Bring The Pain
by Michelangelo Signorile
It was less than two months ago when our cowboy president pounded a podium and taunted guerrilla warriors from Baghdad to Basra who were attacking American troops. Depending on who in the Pentagon and the CIA was talking, the attacks were attributed to a range of characters. One minute they were thought to be shady Saddam loyalists; the next minute an al Qaeda offshoot was the culprit. Whoever they were, George W. Bush decided it was time for more tough talk.
"Bring �em on," he said directly to the attackers regarding any further plans of mayhem and destruction. It was another breathtaking display of arrogance and stupidity in which W. actually seemed to believe that schoolyard bravado was going to make professional Islamic fighters who are on the 500-year plan to overthrow Western imperialists just say, "Whoa! Scared of that! Let�s get the hell out of here!"
Instead, the attackers did bring �em on, bombing the U.N. headquarters and killing at least 20 people last week, after weeks of deadly attacks on U.S. soldiers occupying the country. And the attacks continue. The blood of the highly valued U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and of all the others who�ve died in Iraq since this invasion is on Bush�s hands, as well as on Condi�s, Dick�s, Rummy�s, Powell�s and the rest of the gang�s. They not only invaded a country under false pretenses and galvanized extremists across the Middle East to head to Iraq and fight, they�ve clearly not protected and secured the place, its people and humanitarian agencies like the U.N. Already we�re hearing about how U.S. officials had been warned that attacks against the U.N. might take place but obviously did little to prevent one.
Last spring when the U.N. refused to give its support to the invasion, desiring for weapons inspections to continue and warning about the further destabilization any invasion and occupation would cause�advice that now looks more prophetic by the minute�the U.N. Security Council members were "weasels" in the eyes of just about every smear artist on the right. Bush and company helped stoke the demonization, fostering the idea that if you didn�t support the war, you were "siding with Saddam," the mantra we heard from conservatives over and over again.
The U.N., as well as France, Hollywood and the American left, were all traitors and de facto murderers because they refused to support a war that was supposedly about overthrowing a vicious dictator. And when singer Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks criticized Bush last March while on a trip to London, it was considered downright treasonous. Her opinion somehow empowered the enemy, simply because she said W. is an embarrassment to her home state of Texas. The right-wing radio conglomerate Clear Channel organized protests to drive the point home, crushing Dixie Chicks CDs on the streets with steamrollers and banning Dixie Chicks songs from radio play lists. Conservative pundits slammed the group. And South Carolina State Rep. Catherine Ceips actually drew up plans demanding an apology for Maines� comments. Mere words, the rightists were telling us, are enough to destroy lives. Better to just shut up.
But now that we see the possible effects of Bush�s "bring �em on" taunts, curiously we aren�t hearing anyone talking about the power of words nor calling our president a murderer, though in this case�unlike that of Maines��the connection between words and deeds is certainly a valid one. When the leader of an occupying country dares enraged resistance fighters to make further brutal attacks against the occupiers and their interests, it has a lot more influence, after all, than does a relatively unknown entertainer complaining to Fleet Street hacks that she�s embarrassed to be from the same state as the guy.
Terrorists certainly seem to have taken Bush�s command to heart, heading into Iraq to battle the Great Satan, America. Making their case for war, Bush and company had floated the highly dubious claim of a link between al Qaeda and Saddam. Now the invasion itself is creating the link.
"[The] bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was the latest evidence that America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one," Jessica Stern, an authority on Mideast religious extremism at Harvard�s Kennedy School of Government, wrote on the New York Times op-ed page last week. "America has created�not through malevolence but through negligence�precisely the situation the Bush administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens� rudimentary needs."
The same way they ignored the truth about weapons of mass destruction, the thugs among the Bushies ignored the administration�s own State Department and the international affairs community, which warned about the chaos that an occupation might foment. The CIA not only found no links between Saddam and al Qaeda before the invasion, but cautioned that the war could actually bring Saddam�s loyalists and outside terrorists together. On Thursday, Army Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command, gave a press conference pretty much confirming that prediction to have come true. Blinded by its zeal to put an American outpost in the Middle East, the administration wouldn�t listen to anyone who didn�t tell them exactly what they wanted to hear.
Now we have a situation that each day is more similar to that of Israel, torn by bombs and bloodshed. Ain�t that just what the world needs right now�another Israel? Like Ariel Sharon, Bush instigates the extremists with tough talk and actions, and the result is more killing and more support for the killers among the population that rightly wants to govern itself. Bush and his civilian administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, like Sharon, are also trying to hold moderates responsible for what extremists are doing.
Bremer demanded that the Iraq Governing Council�a group of moderates handpicked by the Bush administration and who, for that reason, are suspect to many Iraqis�strongly condemn the U.N. attack, implying that that would stem the violence. Already, Bremer is setting the stage to make all Iraqis pay for the attacks by the extremists. That will only breed further resentment of the U.S. by the Iraqi people, and foment further support among them for the bomb throwers.
Meanwhile, the Bush thugs are still refusing to give the U.N. or any other country any expanded role, lest Iraq not be the true American outpost that the hawks in the administration had envisioned, even though more troops and aid are desperately needed. That defiance and more of Bush�s tough talk are guaranteed to perpetuate the cycle of violence. Expect more bombs soon.
�365Gay.com Ltd� 2003
Thursday, August 28, 2003
371220
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Back to Home > News > Wednesday, Aug 27, 2003
Iraq: The Aftermath
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on Wed, Aug. 27, 2003
Troops frustrated as casualties mount in Iraq
BY DREW BROWN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - Iraqi guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded five in two separate attacks Wednesday, as many GIs expressed rising frustration over the inability to strike back at an unseen enemy and anxiety over the rising death toll.
One soldier with the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment died and three others were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their convoy around 7:10 a.m. in the town of Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, a military spokesman said. A similar bomb struck a convoy in Baghdad less than 30 minutes later, killing a soldier with the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and wounding two others, the military said.
So far, 281 American soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began March 20. Since President Bush declared May 1 that major combat was over, 143 have died. Sixty-six U.S. troops have been killed in action since the president's declaration. Seventy-seven have died in nonhostile actions. More than 1,000 GIs have been wounded since the war began.
"We're a lot more paranoid now," said Spc. Bob Hockman, 30, of Memphis, Tenn., a 1st Armored Division soldier whose convoy was hit by an improvised explosive last week, injuring three. "When we first got here, you'd hear about stuff over the radio, but then it was happening to other people. Now it's beginning to happen to our people."
Because of the continuing violence, the international food relief agency Oxfam said it was pulling out its foreign staff. The Red Cross also has announced that most of its staff will leave or be reassigned to areas outside Baghdad. The withdrawal of international aid workers will compound the problems the U.S.-led Iraqi administration has in trying to restore basic services and defuse Iraqi anger at the American occupation.
Improvised explosive devices - IEDs, in military parlance - have become the weapon of choice for guerrillas who are fighting the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Soldiers say the bombs can be practically anything from a couple of hand grenades tied together to more deadly devices consisting of artillery and mortar rounds.
The bombs can be hidden practically anywhere: in soda cans, piles of debris, dead animals and broken-down vehicles. Soldiers say the bombs have become more sophisticated in recent weeks. Instead of wire-detonated devices, anti-American guerrillas are using remote-controlled devices, and the explosives themselves are becoming more deadly, some soldiers say.
"They can now stand off and detonate them in a way they didn't before," said Sgt. Bob Haug, a National Guardsman from St. Louis, with the 2175th Military Police Company. "Now they're starting to daisy-chain them together three and four at a time, too. They're getting slick over here."
Military officials report that explosive devices are being used increasingly in attacks on U.S. troops along with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, which indicates tactical coordination and control. Even so, the officials blame the attacks on small bands of loyalists to the former regime and criminal gangs operating without centralized command.
Since the bombings of the Jordanian Embassy on Aug. 7, which killed 19 people, and the U.N. compound Aug. 19, which killed more than 23 and wounded more than 150, many high-ranking American officials have voiced concerns about the increasing activity by Ansar al Islam, an al-Qaida-linked group supported by deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, as well as Islamic fighters from other countries. While they insist that these groups are operating in Iraq, they say they don't yet see any evidence of cooperation between fighters loyal to the former regime and foreign terrorists.
Hampered by language and cultural barriers, many soldiers admit they aren't certain exactly who they're up against, except an unseen, ruthless enemy who can strike and disappear virtually at will.
"I know that when I drive through an area the same (expletive) who's waving at you during the day is probably the same (expletive) who's shooting at you at night," said Sgt. Ryan Hood, 25, of Coral Gables, Fla. "But that's just a fact of our being here."
Coalition officials still blame former-regime loyalists for most of the violence. A prevailing theory among them is that Saddam's capture could help quell much of the resistance.
They said much the same after U.S. troops killed Saddam's sons Odai and Qusai in a raid last month.
On Wednesday, the coalition began distributing "wanted" posters featuring Saddam and the crossed-out faces of Odai and Qusai Hussein. An informant received $30 million for the tip that led to their deaths. The posters remind Iraqis that a $25 million bounty remains on Saddam's head, and there's an offer of $10,000 for information leading to the deaths or capture of the rest of the top 55 figures on the most-wanted list. Thirty-nine have been killed or captured so far.
---
� 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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Back to Home > News > Wednesday, Aug 27, 2003
Iraq: The Aftermath
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted on Wed, Aug. 27, 2003
Troops frustrated as casualties mount in Iraq
BY DREW BROWN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - Iraqi guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded five in two separate attacks Wednesday, as many GIs expressed rising frustration over the inability to strike back at an unseen enemy and anxiety over the rising death toll.
One soldier with the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment died and three others were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their convoy around 7:10 a.m. in the town of Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, a military spokesman said. A similar bomb struck a convoy in Baghdad less than 30 minutes later, killing a soldier with the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and wounding two others, the military said.
