BY JAMES TARANTO
Friday, July 18, 2003 3:51 p.m. EDT The Beeb vs. Blair
As in America, a concerted effort is under way in Britain to discredit the liberation of Iraq. Because Tony Blair's Labour Party dominates the government in a way that America's Republicans do not (yet), the role of disloyal opposition is being played not by a formal political party but by the taxpayer-funded British Broadcasting Corp.
On May 29, as a Times of London timeline recounts, a story by reporter Andrew Gilligan aired on a BBC radio station. It included "claims by an unnamed intelligence source that Downing Street 'sexed up' the dossier on alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." Specifically, Gilligan accused communications chief Alistair Campbell of having inserted into a report a claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction "within 45 minutes." The Foreign Affairs Committee of Britain's Parliament investigated and issued a report earlier this month that cleared Campbell of Gilligan's charge.
The Ministry of Defense identified David Kelly, a former weapons inspector, as the likely source of Gilligan's charge. Kelly did indeed meet Gilligan, at the latter's request, for an interview on May 22. "But Dr Kelly said he did not think he could have been the source for the story," the Daily Telegraph reports--although he acknowledged, in the Telegraph's words, "that elements of his story were similar to things they had discussed, such as a suggestion there was a 30 per cent probability Iraq had chemical weapons."
Now Kelly is apparently dead. He "had not been seen since leaving his home at around 3pm yesterday after telling his wife he was going for a walk," reports the Edinburgh Evening News. "Police said the body of a man was found close to his Oxfordshire home--an hour after a public appeal was made."
The Associated Press quotes television journalist Tom Mangold, who says he spoke to Kelly's wife this morning:
"She told me he had been under considerable stress, that he was very, very angry about what had happened at the committee, that he wasn't well, that he had been to a safe house, he hadn't liked that, he wanted to come home," Mangold told ITV news.
"She didn't use the word depressed, but she said he was very, very stressed and unhappy about what had happened and this was really not the kind of world he wanted to live in."
"Westminster insiders said the possible suicide of Dr Kelly would make Mr Campbell's position as Downing Street's director of communications impossible," reports the Edinburgh paper. "They also questioned whether Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon--who effectively named Dr Kelly as Mr Gilligan's 'source'--could continue. One senior figure said: 'This raises questions about the conduct of people at the very top of Tony Blair's administration.' "
If Kelly committed suicide, his is obviously a tragic story. But if indeed he was Gilligan's source, it's not clear why this should reflect unfavorably on the government. His suicide, after all, would demonstrate that he was mentally ill, which hardly enhances the credibility of whatever he told Gilligan.
Gilligan is still mum as to who was the source for the "sexed up" allegation. According to the Times' Tom Baldwin, the Beeb is not exactly standing behind its report:
The BBC will not admit that the allegations are false but nor does it still insist that the story was correct--merely that it has the right to broadcast what it wants. Greg Dyke, the BBC Director-General, has persuaded his governing board that a high principle of independence is at stake and an apology would cede editorial control to No 10.
The BBC, which is a creation of the British government, claims it is holding the government accountable for alleged dishonesty. But faced with the possibility that it "sexed up" its own report, the Beeb proclaims its immunity from accountability as a matter of high principle.
Last night CNN's Aaron Brown interviewed Matt Frei, the BBC's Washington correspondent, about Tony Blair's speech to Congress. Frei made mostly disparaging comments about Blair, President Bush and Iraq's liberation. In introducing Frei, Brown made no reference to the adversarial relationship between Blair's government and the Beeb. At least with respect to the Iraq war, the BBC is a political player, not merely a disinterested conveyor of information. One may hope the tragedy of David Kelly will make this impossible for journalists on this side of the Atlantic to ignore.
And He's Polling Ahead of Carol Moseley Braun
Quick, who said this:
"What will the two liars, Bush and Blair, say to their people and to humanity. What will they tell the world? What they said was wrong and baseless.
"The lies were known to the President of the United States and to the Prime Minister of Britain when they decided to wage war on Iraq."
Howard Dean? John Kerry? The BBC? No, Saddam Hussein, or at least a man purporting to be the erstwhile Iraqi dictator, on a tape an Arabic television station aired this week. You'd think it would make the Democrats nervous when Saddam Hussein starts sounding like one of them.
The Times of London quotes a lovely reaction to the Saddam tape from a Baghdad street vendor: "I think it was a Saddam double used by the Iranians. I think the coalition should finish up here and invade Iran."
Is She Playing With a Full Deck?--II
Yesterday we noted the story of Kathy Eder, a Saddam-supporting schoolteacher from screwy San Francisco, who created a deck of what she calls "Operation: Hidden Agenda" cards to express her opposition to the liberation of Iraq. One of the cards, reproduced on her Web site, gives a nice insight into the left-wing mind. It features a quote from America-hating Indian authoress Arundhati Roy:
After using . . . UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million of its children killed, its infrastructure severely damaged, after making sure that most of its weapons have been destroyed . . . the "Allies" . . . sent in an invading army!
The quote bears the sarcastic headline "A Fair Fight." Now think about this for a second. Eder sounds like a schoolchild rather than a schoolteacher, whining that it's just not fair for us to pick on poor little Saddam Hussein. That he was a brutal tyrant is of no consequence; we should have left him alone simply because he was weaker than we were.
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