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

To: Alighieri who wrote (174122)	8/19/2003 2:51:57 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574732

"In other words it shows he has the means, but it doesn't demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the West." Unbelievable...the first assessment of the intel community brought one to the conclusion that he was contained. And the one thing it did "show", that he had the means, turns out to be untrue as well. <font color=blue>Oh it gets better........it looks like Blair's 'trusted'Communications Director is not 'falling on his sword' for Mr. Blair. Mr. Campbell describes Blair's involvement in the whole dossier matter as very "hands on", meaning that Blair, not Campbell, had final approval over what was said. At this point, what do you think are the odds that Blair is going down for his role as Bush's poodle? Thirty four percent of the Brits trust the BBC more than the gov't while only 6% trust the gov't more than the BBC! If that doesn't make a statement I don't know what does. Of course, 52% trust neither institution.<font color=black> ******************************************************** cnsnews.com Blair's Communication Director Defends Dossier By Mike Wendling CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief August 19, 2003 London (CNSNews.com) - One of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest advisers defended his role in preparing a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) during testimony Tuesday in front of an inquiry looking into the death of a government weapons expert. Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of communications, said that Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) compiled the information in the dossier released last September, although he did have a hand in issues of "presentation." Campbell said that earlier in 2002, the government had tried to compile a document on the weapons programs of four countries, including Iraq. That project was eventually shelved, but as media attention began to pick up in the fall, the idea of a dossier on Iraq was conceived. "By September, the prime minister took the view that this exclusively Iraq document should be put into the public domain," Campbell testified. "I emphasised that the credibility of this document depended fundamentally on it being the work of the JIC," he said. "That was the touchstone of our approach from the very first moment." BBC gives 'moral equivalence' The inquiry hinges on the September document, and specifically, on one claim contained within it that became the subject of a report by BBC defense correspondent Andrew Gilligan. The dossier claimed that Saddam Hussein had WMD available for launch within 45 minutes. But Gilligan consulted David Kelly, a scientist and Ministry of Defense adviser on weapons of mass destruction, and then reported that the government - and specifically, Campbell - had included the 45-minute claim despite doubts about its veracity. Kelly was the sole anonymous source in Gilligan's report, but his name was later released to the press. The scientist was the subject of intense media interest and apparently committed suicide shortly after testifying in front of a House of Commons committee. On Tuesday, Campbell testified that he had no say whatsoever on the material used in the dossier, although the prime minister was "very hands on" in compiling a foreword to the document. "I had no input, output or influence upon them (the dossier's authors) whatsoever at any stage in the process," Campbell said. He was also quizzed about a number of complaints Downing Street has made about BBC coverage of the Iraq war. Campbell rejected a suggestion made by inquiry lawyers that the complaints were largely unwarranted. "Our perception was that BBC viewers and listeners were at times being given a sense of moral equivalence between the democratically elected governments that were involved on one side and the Iraqi regime on the other," he said. Campbell said it had not "crossed anyone's mind" that being in the middle of the tug-of-war between the government and the BBC would cause Kelly distress. He described the scientist as "a very strong, resolute character, clearly of deep conviction and who had been in many difficult stressful circumstances." Focus on Blair administration On Monday, the inquiry, headed by senior judge Lord Hutton, heard that another top Blair aide, Downing Street Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell, believed that the dossier had shortcomings. In an e-mail written a week before the dossier was released to the public, Powell wrote: "The dossier is good and convincing for those who are prepared to be convinced." But he also said that it "does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam. In other words, it shows he has the means, but it does not demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbors, let alone the West." The first week of the Hutton inquiry focused on the BBC and its reporting and revealed differences between the views and reports of Gilligan and other corporation journalists who talked to Kelly. The second week has focused on the government's role in the affair, with several key Blair advisers scheduled to testify before the prime minister and Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon are expected to take the stand later this month. An opinion poll published in The Guardian newspaper Tuesday found that 6 percent of voters trust the government more than the BBC. Thirty-four percent said they trusted the BBC more, while a majority - 52 percent - said they trusted neither institution.