So far, 281 American soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began March 20. Since President Bush declared May 1 that major combat was over, 143 have died. Sixty-six U.S. troops have been killed in action since the president's declaration. Seventy-seven have died in nonhostile actions. More than 1,000 GIs have been wounded since the war began.
"We're a lot more paranoid now," said Spc. Bob Hockman, 30, of Memphis, Tenn., a 1st Armored Division soldier whose convoy was hit by an improvised explosive last week, injuring three. "When we first got here, you'd hear about stuff over the radio, but then it was happening to other people. Now it's beginning to happen to our people."
Because of the continuing violence, the international food relief agency Oxfam said it was pulling out its foreign staff. The Red Cross also has announced that most of its staff will leave or be reassigned to areas outside Baghdad. The withdrawal of international aid workers will compound the problems the U.S.-led Iraqi administration has in trying to restore basic services and defuse Iraqi anger at the American occupation.
Improvised explosive devices - IEDs, in military parlance - have become the weapon of choice for guerrillas who are fighting the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Soldiers say the bombs can be practically anything from a couple of hand grenades tied together to more deadly devices consisting of artillery and mortar rounds.
The bombs can be hidden practically anywhere: in soda cans, piles of debris, dead animals and broken-down vehicles. Soldiers say the bombs have become more sophisticated in recent weeks. Instead of wire-detonated devices, anti-American guerrillas are using remote-controlled devices, and the explosives themselves are becoming more deadly, some soldiers say.
"They can now stand off and detonate them in a way they didn't before," said Sgt. Bob Haug, a National Guardsman from St. Louis, with the 2175th Military Police Company. "Now they're starting to daisy-chain them together three and four at a time, too. They're getting slick over here."
Military officials report that explosive devices are being used increasingly in attacks on U.S. troops along with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, which indicates tactical coordination and control. Even so, the officials blame the attacks on small bands of loyalists to the former regime and criminal gangs operating without centralized command.
Since the bombings of the Jordanian Embassy on Aug. 7, which killed 19 people, and the U.N. compound Aug. 19, which killed more than 23 and wounded more than 150, many high-ranking American officials have voiced concerns about the increasing activity by Ansar al Islam, an al-Qaida-linked group supported by deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, as well as Islamic fighters from other countries. While they insist that these groups are operating in Iraq, they say they don't yet see any evidence of cooperation between fighters loyal to the former regime and foreign terrorists.
Hampered by language and cultural barriers, many soldiers admit they aren't certain exactly who they're up against, except an unseen, ruthless enemy who can strike and disappear virtually at will.
"I know that when I drive through an area the same (expletive) who's waving at you during the day is probably the same (expletive) who's shooting at you at night," said Sgt. Ryan Hood, 25, of Coral Gables, Fla. "But that's just a fact of our being here."
Coalition officials still blame former-regime loyalists for most of the violence. A prevailing theory among them is that Saddam's capture could help quell much of the resistance.
They said much the same after U.S. troops killed Saddam's sons Odai and Qusai in a raid last month.
On Wednesday, the coalition began distributing "wanted" posters featuring Saddam and the crossed-out faces of Odai and Qusai Hussein. An informant received $30 million for the tip that led to their deaths. The posters remind Iraqis that a $25 million bounty remains on Saddam's head, and there's an offer of $10,000 for information leading to the deaths or capture of the rest of the top 55 figures on the most-wanted list. Thirty-nine have been killed or captured so far.
---
� 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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Shopping & Services
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LATEST AP IRAQ STORIES
Updated Wednesday, Aug 27, 2003
Ex-Yugoslav Admiral Pleads to War Crimes - 11:51 PM EDT
Congress Delegation Winds Up Iraq Visit - 11:20 PM EDT
U.S. Weighs American-Led U.N. Iraq Force - 10:51 PM EDT
Argentine Victims Testify Against Cavallo - 10:40 PM EDT
Bush Might Soon Seek Extra Iraq Funding - 09:32 PM EDT
CONTACT US
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� Complete staff list
TOOLS
� Yellow Pages
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� Map and Directions
� Mercury News Mortgage Watch
WAR PHOTOS
Check out amazing Iraq war photos from staff photographer Pauline Lubens.
ARCHIVES
� Photos Knight Ridder photographers in the field
� Dispatches reports from the front
� Web log around the 'net
� Faces of War unique portraits
� Joe Galloway the war reporter
HOW TO HELP
� MORE ONLINE RESOURCES
BACKGROUND
� History of Iraq
� Iraq facts and figures
� Weather in Iraq
� More background info
BRIEFING
� Database of casualties, from the Detroit Free Press
� Profiles
Time now in Iraq
SPECIAL PACKAGES
� Governor recall
� Budget Crisis
� Laci Peterson murder trial
� Iraq: The Aftermath
� Juvenile Hall abuse allegations
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9
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 � Claudia Johnsen was watching Oprah Winfrey on television some time back when she came upon an idea for how to dispose of some valuable real estate she had accumulated in Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland.
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A GUEST on the show who had been trying to sell an inn in New England said he finally received his asking price by essentially raffling it off. But it wasn�t technically a raffle � and thus did not run afoul of local gambling laws � because the deciding factor was not chance but an essay contest.
Johnsen tracked the man down and bought the contest rules and regulations for $750, then adapted them to create a similar competition for her own holdings.
Now the 79-year-old Alexandria resident is offering five properties � two condominiums in Alexandria, a waterfront tract in Stafford County, a vacation house near Hot Springs, Va., and one-third interest in an apartment complex in Temple Hills � to winners of an online essay contest. After paying $100 to enter, contestants must explain, in no more than 75 words, why they want to own one of the properties and submit the essay to the Web site USDreamProperties.com.
Multiple entries are allowed, but each requires the $100 entry fee.
� More national news coverage
�To me, this contest ... is a way to open the door to everyone� by offering valuable real estate to people who might otherwise not be able to afford it, Johnsen said. Moreover, she said, �I want to settle my estate before I die.�
She acknowledged that, contrary to a recent press release, she is not �giving away� the property. If Johnsen receives the maximum number of entries allowed by state law, she stands to reap about $24.8 million for property that has been appraised at $3.7 million, including jewelry that she is prepared to throw in as bonuses.
She said she plans to live on the proceeds and �hopefully leave something for my trust ... and something for charity.� She said the trust is for her four grandchildren, and the charity would benefit children in Virginia.
�TERRIFIC� OVERHEAD
Johnsen said she has no idea how much money she might make from the contest after taxes and expenses, which include advertising and payments of about $9,000 a month to DCpages.com, the District-based Internet company running the contest.
�You make a large profit, but let me tell you, the overhead for doing these things is terrific,� she said. �To me, this contest was an option for disposing of my property rather than going through real estate agents and selling it myself.�
Although the maximum number of entries is determined by law, �the minimum is up to me,� Johnsen said. If she decides that there are not enough entries for any of the properties, she can cancel that competition and refund the entry fees, less $20 each for processing, according to the rules.
Advertisement
For the most expensive property, a 124-acre tract along the Potomac River appraised at $1.69 million, the maximum number of entries is 118,300, which would yield $11.83 million. If that number of entries is reached, Johnsen said, she will throw in a nine-carat diamond ring worth $100,000 as a bonus.
The four other properties being offered are a one-third share in the Oxon Park Apartments in Temple Hills, worth $660,000; a two-story home on 1.8 acres near Hot Springs, appraised at $575,000; a townhouse condominium in the Watergate at Landmark of Old Town Alexandria, valued at $430,000; and a one-bedroom condominium in Alexandria�s Port Royal high-rise, worth $190,000.
Johnsen said an inheritance from her father, a wealthy real estate developer, allowed her to become �a long-term speculator for investment purposes� for more than 40 years.
The interest in the Temple Hills apartment, for example, was a wedding gift from her father in the late 1940s, according to its Web write-up.
�POSITIVE� ESSAYS
The essays can say anything, �as long as it�s positive,� Johnsen said. According to the rules, the �contents of the essay, not the writing skills, spelling or punctuation, are the most important.� Deadline for the contests is June 26, 2004, and winners are to be chosen by Nov. 8, 2004.
Students from Washington and Lee University will pare the list of entries for final judging by three anonymous Virginia lawyers, Johnsen said.
According to a 1996 opinion by James S. Gilmore III, then Virginia�s attorney general and later its governor, this type of contest �does not constitute illegal gambling� � as a raffle or lottery for private gain would � because �the element of skill, rather than chance, is the predominant factor� in determining a winner.
The idea is similar to the plot of the 1996 movie �The Spitfire Grill,� in which a small-town cafe in Maine is offered to the winner of an essay contest for $100.
�The essay is what makes it a contest of skill, not of chance,� Johnsen said. �That�s why it�s not a lottery
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 � Claudia Johnsen was watching Oprah Winfrey on television some time back when she came upon an idea for how to dispose of some valuable real estate she had accumulated in Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland.
� Buy Life Insurance
� MSNBC Hot List
� Yellow Pages
� Get A Loan
� expedia.com
� Shopping
A GUEST on the show who had been trying to sell an inn in New England said he finally received his asking price by essentially raffling it off. But it wasn�t technically a raffle � and thus did not run afoul of local gambling laws � because the deciding factor was not chance but an essay contest.
Johnsen tracked the man down and bought the contest rules and regulations for $750, then adapted them to create a similar competition for her own holdings.
Now the 79-year-old Alexandria resident is offering five properties � two condominiums in Alexandria, a waterfront tract in Stafford County, a vacation house near Hot Springs, Va., and one-third interest in an apartment complex in Temple Hills � to winners of an online essay contest. After paying $100 to enter, contestants must explain, in no more than 75 words, why they want to own one of the properties and submit the essay to the Web site USDreamProperties.com.
