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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (172354)	7/23/2003 12:39:12 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576610

What's wrong with these folks.....haven't they heard. Blair says the Niger report is true. LOL What Niger letter? They have Blair up on murder charges for the suicide of David Kelly. Right about now, I bet Blair is real sorry he ever heard of Iraq and GW Bush. <g> *********************************************** BBC Blair denies ordering Kelly's naming Prime Minister Tony Blair has "emphatically" denied he authorised Dr David Kelly's identity to be made public during the dispute over Iraqi weapons. Mr Blair's comments came as speculation grows as to how Dr Kelly's identity came into the public domain. The scientist was found dead in Oxfordshire on Friday after apparently committing suicide. On Sunday the BBC said he was the source for their report claiming Downing Street had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's illegal weapons. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon stands accused by several newspapers of allowing Dr Kelly to be named as a "mole". I don't think the BBC is out to get anybody Sir Christopher Bland In a separate development the Times says it has detected the first cracks in the board of governors of the BBC over their handling of the row. But in a statement issued on Tuesday, BBC chairman Gavyn Davies said that all the governors stood by their earlier assertion that they believed it was in the public interest to broadcast the story about the way the case for war was presented. He said: "I and my fellow governors learned that Dr Kelly was the principal source for both Andrew Gilligan's and Susan Watts' reports only after Dr Kelly's tragic death. "This information does not require us to amend our unanimous statement of 6 July when governors made clear we were satisfied it was in the public interest to broadcast the stories by Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts, given the information available at that time." The Times had said an unnamed governor had demanded an emergency meeting to review whether the board had all the facts it needed when it issued a statement supporting the report by Mr Gilligan earlier this month. Mr Davies has said there are no plans for a special meeting. Independent Sir Christopher Bland, ex-chairman of the BBC board of governors, said his former colleagues had not "leapt" to the defence of Mr Gilligan. "They are 11 independent individuals with quite differing stances and they came to the conclusion that they supported the BBC's journalism," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. How David Kelly's name emerged World's press mulls Kelly case "They didn't do that lightly and they did it after careful consideration." Sir Christopher said the board of governors had stood up "to incredible government pressure and bullying". He dismissed accusations by former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson that the BBC was obsessed with a "vendetta" against the prime minister's director of communications Alastair Campbell. "I don't think the BBC is out to get anybody. If there is an obsession and a vendetta, to an informed observer ... the vendetta was on the other foot." Intense scrutiny The row continues to dominate the UK's newspapers with the Financial Times saying Mr Hoon had approved a media strategy whereby the Ministry of Defence would confirm Dr Kelly's name to journalists if they suggested it. The weapons expert apparently killed himself last Thursday, after coming under intense scrutiny from both the media and his own employers. Geoff Hoon has been accused of exposing Dr David Kelly According to the Daily Mirror, Mr Hoon was implicated in the naming of the scientist by Downing Street on Monday, when it said: "The matter was overseen by those at the appropriate level at the top of the MoD." In the initial row which followed the story, the MoD did not name Dr Kelly - who had come forward to his employers - except in a confidential letter to the chairman of the BBC. But the strategy of confirming his name meant three newspapers were able to deduce who he was. Downing Street had also been "consulted" over the strategy, the FT said. The Independent believes the MoD wanted to protect Dr Kelly's identity, but was overruled by Downing Street. And the Telegraph said it was a Downing Street briefing which originally gave out enough clues about Dr Kelly's identity to enable journalists to guess it. Hutton inquiry The Telegraph said the BBC had also given out more details about its source's identity than it should have. Senior judge, Lord Hutton, is to investigate the events which led to the apparent suicide of the weapons expert. A spokesman said the MoD would not pre-empt the Hutton inquiry by commenting on the FT report.

To: Alighieri who wrote (172354)	7/23/2003 12:52:00 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576610

<font color=green>The Brits are funny......I read where it says Bush popularity among the Brits has dropped to "minus 30". I thought how can you go 30 pts below 0....everyone must totally hate him. Then I realized they mean below 30 as in 27% think Bush is doing an okay job. Only 73% hate him. BTW 27% is worse than Blair but not by much. And 41% think Blair is Bush's poodle! Have you ever heard anything so hilarious.......Bush's poodle! Too much!! <font color=black> ***************************************************** Nation divided over justification for war Alan Travis, home affairs editor Wednesday July 23, 2003 The Guardian The argument over whether the war against Iraq was justified is splitting the nation down the middle, according to the findings of this month's Guardian/ICM poll. The results show the dispute between the government and the BBC has polarised opinion even more sharply than before. A clear majority - 51% - believe the war was justified, up three points since a month ago. But at the same time those who believe the military attack on Iraq was unjustified is also up - by two points - to 42%. The effect of the national debate has been a drop in the "don't knows" from 11% to 7%. There is still a gap between the views of men and women. Fifty-six per cent of men say it was justified, compared with only 45% of women. Only 39% of men say it was unjustified compared with 46% of women. The ICM survey also shows that pro-war opinion remains strongest among Labour voters, of whom 63% believe it was justified. Opposition is strongest among Liberal Democrat voters, of whom 49% say it was unjustified. The poll also reveals a swing in British public opinion against President George Bush. While earlier this year British voters broadly endorsed his strategy for tackling the Iraq crisis, his personal rating in Britain is now worse than Tony Blair's, at minus 30. Fifty-seven per cent of voters are unhappy with the job he is doing and only 27% saying they are satisfied. Suprisingly, Conservative voters are even more unhappy with the performance of the rightwing president than Labour voters. But if the nation is split over whether or not Britain should have taken part in the war against Iraq, voters are equally divided over whether they think Mr Blair is acting as President Bush's poodle. Forty-one per cent of voters told ICM that they agreed with the statement that "Tony Blair acts as the foreign minister of the US and does anything that Bush wants him to do". But 49% of voters, including 71% of Labour voters, say they do not share that view and agree instead that he "does what he believes is right for Britain". There is much greater agreement over what should happen to the British citizens captured in Afghanistan and held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. A clear majority, 56% - including 62% of Labour voters - think the government should insist they are brought back to Britain to stand trial. Only 34% think they should be tried by an American military tribunal. · ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,001 adults aged 18 and over by telephone between July 18-20, 2003. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.