is that Blair and Bush needed an excuse to invade Iraq and the faulty dossier allowed them to do that.

I feel very sorry for the family of David Kelly who must feel that the Hutton Enquiry has sold them down the river.

Blair may have escaped from Hutton but he won't escape from the voters.

[Nor]

You feel sorry for Greg Dyke ? Its more his fault Kelly died than anyone elses. You want to believe its the govt but... Gilligan lied about what Dr Kelly had told him, Dyke then defended Gilligan saying his story was 100% accurate, this is what led to the stand off, the enquiry, the death of Dr Kelly and the subsequent Hutton Enquiry. If Dyke had actually done his job properly and checked if Gilligans story was correct instead of blindly defending him none of this would have happened.

Its laughable that you can say you feel sorry for someone who caused it all. By all accounts he was one of the best DG the BBC have had in decades, but it doesn't excuse his major role in this and his failings. Some people just wanted the Hutton Report to confirm their prejudiced views and when it didn't its automatically a whitewash.