UK Parliament Clears Govt of Misleading on Iraq
Washington Post, July 7, 2003
Study deals a blow to claims of anti-war bias in BBC news
Guardian.co.uk, July 4, 2003
Parliamentary panel raps Blair on Iraq
rediff.com, July 7, 2003 linked to at Drudgereport.com
Government demands apology despite being condemned
Annanova, July 7, 2003
Try making some sense of that!
It seems as though while Blair's UKGov found some problems with the way Blair dealt with the Iraq Attack evidence, it wasn't as bad as it could have been according to the Parliamentary investigators (who are technically part of the same government as Blair). And while they did not come through the investigation as cleanly as perhaps they should have, the UKGov still demmanded an apology for the BBC News' accusation that basically proved to only be partially true... at least according to Parliamentary investigators... (?!?!?)
From Reuters and WashingtonPost.Com:
UK Parliament Clears Govt of Misleading on Iraq
Reuters
Monday, July 7, 2003; 5:34 AM
By Katherine Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government did not mislead parliament or doctor evidence to justify the war on Iraq, a parliamentary committee concluded Monday.
The Foreign Affairs Committee, which has been probing charges officials exaggerated intelligence on Iraq's weapons to strengthen the case for war, cleared Blair, a top aide and ministers of the allegations, made on the BBC.
But the committee did slap the government's wrists for giving undue prominence to questionable intelligence in a September dossier on Iraq's weapons and for plagiarizing a student thesis for a second dossier published in February.
The report -- which was rejected by the committee's minority opposition members -- marks the latest chapter in a bitter dispute between the government and the country's public broadcaster over Iraq's weapons.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, citing an anonymous intelligence source, has accused a senior Blair aide of "sexing up" a dossier on Iraq's weapons.
The BBC's source said Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications head, inserted a claim into the dossier that Iraq's weapons could be deployed within just 45 minutes.
The weapons row, exacerbated by the failure to unearth Iraq's deadly armament, has damaged Blair's credibility and dented his popularity.
With the committee's report, the government is expected to step up its attack on the BBC, which stands by its account.
"We conclude that Alastair Campbell did not play any role in the inclusion of the 45 minutes claim in the September dossier," the committee report said. "We conclude that ministers did not mislead parliament."
But the committee criticized the government for the February dossier that lifted parts of a student thesis.
Lawmakers also said the 45-minute claim "did not warrant the prominence given to it" in the September report.
Blair himself will appear before a separate parliamentary committee on Tuesday when he is expected to be grilled about the Iraq dossiers.
From Guardian.co.uk:
Study deals a blow to claims of anti-war bias in BBC news
Matt Wells, media correspondent
Friday July 4, 2003
The Guardian
Downing Street's complaints about anti-war bias within the BBC appear to be disproved by an academic analysis that shows the corporation displayed the most "pro-war" agenda of any broadcaster.
A detailed study of peak-time television news bulletins during the course of the Iraq war shows that the BBC was more reliant than any of its rivals on government and military sources.
The findings, by academics at Cardiff University, give little support to the deep-rooted suspicions in government circles that lie at the heart of the row with the BBC. Instead, ahead of the report by the foreign affairs select committee into the government's use of intelligence, they give comfort to the corporation.
Over the three weeks of conflict, 11% of the sources quoted by the BBC were of coalition government or military origin, the highest proportion of all the main television broadcasters. The BBC was the least likely to quote official Iraqi sources, and less likely than Sky, ITV or Channel 4 News to use independent (and often sceptical) sources such as the Red Cross.
The study found the BBC placed least emphasis on Iraqi casualties, which were mentioned in 22% of its stories about the Iraqi people. Casualties received most prominence on Channel 4 News, figuring in 40% of its reports about Iraqis. The corporation was least likely to report on the unhappiness of Iraqis about the invasion.
The research, funded by Cardiff University, covers the BBC1 news at 6pm, the ITV Evening News at 6.30pm, Channel 4 News at 7pm and Sky News at 9pm. Channel 4 News was the most questioning of the coalition line, while ITV News used the lowest proportion of coalition sources.
Presenting the findings in the Guardian today, Justin Lewis, deputy head of the school of journalism, media and cultural studies at Cardiff University, says: "Far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to the government's pro-war stance. Either way, to accuse the BBC of an anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis."