Multiple entries are allowed, but each requires the $100 entry fee.
� More national news coverage
�To me, this contest ... is a way to open the door to everyone� by offering valuable real estate to people who might otherwise not be able to afford it, Johnsen said. Moreover, she said, �I want to settle my estate before I die.�
She acknowledged that, contrary to a recent press release, she is not �giving away� the property. If Johnsen receives the maximum number of entries allowed by state law, she stands to reap about $24.8 million for property that has been appraised at $3.7 million, including jewelry that she is prepared to throw in as bonuses.
She said she plans to live on the proceeds and �hopefully leave something for my trust ... and something for charity.� She said the trust is for her four grandchildren, and the charity would benefit children in Virginia.
�TERRIFIC� OVERHEAD
Johnsen said she has no idea how much money she might make from the contest after taxes and expenses, which include advertising and payments of about $9,000 a month to DCpages.com, the District-based Internet company running the contest.
�You make a large profit, but let me tell you, the overhead for doing these things is terrific,� she said. �To me, this contest was an option for disposing of my property rather than going through real estate agents and selling it myself.�
Although the maximum number of entries is determined by law, �the minimum is up to me,� Johnsen said. If she decides that there are not enough entries for any of the properties, she can cancel that competition and refund the entry fees, less $20 each for processing, according to the rules.
Advertisement
For the most expensive property, a 124-acre tract along the Potomac River appraised at $1.69 million, the maximum number of entries is 118,300, which would yield $11.83 million. If that number of entries is reached, Johnsen said, she will throw in a nine-carat diamond ring worth $100,000 as a bonus.
The four other properties being offered are a one-third share in the Oxon Park Apartments in Temple Hills, worth $660,000; a two-story home on 1.8 acres near Hot Springs, appraised at $575,000; a townhouse condominium in the Watergate at Landmark of Old Town Alexandria, valued at $430,000; and a one-bedroom condominium in Alexandria�s Port Royal high-rise, worth $190,000.
Johnsen said an inheritance from her father, a wealthy real estate developer, allowed her to become �a long-term speculator for investment purposes� for more than 40 years.
The interest in the Temple Hills apartment, for example, was a wedding gift from her father in the late 1940s, according to its Web write-up.
�POSITIVE� ESSAYS
The essays can say anything, �as long as it�s positive,� Johnsen said. According to the rules, the �contents of the essay, not the writing skills, spelling or punctuation, are the most important.� Deadline for the contests is June 26, 2004, and winners are to be chosen by Nov. 8, 2004.
Students from Washington and Lee University will pare the list of entries for final judging by three anonymous Virginia lawyers, Johnsen said.
According to a 1996 opinion by James S. Gilmore III, then Virginia�s attorney general and later its governor, this type of contest �does not constitute illegal gambling� � as a raffle or lottery for private gain would � because �the element of skill, rather than chance, is the predominant factor� in determining a winner.
The idea is similar to the plot of the 1996 movie �The Spitfire Grill,� in which a small-town cafe in Maine is offered to the winner of an essay contest for $100.
�The essay is what makes it a contest of skill, not of chance,� Johnsen said. �That�s why it�s not a lottery
When will Bush administration admit mistakes?
No one has been willing to acknowledge our failure in post-war Iraq
E.J. DIONNE
Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON - Can we now please admit that the Bush administration's policies in Iraq are a terrible failure?
The terrorist truck bomb that blew up the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad also blew up the pretensions of an arrogant strategy that assumed the United States could do nation-building on the cheap. It was an approach that assumed we needed little support from traditional allies, only a limited number of American troops and relatively modest expenditures to rebuild a shattered country.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the administration's indifference to the truth or falsity of the various claims it made before the war is the fact that it seemed to believe its own propaganda. President Bush and Vice President Cheney really thought that if they wished it, it would come -- "it" in this case being not only a quick victory in the war but also a rapid rallying of Iraqis to the American standard afterward.
Last March on "Meet the Press," moderator Tim Russert asked Cheney: "If your analysis is not correct and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, bloody battle with significant American casualties?"
Cheney replied: "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators."
The vice president said he knew this because he and the president had met with "various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. ... The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
Note that for its reading of the situation inside Iraq, the administration relied on people who spent their lives outside Iraq. The administration believed the outsiders because the outsiders said what the administration wanted to hear -- and, perhaps, because the administration had no clue as to how people inside Iraq might react.
It's astonishing that Bush and his advisers never seemed to take seriously the obvious possibility: that many, perhaps most, Iraqis -- especially the Shiite Muslim majority so oppressed by Saddam Hussein -- could be perfectly happy to have the United States get rid of their dictator and then want U.S. troops to leave immediately.
And will anyone in the administration be held accountable for putting down Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff before the war? Shinseki told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in early March that "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be required to occupy a postwar Iraq.
Two days later, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz described Shinseki's estimate as "way off the mark." Cheney was also dismissive. In his "Meet the Press" appearance, he insisted that "to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement."
It's now clear that the courageous 139,000 American troops in Iraq are insufficient to guarantee security -- including their own. Shinseki was right. Will Wolfowitz and Cheney ever apologize to Shinseki?
And consider our president's statement on July 2 in response to a question about attackers targeting our troops. "Bring 'em on," our president declared. "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." Mr. President, they're bringing it on.
What's required? It's obvious we need more troops in Iraq. Since the administration downplayed the cost of the occupation before hostilities started, that may be hard to sell to the American people now. Since we don't want to bear the whole burden of this enterprise ourselves, we desperately need much more help from allies. We'll soon learn how much crow the administration is willing to eat to make that happen.
We need to spend a lot more money to put Iraqis to work, to fix Iraq's oil facilities and to repair its electric power system. Will the administration ever admit that their big government policies abroad are inconsistent with their tax cuts for the rich at home?
Now that we have invaded Iraq, we cannot afford to let the place go to pieces. The administration can hold fast to its arrogance. Or it can acknowledge its mistakes and chart a new course.
E.J.
Dionne
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E.J. Dionne Jr. is a Washington Post columnist. Write him c/o Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071, or by e-mail at postchat@aol.com.
No one has been willing to acknowledge our failure in post-war Iraq
E.J. DIONNE
Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON - Can we now please admit that the Bush administration's policies in Iraq are a terrible failure?
The terrorist truck bomb that blew up the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad also blew up the pretensions of an arrogant strategy that assumed the United States could do nation-building on the cheap. It was an approach that assumed we needed little support from traditional allies, only a limited number of American troops and relatively modest expenditures to rebuild a shattered country.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the administration's indifference to the truth or falsity of the various claims it made before the war is the fact that it seemed to believe its own propaganda. President Bush and Vice President Cheney really thought that if they wished it, it would come -- "it" in this case being not only a quick victory in the war but also a rapid rallying of Iraqis to the American standard afterward.
Last March on "Meet the Press," moderator Tim Russert asked Cheney: "If your analysis is not correct and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, bloody battle with significant American casualties?"
Cheney replied: "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators."
The vice president said he knew this because he and the president had met with "various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. ... The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
Note that for its reading of the situation inside Iraq, the administration relied on people who spent their lives outside Iraq. The administration believed the outsiders because the outsiders said what the administration wanted to hear -- and, perhaps, because the administration had no clue as to how people inside Iraq might react.
It's astonishing that Bush and his advisers never seemed to take seriously the obvious possibility: that many, perhaps most, Iraqis -- especially the Shiite Muslim majority so oppressed by Saddam Hussein -- could be perfectly happy to have the United States get rid of their dictator and then want U.S. troops to leave immediately.
And will anyone in the administration be held accountable for putting down Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army's chief of staff before the war? Shinseki told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in early March that "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be required to occupy a postwar Iraq.
Two days later, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz described Shinseki's estimate as "way off the mark." Cheney was also dismissive. In his "Meet the Press" appearance, he insisted that "to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement."
It's now clear that the courageous 139,000 American troops in Iraq are insufficient to guarantee security -- including their own. Shinseki was right. Will Wolfowitz and Cheney ever apologize to Shinseki?
And consider our president's statement on July 2 in response to a question about attackers targeting our troops. "Bring 'em on," our president declared. "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." Mr. President, they're bringing it on.
What's required? It's obvious we need more troops in Iraq. Since the administration downplayed the cost of the occupation before hostilities started, that may be hard to sell to the American people now. Since we don't want to bear the whole burden of this enterprise ourselves, we desperately need much more help from allies. We'll soon learn how much crow the administration is willing to eat to make that happen.
We need to spend a lot more money to put Iraqis to work, to fix Iraq's oil facilities and to repair its electric power system. Will the administration ever admit that their big government policies abroad are inconsistent with their tax cuts for the rich at home?
Now that we have invaded Iraq, we cannot afford to let the place go to pieces. The administration can hold fast to its arrogance. Or it can acknowledge its mistakes and chart a new course.
E.J.
Dionne
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E.J. Dionne Jr. is a Washington Post columnist. Write him c/o Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071, or by e-mail at postchat@aol.com.
Monday, August 25, 2003
Boy's death at church ruled a homicide
By REID J. EPSTEIN
repstein@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Aug. 25, 2003
The death of an 8-year-old autistic boy during a weekend prayer service has been ruled a homicide by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office.
Boy Dies
at Church
Undated family photo
Torrance Cantrell died during a prayer session Friday night.
Ray Hemphill, a minister at Faith Temple Church of Apostolic Faith, was arrested but has not been charged in the boy's death.
Recent Coverage
'Nothing wrong': Pastor says service was in accordance with Bible (8/24/03)
Minister arrested: Leaders were trying to heal boy, pastor says (8/23/03)
According to the medical examiner, Terrance Cottrell Jr. suffocated to death by "mechanical asphyxia due to external chest compression."