To: Alighieri who wrote (174122)	8/19/2003 5:52:34 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574732

<font color=green> I think Director Campbell is Mr. Blair's poodle and I think Mr. Campbell has a tendency to bite!! LOL! <font color=black> ************************************************************ politics.guardian.co.uk Campbell plays the blame game There was little doubt whom the No 10 press supremo held responsible for the dossier row - and it certainly wasn't himself, writes Ros Taylor Tuesday August 19, 2003 Even as the hacks gathered in the chandelier-hung overflow marquee were switching off their mobile phones, Alastair Campbell explained that he had brought along the document everyone present was longing to see. "I write a diary. Not every day, but several times a week," he told the Hutton inquiry. "It is not intended for publication." But unlike the hundreds of pages of emails, letters and draft dossiers presented to the inquiry - many of which have been, as his interrogator James Dingemans QC put it, "redacted" for public consumption - Mr Campbell was not about to have his private jottings flashed up on the screens for the entertainment of the assorted hacks. The Campbell diaries were, undoubtedly, in the room: but he alone would decide which extracts Lord Hutton needed to hear. He had evidently decided there was to be no repeat of the irate anti-BBC polemic on Channel 4 News which had led to speculation that Tony Blair's head of communications was "losing it". The 40-odd members of the public who were denied a seat protested loudly. "That's outrageous!" a young woman told one of the court attendants. Tourists wanted to know why the inquiry wasn't on the BBC. A rather belated anti-war demonstration was taking place outside the front entrance to the royal courts of justice. Mr Campbell ignored it. "I've seen him going in!" a Mail reporter announced triumphantly. "Looks breezy." Mr Campbell was not exactly breezy. He was, it soon became clear, speaking more in sorrow than in anger about the "ghastly Gilligan story" which the BBC - with its "sense of moral equivalence between democratically elected governments" and the Iraqi regime - had allowed to be broadcast. He had been in Kuwait, supervising Tony Blair's visit to the troops in Basra, when Andrew Gilligan's story broke. The claim that No 10 had been responsible for "sexing up" the dossier had initially struck him as so absurd that he had thought no one would believe it. How had he reacted? There was a long, weary pause. Mr Campbell looked pained. "I was torn, really. On the one hand, I did not imagine anyone would take them terribly seriously. It was such an extraordinary thing to say, that the prime minister and government would do that." The middle finger jogged up and down furiously, but he kept his hand clenched. As if No 10 would ever have allowed the dossier to be published had the intelligence services objected to any of it! Had Mr Campbell been aware of any "onhappiness [sic]" about the dossier among the intelligence services, the Ulster-born Lord Hutton asked? "Well, only through what I was reading in the newspapers," he replied sardonically. Most importantly of all, Mr Campbell's own role in putting together the dossier had been purely "presentational". The JIC chairman Sir John Scarlett had taken "ownership" of the dossier - indeed, he had insisted on doing so - and had merely passed on the drafts for Mr Campbell's advice. Far from sexing it up, he had advised Sir John to tone the rhetoric down. He wanted to take out the words "vivid" and "horrifying". These weren't even suggestions, he added pointedly. They were "observations". The careful, "meticulous" Mr Campbell wanted every claim backed up by evidence: "I was concerned that we were relying too much on an assertion - without the explanation underpinning it." Unlike a certain BBC journalist, he didn't quite mutter. A member of the Downing Street pondlife who expressed reservations about its content was "making contributions effectively above his pay grade ... I receive an awful lot of emails that I don't read, because they're sifted for me," Mr Campbell warned Mr Dingemans. Some he recalled; some he recalled, but couldn't recall replying to; some he couldn't recall at all. So it was hardly surprising that he didn't know when the 45-minute warning had been inserted, "and I didn't make any effort to find out". There was, he remembered, a shift in the choice of qualifier for the 45-minute claim as the dossier moved through the drafting process: "may be able to deploy" became "could". The inquiry would have to ask Sir John about that. Was Sir John guilty of sexing up the dossier in the intelligence room with his fictional WMDs? There was little doubt about who Mr Campbell held to blame. Sir John, Gilligan and the BBC, in that order.