The BBC says it received a stream of complaints about its war coverage. Richard Sambrook, the director of news, said in a letter to Alastair Campbell, the director of communications at Downing Street, at the height of the row: "It is our firm view that No 10 tried to intimidate the BBC in its reporting of events leading up to the war and during the course of the war itself."
Mr Campbell chose to fight a public battle on the subject of a BBC story that reported a claim he had "sexed up" an intelligence dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He told the foreign affairs select committee two weeks ago that the claim in the BBC report was "a lie". Later in the week, he dismissed the BBC's response as a combination of "weasel words and sophistry".
But the Guardian understands that Mr Campbell had an equally heated row on the eve of war when 139 rebel Labour MPs voted against the government in a Commons vote on the case for the conflict.
He was furious that the BBC presented the result as a "record rebellion" - which it was - instead of a significant victory for Tony Blair because the rebels did not win the vote.
Some commentators sympathetic with Downing Street's case have supported the claim that the BBC was anti-war: this week the Sun ran a story claiming that senior BBC journalists Jeremy Paxman, John Simpson, Peter Sissons and David Dimbleby were "alarmed" about the effect the row may have on the BBC's reputation for impartiality.
Yesterday, the four sent an open letter to the Sun, attacking its political editor for failing to contact them before running the story. They wrote: "Neither Trevor Kavanagh, nor anyone else from the Sun, has ever sought our opinions on this matter. Had they done so, they would know that we don't indulge in private comment on matters of public debate."
From rediff.com:
Parliamentary panel raps Blair on Iraq
July 07, 2003 22:56 IST
A British parliamentary committee has found that Prime Minister Tony Blair 'misrepresented' the findings of intelligence information on Iraq's weapons programme.
But the panel said the government did not 'mislead' the public ahead of the war.
The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said the dossier gave undue prominence to a claim that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons that could be deployed in 45 minutes of Saddam Hussein giving the order.
In the 54-page report, the MPs, in a split decision, said Blair's press chief Alastair Campbell did not 'sex up' the dossier.
The committee said Campbell played no role in inserting a controversial section claiming Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were deployable within 45 minutes.
The BBC quoted an intelligence source as saying that Campbell insisted on inserting the passage in the dossier despite reservations from the intelligence services.
"It is too soon to tell whether the government's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will prove correct," the report said.
On the second so-called 'dodgy dossier' published last February, the MPs argued that Blair 'misrepresented' its status in Parliament and 'thus inadvertently made a bad situation worse'.
Besides, they said Campbell and his team was given too much autonomy.
The report said the document was 'almost wholly counter-productive' and it was 'fundamentally wrong' for it to have been referred to by Blair in the House of Commons.
"We further conclude that by referring to the document on the floor of the House of Commons as 'further intelligence' the prime minister -- who has not been informed of its provenance, doubts about which only came to light several days later -- misrepresented its status," the committee's report said.
The dossier contained an un-attributed academic paper and such plagiarism was 'wholly unacceptable', the committee said.
From Annanova.com:
Government demands apology despite being condemned
Jack Straw is demanding an apology from the BBC over the Iraq dossier row, despite Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair receiving scathing criticism from investigating MPs.
Mr Campbell was cleared by the Foreign Affairs Committee over the Government's September dossier, but his role in the second "dodgy" dossier was severely criticised.
The document for which he was ultimately responsible undermined the Government's case for war and Tony Blair, "misrepresented its status" by telling MPs it contained further intelligence and "thus inadvertently made a bad situation worse".
The February dossier, for which Mr Campbell was responsible, undermined the case for war, the committee said.
After the report was published, Mr Straw said: "Not a single committee member, having heard all the evidence both publicly and privately, has found that the BBC's central and damaging allegation was true.
"I believe that the BBC should now apologise and I note that even the BBC governors in their statement last night did not defend the accuracy of this claim."
But in a statement, the corporation said: "The BBC believes today's report from the Foreign Affairs Committee justifies its decision to broadcast the Today programme story of May 29 and the Newsnight story of June 2 and shows that both were in the public interest.
"In particular, we believe the decision to highlight the circumstances surrounding the 45-minute claim has been vindicated."
Story filed: 13:07 Monday 7th July 2003
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