Milwaukee Police and the district attorney's office are investigating the boy's death Friday night at the Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith, a small storefront church at 8709 W. Fond du Lac Ave.
Ray Hemphill, the church pastor's brother, is being held on suspicion of physical abuse of a child, a felony. Milwaukee Police Capt. Nan Hegerty said Monday that she does not expect anyone else to be arrested in the case.
Two women - including Cottrell's mother, Patricia Cooper - held the boy down while Hemphill tried to remove the evil spirts from him, said Hemphill's brother, David Hemphill, the pastor of the church.
Cooper has not been able to be reached for comment.
David Hemphill has stood by the actions of his brother and the others trying ot help the boy.
"Didn't do nothing wrong," David Hemphill said Sunday. "We did what the Book of Matthew said, Chapter 12. All we did is ask God to deliver him."
David Hemphill said Sunday that the boy's hands had been covered with sheets to prevent him from further scratching himself. The participants did not use force, he said, demonstrating by putting his hand gently on a reporter's shoulder.
Hemphill said that he understands police must investigate the incident and that if his child had died in such a manner, he would hope for an investigation. But he believes no one will, or should, be punished for Torrance's death.
He also said the child's death would not change the way the church operates, saying: "How you going to change the Bible?"
By REID J. EPSTEIN
repstein@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Aug. 25, 2003
The death of an 8-year-old autistic boy during a weekend prayer service has been ruled a homicide by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office.
Boy Dies
at Church
Undated family photo
Torrance Cantrell died during a prayer session Friday night.
Ray Hemphill, a minister at Faith Temple Church of Apostolic Faith, was arrested but has not been charged in the boy's death.
Recent Coverage
'Nothing wrong': Pastor says service was in accordance with Bible (8/24/03)
Minister arrested: Leaders were trying to heal boy, pastor says (8/23/03)
According to the medical examiner, Terrance Cottrell Jr. suffocated to death by "mechanical asphyxia due to external chest compression."
Milwaukee Police and the district attorney's office are investigating the boy's death Friday night at the Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith, a small storefront church at 8709 W. Fond du Lac Ave.
Ray Hemphill, the church pastor's brother, is being held on suspicion of physical abuse of a child, a felony. Milwaukee Police Capt. Nan Hegerty said Monday that she does not expect anyone else to be arrested in the case.
Two women - including Cottrell's mother, Patricia Cooper - held the boy down while Hemphill tried to remove the evil spirts from him, said Hemphill's brother, David Hemphill, the pastor of the church.
Cooper has not been able to be reached for comment.
David Hemphill has stood by the actions of his brother and the others trying ot help the boy.
"Didn't do nothing wrong," David Hemphill said Sunday. "We did what the Book of Matthew said, Chapter 12. All we did is ask God to deliver him."
David Hemphill said Sunday that the boy's hands had been covered with sheets to prevent him from further scratching himself. The participants did not use force, he said, demonstrating by putting his hand gently on a reporter's shoulder.
Hemphill said that he understands police must investigate the incident and that if his child had died in such a manner, he would hope for an investigation. But he believes no one will, or should, be punished for Torrance's death.
He also said the child's death would not change the way the church operates, saying: "How you going to change the Bible?"
Sunday, August 24, 2003
God help America
US law insists on the separation of church and state. So why does religion now govern?
Gary Younge
Monday August 25, 2003
The Guardian
Montgomery, Alabama, is no stranger to stand-offs. The gold star embedded into the marble at the front of the state capitol marks the spot where Jefferson Davis stamped his foot and declared an independent Confederacy and where former governor George Wallace promised "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever". From that very point you can make out the bus stop where Rosa Parks took her seat and the church where Martin Luther King made his stand, launching the bus boycott that sparked a decade of civil rights protest.
Stand on the star today and you can witness the city's latest confrontation as the Alabama supreme court house plays host to prayer circles and television trucks in a showdown between the state's most senior judge and the country's highest court.
This particular dispute is cast in stone. Two-and-a-half tonnes of granite, displaying the 10 commandments, which was placed in the rotunda of the courthouse two years ago by Alabama's chief justice, Roy Moore. The US supreme court told him to remove the monument, which violates the separation of church and state. Moore refused, saying that Christianity forms the bedrock of the American constitution and his conscience.
Since the deadline passed at midnight on Wednesday, Christian activists have descended on the town from all over the country, keeping a 24-hour watch to make sure the monument is not moved and establishing phone trees to rally the faithful if it is. Many have T-shirts with slogans every bit as intolerant as the south's reputation. "Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder," says one. (It is difficult to imagine how many more people you could offend on one piece of summerwear.)
They appear as dotty as they do devout and determined. "What you're watching is that the socialist, communist elements are attempting to push out God from the public domain," Gene Chapman, a minister from Dallas, told the Montgomery Advertiser. Those subversive elements include the national rightwing Christian coalition and the seven southern, Republican judges.
On Thursday afternoon, Moore vowed his undying opposition to the removal of the commandments; by Friday he had been suspended and his lawyers announced he was prepared to relent. Yesterday, the monument was still there and the crowds of believers kept coming, determined to martyr themselves before a lost cause.
It would be easy to deride the defenders of the monument or to dismiss the whole charade as the latest illustration of the scale of degradation in America's political culture. However, Britons would do well to remove the mote in their own eye before resorting to ridicule. The only reason America can have these disputes is that it has a constitution that separates church and state (which we don't).
For, while the spectacle is certainly ridiculous, its symbolism is significant. The US is at one and the same time one of the most fiercely secular and aggressively religious countries in the western world. The nation's two most sacred texts are the constitution and the Bible. And when those who interpret them disagree, the consequent confusion resonates way beyond Montgomery.
This is a country where 11 states, including Alabama, refuse to give government money to students who major in theology because it would violate the constitution, and where nativity plays are not allowed in primary schools. It is also a country where, a Harris poll showed, 94% of adults believe in God, 86% believe in miracles, 89% believe in heaven, and 73% believe in the devil and hell.
These two competing tendencies produce some striking contradictions. The supreme court and both houses of Congress all invoke God's blessing before they start work. But children are not allowed to say the words "under God" when they pledge allegiance to the flag at the start of school.
So while there is a constitutional, albeit contested, barrier between church and state, there is almost no distinction between church and politics. Indeed, when it comes to elections, religion is the primary galvanising force and the church the central mobilising vehicle.
This is one of the few truths that transcends both race and class. White evangelicals and black Protestants are the two groups most likely to say that their religion shapes their votes at least occasionally, according to a survey by the non-partisan Pew research centre. Since these two constituencies form the cornerstone of both major parties, it would be impossible for either to win an election without them and inconceivable that they could do so without the support of the church.
But the influence of religion goes beyond domestic politics or social issues such as abortion and gay rights to crucial areas of foreign policy. Another Pew poll revealed that 48% of Americans think the US has had special protection from God for most of its history. Moreover, 44% believe that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people, while 36% think that "the state of Israel is a fulfilment of the biblical prophecy about the second coming of Jesus".
At this point America's internal contradictions become an issue on the world stage: the nation that poses as the guardian of global secularity is itself dominated by strong fundamentalist instincts. There are two problems with this. The first is that, as became clear in Montgomery last week, there is no arguing with faith. Fundamentalists deal with absolutes. Their eternal certainties make them formidable campaigners and awful negotiators - it is difficult to cut a bargain with divine truth.
The second is that America's religiosity is not something it shares with even its few western allies, let alone the many countries that oppose its current path. Yet another poll shows that among countries where people believe religion to be very important, America's views are closer to Pakistan's and Nigeria's than to France's or Germany's.
These differences go all the way to the top and explain much of the reason why the tone, style, language and content of America's foreign policy has been so out of kilter with the rest of the developed world, particularly since September 11. For these fundamentalist tendencies in US diplomacy have rarely been stronger in the White House than they are today. Since George Bush gave up Jack Daniels for Jesus Christ, he has counted Jesus as his favourite philosopher. The first thing he reads in the morning is not a briefing paper but a book of evangelical mini- sermons. When it came to casting the morality play for the war on terror he went straight to the Bible and came out with evil. "He reached right into the psalms for that word," said his former speech writer, David Frum.
Bush speaks in the name of the founding fathers but believes he is doing the work of the holy father. He cannot do both and condemn fundamentalism. But if he feels he must try, he might start with the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill."
g.younge@guardian.co.uk
Buy books by Gary Younge at Amazon.co.uk
No Place Like Home
US law insists on the separation of church and state. So why does religion now govern?
Gary Younge
Monday August 25, 2003
The Guardian
Montgomery, Alabama, is no stranger to stand-offs. The gold star embedded into the marble at the front of the state capitol marks the spot where Jefferson Davis stamped his foot and declared an independent Confederacy and where former governor George Wallace promised "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever". From that very point you can make out the bus stop where Rosa Parks took her seat and the church where Martin Luther King made his stand, launching the bus boycott that sparked a decade of civil rights protest.
Stand on the star today and you can witness the city's latest confrontation as the Alabama supreme court house plays host to prayer circles and television trucks in a showdown between the state's most senior judge and the country's highest court.
This particular dispute is cast in stone. Two-and-a-half tonnes of granite, displaying the 10 commandments, which was placed in the rotunda of the courthouse two years ago by Alabama's chief justice, Roy Moore. The US supreme court told him to remove the monument, which violates the separation of church and state. Moore refused, saying that Christianity forms the bedrock of the American constitution and his conscience.
Since the deadline passed at midnight on Wednesday, Christian activists have descended on the town from all over the country, keeping a 24-hour watch to make sure the monument is not moved and establishing phone trees to rally the faithful if it is. Many have T-shirts with slogans every bit as intolerant as the south's reputation. "Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder," says one. (It is difficult to imagine how many more people you could offend on one piece of summerwear.)
They appear as dotty as they do devout and determined. "What you're watching is that the socialist, communist elements are attempting to push out God from the public domain," Gene Chapman, a minister from Dallas, told the Montgomery Advertiser. Those subversive elements include the national rightwing Christian coalition and the seven southern, Republican judges.
On Thursday afternoon, Moore vowed his undying opposition to the removal of the commandments; by Friday he had been suspended and his lawyers announced he was prepared to relent. Yesterday, the monument was still there and the crowds of believers kept coming, determined to martyr themselves before a lost cause.
It would be easy to deride the defenders of the monument or to dismiss the whole charade as the latest illustration of the scale of degradation in America's political culture. However, Britons would do well to remove the mote in their own eye before resorting to ridicule. The only reason America can have these disputes is that it has a constitution that separates church and state (which we don't).
For, while the spectacle is certainly ridiculous, its symbolism is significant. The US is at one and the same time one of the most fiercely secular and aggressively religious countries in the western world. The nation's two most sacred texts are the constitution and the Bible. And when those who interpret them disagree, the consequent confusion resonates way beyond Montgomery.
This is a country where 11 states, including Alabama, refuse to give government money to students who major in theology because it would violate the constitution, and where nativity plays are not allowed in primary schools. It is also a country where, a Harris poll showed, 94% of adults believe in God, 86% believe in miracles, 89% believe in heaven, and 73% believe in the devil and hell.
These two competing tendencies produce some striking contradictions. The supreme court and both houses of Congress all invoke God's blessing before they start work. But children are not allowed to say the words "under God" when they pledge allegiance to the flag at the start of school.
So while there is a constitutional, albeit contested, barrier between church and state, there is almost no distinction between church and politics. Indeed, when it comes to elections, religion is the primary galvanising force and the church the central mobilising vehicle.
This is one of the few truths that transcends both race and class. White evangelicals and black Protestants are the two groups most likely to say that their religion shapes their votes at least occasionally, according to a survey by the non-partisan Pew research centre. Since these two constituencies form the cornerstone of both major parties, it would be impossible for either to win an election without them and inconceivable that they could do so without the support of the church.
But the influence of religion goes beyond domestic politics or social issues such as abortion and gay rights to crucial areas of foreign policy. Another Pew poll revealed that 48% of Americans think the US has had special protection from God for most of its history. Moreover, 44% believe that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people, while 36% think that "the state of Israel is a fulfilment of the biblical prophecy about the second coming of Jesus".
At this point America's internal contradictions become an issue on the world stage: the nation that poses as the guardian of global secularity is itself dominated by strong fundamentalist instincts. There are two problems with this. The first is that, as became clear in Montgomery last week, there is no arguing with faith. Fundamentalists deal with absolutes. Their eternal certainties make them formidable campaigners and awful negotiators - it is difficult to cut a bargain with divine truth.
The second is that America's religiosity is not something it shares with even its few western allies, let alone the many countries that oppose its current path. Yet another poll shows that among countries where people believe religion to be very important, America's views are closer to Pakistan's and Nigeria's than to France's or Germany's.
These differences go all the way to the top and explain much of the reason why the tone, style, language and content of America's foreign policy has been so out of kilter with the rest of the developed world, particularly since September 11. For these fundamentalist tendencies in US diplomacy have rarely been stronger in the White House than they are today. Since George Bush gave up Jack Daniels for Jesus Christ, he has counted Jesus as his favourite philosopher. The first thing he reads in the morning is not a briefing paper but a book of evangelical mini- sermons. When it came to casting the morality play for the war on terror he went straight to the Bible and came out with evil. "He reached right into the psalms for that word," said his former speech writer, David Frum.
Bush speaks in the name of the founding fathers but believes he is doing the work of the holy father. He cannot do both and condemn fundamentalism. But if he feels he must try, he might start with the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill."
g.younge@guardian.co.uk
Buy books by Gary Younge at Amazon.co.uk
No Place Like Home
Saturday, August 23, 2003
3712209Britain: the political issues underlying the Hutton Inquiry
By Julie Hyland
11 August 2003
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
The August 11 opening of Lord Hutton�s judicial inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr. David Kelly is the outcome of a profound conflict within the British ruling elite and its state apparatus. The conflict has taken the somewhat bizarre form of an open struggle between the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British Broadcasting Corporation, a state institution that has long functioned as the semi-official voice of Britain�s corporate and political establishment.
The fact that the government so directly attacked the broadcaster�s credibility after it reported allegations of inflated claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and thereby set off a vitriolic and public row, underscores the explosive character of the tensions that have built up within Britain�s ruling circles.
Kelly, whose death has been pronounced a suicide, was himself a significant figure within the state apparatus. The scientist�s body was discovered in woodland on July 18, just days after he was �outed� as the source of the BBC�s allegations that the Blair government had �sexed up� its September, 2002 dossier on Iraqi WMD to bolster the case for war.
A senior adviser to the Ministry of Defence on biological weapons, Kelly was a key player in Britain�s decade-long provocations against Iraq. As a former head of biological inspections for the United Nation�s weapons inspections mission in Iraq, UNSCOM, he had made some 36 trips to the country and played a leading role in interrogating Iraqi scientists. He had earned a reputation as �the most feared� inspector, and a �truly hard man.� (Cited in Plague Wars, T. Mangold and J. Goldberg, Pan Books).
Kelly was so trusted by the powers-that-be that he was charged with drafting the historical section of the September dossier and, despite having access to secret intelligence information, was able to freely interact with journalists. The gravity of the death of such a high-ranking individual in suspicious circumstances�in his final e-mail to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Kelly had warned of �dark actors playing games��is underlined by the list of witnesses that are to be called to give evidence before the Hutton Inquiry.
These include Blair (only the second serving prime minister in history to appear before a judicial inquiry), his director of communications, Alastair Campbell, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, leading officials from the Military of Defence and Britain�s intelligence services, civil servants, and numerous journalists and broadcasters, including Gavyn Davies, chairman of the BBC�s Board of Governors.
Despite Hutton�s insistence that the tribunal will be independent and publi,c it would be na�ve to believe that his inquiry will provide the public with a truthful and uncensored account of Kelly�s death and the events leading up to it.
Hutton has stipulated that his investigation will be narrowly confined to the immediate events leading up to the discovery of the scientist�s body, with the sole purpose of uncovering whether Kelly was the source of leaks to the BBC and others over the September dossier, and whether, having been exposed, he came under such pressure that he was driven to take his own life.
Witnesses will not be cross-examined during their first appearance before the tribunal. Only after Hutton has decided who should be questioned more closely will cross-examination take place, in the inquiry�s second stage, but only after those to be called back have been informed of the criticisms against them. Even then, the �extent of that examination and cross-examination will be confined to what I think is helpful to the Inquiry,� Hutton has declared.
The inquiry will not examine the issue of fundamental importance that lies at the heart of the crisis: namely, that the Blair government made false and deceptive claims about Iraqi WMD and thereby traduced democratic norms in order to join the US in an illegal, pre-emptive war. This assault on democratic rights is compounded by the fact that Blair took the country into war in defiance of the overwhelming opposition of the British people.
The narrow parameters announced by Hutton for the inquiry suggest that the investigation was convened in the first place as a means of containing the factional warfare that had erupted within the state apparatus, and preventing it from spiraling out of control. Hutton�s probe was announced within hours of the discovery of Kelly�s body. It is safe to assume that the decision to launch the inquiry under the auspices of a trusted official followed feverish, behind-the-scenes discussions at the highest levels of the ruling elite over the best means to cover up the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq.
Differences between the intelligence services and the Blair government over the decision to go to war with Iraq�compounded by the post-war failure to find WMD and growing resistance from the Iraqi people�became the flash point for a whole series of conflicts that had been developing over a protracted period.
In essence, these concern the basic strategy of British imperialism�above all, whether Britain should continue its role as America�s loyal but junior partner, or orient itself in a more determined manner towards Europe. These issues have long vexed the British ruling class and divided the establishment. That they should spill over in such a way as to openly split the state apparatus is bound up with profound social and political processes.
The unprecedented social polarisation that began under Thatcher�s Conservative government in the 1980s has continued and deepened under Blair. At one end of society a small elite has accumulated vast wealth, while at the other end, the broad mass of the population has seen its living standards stagnate or decline. Growing economic inequality at home has been accompanied by increasing militarism abroad, a process that has reached its apogee under Blair, who in seven years in office has involved Britain in one war after another, from the Balkans to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The traditional norms of democratic procedure have been vitiated. Alienated from the broad masses, the old bourgeois parties have atrophied into little more than adjuncts of the state bureaucracy. The Conservative Party is a moribund rump, whilst Labour�s disavowal of any connection with the social interests of workers has led to the erosion of its former working class base.
Not only is government increasingly unable to draw on popular support for its policies, it is more and more reluctant to put them to the test of public opinion. For Blair, the only opinion that counts is that of the powerful corporate elites and their media mouthpieces, who promoted him into power and have kept him there to do their bidding.
The old relations and structures that upheld the rule of British capital for decades are breaking down. In the insulated and rarified atmosphere of official politics, all manner of intrigues and subjective hatreds can thrive and erupt under the force of external pressures. Such a point has now been reached. Compounding the internationally destabilising impact of the Bush administration�s �war against terror� is a growing world economic crisis that is directly impacting on Britain and undermining Blair�s reputation as a safe pair of hands for the corporate elite.
The Hutton Inquiry is the latest in a series of judicial probes�including the Scarman Inquiry into inner-city riots in 1981 and the 1993 Scott Inquiry into the clandestine sale of arms to Iraq�which, under the pretext of getting to the truth, have served to conceal it.
This does not necessarily mean Hutton will simply whitewash the government and the prime minister. There will be a cover-up, but it remains to be seen if Blair will be its beneficiary. For the ruling elite there is always the danger that such a crisis can become a catalyst for setting off social contradictions and precipitating political upheavals. Under such conditions, sacrificing a government in order to preserve the overall interests of the state is not without precedent.
During the Watergate scandal in the US in the 1970s, Congress was compelled to hold public hearings in an attempt to contain damaging revelations about the Nixon administration�s abuse of power. In the end, a consensus emerged within US ruling circles that, in the general interests of capitalist rule, Nixon had to go.
The most important issues in the current crisis go beyond its immediate impact on Blair. The more profound issues concern the de facto political disenfranchisement of the broad mass of the people and the threat to the democratic rights of the working class that arises from the existing economic and political system as a whole.
See Also:
Blair's press conference and the crisis of political legitimacy
[5 Auugst 2003]
Britain: Government attack on BBC threatens press freedom
[1 August 2003]
Britain�s whistleblower scandal: Slanders against BBC�s Andrew Gilligan
[30 July 2003]
Questions Blair government must answer over death of whistleblower Dr Kelly
[25 July 2003]
Britain: Was whistleblower Kelly's death suicide?
[25 July 2003]
Britain: Whistleblower Kelly�s death shakes Blair government
[24 July 2003]
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Julie Hyland
11 August 2003
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The August 11 opening of Lord Hutton�s judicial inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr. David Kelly is the outcome of a profound conflict within the British ruling elite and its state apparatus. The conflict has taken the somewhat bizarre form of an open struggle between the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British Broadcasting Corporation, a state institution that has long functioned as the semi-official voice of Britain�s corporate and political establishment.
The fact that the government so directly attacked the broadcaster�s credibility after it reported allegations of inflated claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and thereby set off a vitriolic and public row, underscores the explosive character of the tensions that have built up within Britain�s ruling circles.
Kelly, whose death has been pronounced a suicide, was himself a significant figure within the state apparatus. The scientist�s body was discovered in woodland on July 18, just days after he was �outed� as the source of the BBC�s allegations that the Blair government had �sexed up� its September, 2002 dossier on Iraqi WMD to bolster the case for war.
A senior adviser to the Ministry of Defence on biological weapons, Kelly was a key player in Britain�s decade-long provocations against Iraq. As a former head of biological inspections for the United Nation�s weapons inspections mission in Iraq, UNSCOM, he had made some 36 trips to the country and played a leading role in interrogating Iraqi scientists. He had earned a reputation as �the most feared� inspector, and a �truly hard man.� (Cited in Plague Wars, T. Mangold and J. Goldberg, Pan Books).
Kelly was so trusted by the powers-that-be that he was charged with drafting the historical section of the September dossier and, despite having access to secret intelligence information, was able to freely interact with journalists. The gravity of the death of such a high-ranking individual in suspicious circumstances�in his final e-mail to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Kelly had warned of �dark actors playing games��is underlined by the list of witnesses that are to be called to give evidence before the Hutton Inquiry.
These include Blair (only the second serving prime minister in history to appear before a judicial inquiry), his director of communications, Alastair Campbell, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, leading officials from the Military of Defence and Britain�s intelligence services, civil servants, and numerous journalists and broadcasters, including Gavyn Davies, chairman of the BBC�s Board of Governors.
Despite Hutton�s insistence that the tribunal will be independent and publi,c it would be na�ve to believe that his inquiry will provide the public with a truthful and uncensored account of Kelly�s death and the events leading up to it.
Hutton has stipulated that his investigation will be narrowly confined to the immediate events leading up to the discovery of the scientist�s body, with the sole purpose of uncovering whether Kelly was the source of leaks to the BBC and others over the September dossier, and whether, having been exposed, he came under such pressure that he was driven to take his own life.
Witnesses will not be cross-examined during their first appearance before the tribunal. Only after Hutton has decided who should be questioned more closely will cross-examination take place, in the inquiry�s second stage, but only after those to be called back have been informed of the criticisms against them. Even then, the �extent of that examination and cross-examination will be confined to what I think is helpful to the Inquiry,� Hutton has declared.
The inquiry will not examine the issue of fundamental importance that lies at the heart of the crisis: namely, that the Blair government made false and deceptive claims about Iraqi WMD and thereby traduced democratic norms in order to join the US in an illegal, pre-emptive war. This assault on democratic rights is compounded by the fact that Blair took the country into war in defiance of the overwhelming opposition of the British people.
The narrow parameters announced by Hutton for the inquiry suggest that the investigation was convened in the first place as a means of containing the factional warfare that had erupted within the state apparatus, and preventing it from spiraling out of control. Hutton�s probe was announced within hours of the discovery of Kelly�s body. It is safe to assume that the decision to launch the inquiry under the auspices of a trusted official followed feverish, behind-the-scenes discussions at the highest levels of the ruling elite over the best means to cover up the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq.
Differences between the intelligence services and the Blair government over the decision to go to war with Iraq�compounded by the post-war failure to find WMD and growing resistance from the Iraqi people�became the flash point for a whole series of conflicts that had been developing over a protracted period.
In essence, these concern the basic strategy of British imperialism�above all, whether Britain should continue its role as America�s loyal but junior partner, or orient itself in a more determined manner towards Europe. These issues have long vexed the British ruling class and divided the establishment. That they should spill over in such a way as to openly split the state apparatus is bound up with profound social and political processes.
The unprecedented social polarisation that began under Thatcher�s Conservative government in the 1980s has continued and deepened under Blair. At one end of society a small elite has accumulated vast wealth, while at the other end, the broad mass of the population has seen its living standards stagnate or decline. Growing economic inequality at home has been accompanied by increasing militarism abroad, a process that has reached its apogee under Blair, who in seven years in office has involved Britain in one war after another, from the Balkans to Afghanistan and Iraq.
The traditional norms of democratic procedure have been vitiated. Alienated from the broad masses, the old bourgeois parties have atrophied into little more than adjuncts of the state bureaucracy. The Conservative Party is a moribund rump, whilst Labour�s disavowal of any connection with the social interests of workers has led to the erosion of its former working class base.
Not only is government increasingly unable to draw on popular support for its policies, it is more and more reluctant to put them to the test of public opinion. For Blair, the only opinion that counts is that of the powerful corporate elites and their media mouthpieces, who promoted him into power and have kept him there to do their bidding.
The old relations and structures that upheld the rule of British capital for decades are breaking down. In the insulated and rarified atmosphere of official politics, all manner of intrigues and subjective hatreds can thrive and erupt under the force of external pressures. Such a point has now been reached. Compounding the internationally destabilising impact of the Bush administration�s �war against terror� is a growing world economic crisis that is directly impacting on Britain and undermining Blair�s reputation as a safe pair of hands for the corporate elite.
The Hutton Inquiry is the latest in a series of judicial probes�including the Scarman Inquiry into inner-city riots in 1981 and the 1993 Scott Inquiry into the clandestine sale of arms to Iraq�which, under the pretext of getting to the truth, have served to conceal it.
This does not necessarily mean Hutton will simply whitewash the government and the prime minister. There will be a cover-up, but it remains to be seen if Blair will be its beneficiary. For the ruling elite there is always the danger that such a crisis can become a catalyst for setting off social contradictions and precipitating political upheavals. Under such conditions, sacrificing a government in order to preserve the overall interests of the state is not without precedent.
During the Watergate scandal in the US in the 1970s, Congress was compelled to hold public hearings in an attempt to contain damaging revelations about the Nixon administration�s abuse of power. In the end, a consensus emerged within US ruling circles that, in the general interests of capitalist rule, Nixon had to go.
The most important issues in the current crisis go beyond its immediate impact on Blair. The more profound issues concern the de facto political disenfranchisement of the broad mass of the people and the threat to the democratic rights of the working class that arises from the existing economic and political system as a whole.
See Also:
Blair's press conference and the crisis of political legitimacy
[5 Auugst 2003]
Britain: Government attack on BBC threatens press freedom
[1 August 2003]
Britain�s whistleblower scandal: Slanders against BBC�s Andrew Gilligan
[30 July 2003]
Questions Blair government must answer over death of whistleblower Dr Kelly
[25 July 2003]
Britain: Was whistleblower Kelly's death suicide?
[25 July 2003]
Britain: Whistleblower Kelly�s death shakes Blair government
[24 July 2003]
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Britain: Hutton Inquiry hears damning evidence against government
By Julie Hyland
16 August 2003
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
A surreal atmosphere has surrounded the first week of Lord Hutton�s judicial inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly, the government scientist found dead just days after he was �outed� as the source of reports that the government had manipulated intelligence material to justify its plans for war against Iraq.
The grotesque contradiction between the evidence submitted to the inquiry and the way in which it is being presented by the government and media--seizing upon the denunciation by BBC reporter Susan Watts of her employer and others--is aimed at burying the extremely damaging revelations that have emerged.
Opening testimonies from journalist Andrew Gilligan and other sources, including material submitted by Watts herself, has clearly shown that there was widespread unease within the intelligence services at the government�s fraudulent presentation of its material in the run up to war.
The rush by much of the media to denounce the BBC and vindicate Blair underscores the highly political character of the inquiry, which is itself the product of a raging conflict within Britain�s ruling elite and its state apparatus.
It confirms that ultimately the tribunal's findings will have far more to do with finding a temporary resolution to this conflict, than with the actual evidence presented. The question for the ruling elite is to what extent their efforts at damage control are going to include organising a cover-up for the Blair government itself.
Above all, the media�s distorted coverage of the inquiry is aimed at obscuring why such an investigation was made necessary in the first place: namely that the government was caught out in a series of monstrous lies in order to justify its pre-emptive, illegal attack on Iraq in defiance of widespread public opposition. And in its efforts to cover this over, it instituted a frenzied witch-hunt that was to lead to Kelly�s death in, as yet unaccounted for circumstances.
The evidence so far
The first days of evidence exploded government claims that Kelly was simply a �middle ranking official�, and even a �Walter Mitty� type fantasist, as claimed by Prime Minister Tony Blair�s press officer just one day before the scientist�s funeral.
Testimony from leading members of the Ministry of Defence and intelligence services showed that Kelly was internationally renowned as the UK�s foremost expert on Saddam Hussein�s biological and chemical weapons, and as such, was involved in regular meetings with MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service (DIS), the CIA as well as Britain�s Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Foreign Office.
Described as a �human archive� on Iraq�s biological weapons capabilities, Kelly�s experience dated back to the aftermath of the first Gulf war in 1991, when, under United Nations resolution 687, he became a chief weapons inspector.
�Remarkably successful� in his interrogations of Iraqi scientists as to the country�s weapons capabilities, Kelly was awarded the Cross of St Michael and St George for his services, which were deemed of �international significance�, the inquiry heard.
In the same year, 1996, Kelly became part of Operation TELEC, described by Richard Hatfield, Personnel Director MoD, as an umbrella name for �the entire work that the British MoD was doing in support of what ultimately became the invasion of Iraq.�
The tribunal was told Kelly had the �highest� security clearance and was valued for his ability in dealing with the media. An �accomplished media performer�, Kelly�s briefings had �led to no embarrassments for HMG [Her Majesty�s Government]�, one document said.
The inquiry heard that Kelly had first become involved with work on a dossier on Iraq�s weapons capabilities in February 2002, working closely with the Foreign Office as well as a number of other departments. According to various accounts, Kelly had contributed to the historical section of the dossier, detailing the background to Iraq�s weapons capabilities, a chapter on life under Saddam and a box on Iraq�s biological weapons programme. He also reviewed the final draft.
The dossier became central to the Blair government�s justification for joining the US in a pre-emptive attack on Iraq in defiance of international law. As the war preparations reached their final stages, the Blair government set about constructing a pretext for invasion, i.e. that Saddam Hussein represented an �immediate threat� to national security.
Evidence presented to the inquiry showed that the dossier was indeed �transformed� towards this end, as BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, using Kelly as his source, had first claimed on May 29.
Following Blair�s announcement on September 3, 2002 that his government would release a document detailing Iraq�s Weapons of Mass Destruction, the dossier was �hardened up�. Over the next weeks, material was incorporated into the dossier, including the claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons �within 45 minutes�.
At the tribunal Martin Howard, deputy chief of defence intelligence, admitted that senior defence and intelligence officials had protested at the inclusion of this claim, as well as several other assertions, in the dossier�s final draft.
Two officials objected in writing to the prominence given to the 45-minute claim in the prime minister�s foreword and the executive summary of the dossier, despite the �level of uncertainty� surrounding its accuracy. The allegation had first been made on August 30, by a single, uncorroborated source (an Iraqi general).
They also objected to the �strength of language� used in the dossier, referring specifically to the claim that intelligence �shows� Hussein attached great importance to possessing chemical and biological weapons, when they judged it should have said only that it �indicated� this.
A letter from one now retired DIS member complained, �As probably the most senior and experienced intelligence official working on WMD, I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessments for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier of 24 September 2002 that I was moved to write formally to Tony Cragg [Howard�s predecessor] recording and expressing my reservations�.
Another document showed that Kelly had also raised objections. A September 10 email from a member of the DIS who had consulted Kelly over an assertion that UN weapons inspectors had been unable to account for 20 tonnes of biological growth agents, wrote that Kelly had told him that, while the existing wording was not wrong, �lost [sic] of spin had been put on it�.
In his evidence, Julian Miller, Chief of the Assessment Staff in the Cabinet Office, said that Kelly was also likely to have been a contributor to a September 19 letter from DIS officers that had raised several issues over the revised draft.
Despite this significant level of dissent, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) cleared the dossier for publication just five days later, on September 24. The �45-minute claim� became the casus belli for an illegal war.
The journalist�s testimony
In his evidence, MoD Personnel Director Hatfield insisted that, whilst Kelly had been cleared to brief the press on �technical issues�, he was not authorised to comment on �politically controversial issues� and certainly not the September dossier. For him to do so would constitute a �basic breach of confidence as to how he is supposed to behave towards his employer and the government, since he works for the government�, Hatfield said.
Given that the government was misrepresenting technical issues to suit its political ends, however, Kelly clearly felt justified in speaking out. And speak he did.
At the tribunal, Gilligan defended his May 29 report on Radio 4�s Today programme that a senior source had told him that the September dossier had been �sexed up� on the orders of Blair�s Director of Communications, Alastair Campbell. The allegations had led to the convening of two parliamentary inquiries, by the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) and the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), both of which whitewashed the government.
Reading from a transcript of notes he had made on his personal organiser during his May 22 meeting with Kelly, Gilligan said the scientist told him that the dossier was �transformed [a] week before publication to make it sexier. The classic was the 45 minut[e]s. Most things in dossier were double source but that was single source. One source said it took 45 minutes to set up a missile assembly, that was misinterpreted. Most people in intelligence weren�t happy with it because it didn�t reflect the considered view they were putting forward.�
The dossier was transformed to make it more exciting, the scientist had said. �To make it sexier?� Gilligan asked. �Yes to make it sexier�, Kelly replied. Asked how this transformation had occurred, Kelly replied �Campbell�.
(Evidence given earlier in the inquiry had confirmed that the 45-minute claim had first appeared in an assessment discussed by the JIC at its meeting on September 9. Campbell had chaired that meeting, a practise condemned by the FAC in its findings.)
The information was �unreliable�, Kelly had said, �and it was in the dossier against our wishes�. Iraq�s weapons programme was �small�, the scientist told him. �The sanctions were effective. They did limit the programme. No usable weapons�, Kelly had continued. �He [Saddam] could not have killed very many people even if everything had gone right for him. Not really mass destruction in true meaning of the word�.
In the face of aggressive and hostile questioning from James Dingemans QC for the inquiry, Gilligan admitted that his use of language in one report "wasn't perfect". In his first, unscripted report for BBC�s Today programme, broadcast at 6 am on May 29, he had suggested that the government knew the 45-minute claim was wrong but had included it in the dossier regardless. But given the standing of his source, and the fact that a subsequent dossier released by the government, on February 2003, had been proved to be heavily plagiarised from a PhD thesis, Gilligan defended his decision to run his story.
Gilligan�s account of his discussions with Kelly was corroborated by evidence presented by Susan Watts, despite her efforts during the tribunal to disassociate herself from her colleague.
Watts also ran a story on differences within the intelligence services over the dossier, using Kelly as her source, for BBC�s Newsnight. At the inquiry, however, she claimed there were �significant differences� between her report and Gilligan�s. She insisted that Kelly had not said Campbell was responsible for �transforming� the dossier, and launched a bitter attack on the BBC, accusing it of trying to �mould� her evidence to suit its defence to the inquiry.
Her remarks were broadly trailed in the media, with many claiming that Watts had vindicated the government. But her notes of discussions with Kelly on three occasions during May, including a tape recording of her final conversation with the scientist, flatly contradicted her statement to the inquiry.
Notes of one conversation on May 7 regarding the 45-minute claim revealed that Kelly had said, �It was a mistake to put in. Alastair Campbell seeing something in there. Single source but not corroborated. Sounded good." Watts said she took the remarks as a "gossipy aside" and had not included them in her report. Only when it was confirmed later that the 45-minute claim was single sourced did she realise the significance of his remarks. "In hindsight, he [Kelly] was passing that information to me three weeks before it became public," she said, and she had �missed a trick�.
Watt�s recording of her telephone conversation with Kelly on May 30, which was played to the court, was even more controversial than Gilligan�s original report.
The court heard Kelly saying of the 45-minute claim and the government�s attitude to it, �I knew there was concern about the statement ... it just got out of all proportion ... they were desperate for information, they were pushing hard for information which could be released--that was one that popped up and was seized on.
"It was unfortunate that it was, which is why there is the argument between the intelligence services and cabinet office/number ten, because things were picked up on, and once they've picked up on it you can't pull it back, that's the problem."
He complained that future inspections in Iraq had been made difficult �because of the animosity between the UN and the US, both as institutions, and between people who are involved. There's tremendous, in Unscom possibly Unmovic--there's tremendous anti-US feeling�.
�There were lots of people� saying the 45-minute claim should not be put in, Kelly said. The issue was not Iraq�s current capabilities but what it may acquire in the future. That was not made the issue in the dossier, however, �because that takes away the case for war�.
Asked if he believed Campbell was responsible, the scientist replied that he could not say that. �All I can say is the Number 10 press office. I've never met Alastair Campbell so I can't (inaudible). But I think Alastair Campbell is synonymous with that press office because he's responsible for it.�
In his evidence, Gavin Hewitt, BBC News special correspondent, said he had also spoken to Kelly on May 29. Reading from his notes of their conversation, he said the scientist had told him that that "spin did come into play" in the drawing up of the dossier, and that the final week before its publication had been "very frenetic" and that the dossier had changed substantially.
Government hounded Kelly
On Thursday August 15, the inquiry heard damning evidence of how the government had intervened directly to �out� the scientist and then hound him.
Dr Bryan Wells, Kelly�s line manager at the MoD, revealed that Kelly was already under investigation as being the possible source of other leaks on Iraq, including a report in the Observer on June 15. A separate police inquiry was also underway into whether the scientist was responsible for a report by Gilligan in February, undermining government claims of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, that had been based on a top secret document.
As the two parliamentary inquiries by the FAC and ISC got underway, the pressure built. On July 1, Kelly admitted to contacts with Gilligan in a letter to Wells, but insisted he could not be the main source for the Today report. In it Kelly stressed he was �sympathetic� to the war with Iraq and had �never attempted to undermine government policy in any way�.
At a July 4 meeting between the scientist, Wells and Hatfield, Kelly was told no further action would be taken but that any further breaches would result in disciplinary action.
But as soon as Kelly�s identity became known, his fate was to be determined at the highest echelons of the state.
Evidence to the tribunal showed that Blair intervened to call for Kelly to be questioned again. A memo from the permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, Sir David Omand, showed that the prime minister had insisted that "before we decide on what next step should be taken, it would be sensible to try and go into a bit more detail into the differences between what Dr Kelly said and what Mr Gilligan had claimed."
Kelly was recalled for a further meeting on July 7. That day John Scarlett, JIC chair, sent a memo to Sir David Omand stating, "Kelly needs a proper, security-style interview in which all these inconsistencies are thrashed out." (It should be noted that an email submitted by the BBC to the inquiry revealed that Scarlett himself had doubts over the September dossier. According to a briefing note by Nik Gowing, BBC World, who met with Scarlett during a conference in January, the JIC chair �was clearly troubled about the issue of credibility of intelligence relating to Iraq�).
Also on July 7, Kelly was told his planned trip to Iraq would be postponed.
On July 8 a MoD press statement was released saying that an official had come forward to admit meeting with Gilligan. In the next days, the government �outed� the scientist�s name. In an unprecedented decision it was decided that Kelly would have to appear publicly before the FAC, which was televised, as well before the ISC, which meets in private.
According to a July 10 memo revealed to the inquiry, MoD permanent secretary Kevin Tebbit had objected to Kelly�s appearance before the FAC, telling Defence Minister Geoff Hoon to have �some regard for the man himself. The man came forward voluntarily, is not used to being thrust into the public eye, and is not on trial.� But Hoon overruled the objection, citing �presentational issues� and the need to undermine Gilligan�s claims before the FAC.
Kelly was summoned to appear before both committees on July 15, and attended a coaching session at the MoD on his testimony beforehand, which suggested he should steer clear of presenting his personal views on the dossier.
Just before his appearance at the FAC, Kelly was handed another letter which concluded to the effect, "that if he was holding back on any contact (with Mr Gilligan), he might be in greater trouble", the inquiry heard.
A confidential memo from the MoD revealed �Kelly is apparently feeling the pressure and does not appear to be handling it well.� On July 16 the scientist gave evidence to the ISC. Later he was informed that he would be contacted on July 18 to provide further details of his discussions with journalists. On July 17 he told his wife he was going for a walk. His body was found the next day.
See Also:
Britain: the political issues underlying the Hutton Inquiry
[11 August 2003]
Blair�s press conference and the crisis of political legitimacy
[5 August 2003]
Britain�s whistleblower scandal: Slanders against BBC�s Andrew Gilligan
[30 July 2003]
By Julie Hyland
16 August 2003
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
A surreal atmosphere has surrounded the first week of Lord Hutton�s judicial inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly, the government scientist found dead just days after he was �outed� as the source of reports that the government had manipulated intelligence material to justify its plans for war against Iraq.
The grotesque contradiction between the evidence submitted to the inquiry and the way in which it is being presented by the government and media--seizing upon the denunciation by BBC reporter Susan Watts of her employer and others--is aimed at burying the extremely damaging revelations that have emerged.
Opening testimonies from journalist Andrew Gilligan and other sources, including material submitted by Watts herself, has clearly shown that there was widespread unease within the intelligence services at the government�s fraudulent presentation of its material in the run up to war.
The rush by much of the media to denounce the BBC and vindicate Blair underscores the highly political character of the inquiry, which is itself the product of a raging conflict within Britain�s ruling elite and its state apparatus.
It confirms that ultimately the tribunal's findings will have far more to do with finding a temporary resolution to this conflict, than with the actual evidence presented. The question for the ruling elite is to what extent their efforts at damage control are going to include organising a cover-up for the Blair government itself.
Above all, the media�s distorted coverage of the inquiry is aimed at obscuring why such an investigation was made necessary in the first place: namely that the government was caught out in a series of monstrous lies in order to justify its pre-emptive, illegal attack on Iraq in defiance of widespread public opposition. And in its efforts to cover this over, it instituted a frenzied witch-hunt that was to lead to Kelly�s death in, as yet unaccounted for circumstances.
The evidence so far
The first days of evidence exploded government claims that Kelly was simply a �middle ranking official�, and even a �Walter Mitty� type fantasist, as claimed by Prime Minister Tony Blair�s press officer just one day before the scientist�s funeral.
Testimony from leading members of the Ministry of Defence and intelligence services showed that Kelly was internationally renowned as the UK�s foremost expert on Saddam Hussein�s biological and chemical weapons, and as such, was involved in regular meetings with MI6, the Defence Intelligence Service (DIS), the CIA as well as Britain�s Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Foreign Office.
Described as a �human archive� on Iraq�s biological weapons capabilities, Kelly�s experience dated back to the aftermath of the first Gulf war in 1991, when, under United Nations resolution 687, he became a chief weapons inspector.
�Remarkably successful� in his interrogations of Iraqi scientists as to the country�s weapons capabilities, Kelly was awarded the Cross of St Michael and St George for his services, which were deemed of �international significance�, the inquiry heard.
In the same year, 1996, Kelly became part of Operation TELEC, described by Richard Hatfield, Personnel Director MoD, as an umbrella name for �the entire work that the British MoD was doing in support of what ultimately became the invasion of Iraq.�
The tribunal was told Kelly had the �highest� security clearance and was valued for his ability in dealing with the media. An �accomplished media performer�, Kelly�s briefings had �led to no embarrassments for HMG [Her Majesty�s Government]�, one document said.
The inquiry heard that Kelly had first become involved with work on a dossier on Iraq�s weapons capabilities in February 2002, working closely with the Foreign Office as well as a number of other departments. According to various accounts, Kelly had contributed to the historical section of the dossier, detailing the background to Iraq�s weapons capabilities, a chapter on life under Saddam and a box on Iraq�s biological weapons programme. He also reviewed the final draft.
The dossier became central to the Blair government�s justification for joining the US in a pre-emptive attack on Iraq in defiance of international law. As the war preparations reached their final stages, the Blair government set about constructing a pretext for invasion, i.e. that Saddam Hussein represented an �immediate threat� to national security.
Evidence presented to the inquiry showed that the dossier was indeed �transformed� towards this end, as BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan, using Kelly as his source, had first claimed on May 29.
Following Blair�s announcement on September 3, 2002 that his government would release a document detailing Iraq�s Weapons of Mass Destruction, the dossier was �hardened up�. Over the next weeks, material was incorporated into the dossier, including the claim that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons �within 45 minutes�.
At the tribunal Martin Howard, deputy chief of defence intelligence, admitted that senior defence and intelligence officials had protested at the inclusion of this claim, as well as several other assertions, in the dossier�s final draft.
Two officials objected in writing to the prominence given to the 45-minute claim in the prime minister�s foreword and the executive summary of the dossier, despite the �level of uncertainty� surrounding its accuracy. The allegation had first been made on August 30, by a single, uncorroborated source (an Iraqi general).
They also objected to the �strength of language� used in the dossier, referring specifically to the claim that intelligence �shows� Hussein attached great importance to possessing chemical and biological weapons, when they judged it should have said only that it �indicated� this.
A letter from one now retired DIS member complained, �As probably the most senior and experienced intelligence official working on WMD, I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessments for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier of 24 September 2002 that I was moved to write formally to Tony Cragg [Howard�s predecessor] recording and expressing my reservations�.
Another document showed that Kelly had also raised objections. A September 10 email from a member of the DIS who had consulted Kelly over an assertion that UN weapons inspectors had been unable to account for 20 tonnes of biological growth agents, wrote that Kelly had told him that, while the existing wording was not wrong, �lost [sic] of spin had been put on it�.
In his evidence, Julian Miller, Chief of the Assessment Staff in the Cabinet Office, said that Kelly was also likely to have been a contributor to a September 19 letter from DIS officers that had raised several issues over the revised draft.
Despite this significant level of dissent, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) cleared the dossier for publication just five days later, on September 24. The �45-minute claim� became the casus belli for an illegal war.
The journalist�s testimony
In his evidence, MoD Personnel Director Hatfield insisted that, whilst Kelly had been cleared to brief the press on �technical issues�, he was not authorised to comment on �politically controversial issues� and certainly not the September dossier. For him to do so would constitute a �basic breach of confidence as to how he is supposed to behave towards his employer and the government, since he works for the government�, Hatfield said.
Given that the government was misrepresenting technical issues to suit its political ends, however, Kelly clearly felt justified in speaking out. And speak he did.
At the tribunal, Gilligan defended his May 29 report on Radio 4�s Today programme that a senior source had told him that the September dossier had been �sexed up� on the orders of Blair�s Director of Communications, Alastair Campbell. The allegations had led to the convening of two parliamentary inquiries, by the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) and the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), both of which whitewashed the government.
Reading from a transcript of notes he had made on his personal organiser during his May 22 meeting with Kelly, Gilligan said the scientist told him that the dossier was �transformed [a] week before publication to make it sexier. The classic was the 45 minut[e]s. Most things in dossier were double source but that was single source. One source said it took 45 minutes to set up a missile assembly, that was misinterpreted. Most people in intelligence weren�t happy with it because it didn�t reflect the considered view they were putting forward.�
The dossier was transformed to make it more exciting, the scientist had said. �To make it sexier?� Gilligan asked. �Yes to make it sexier�, Kelly replied. Asked how this transformation had occurred, Kelly replied �Campbell�.
(Evidence given earlier in the inquiry had confirmed that the 45-minute claim had first appeared in an assessment discussed by the JIC at its meeting on September 9. Campbell had chaired that meeting, a practise condemned by the FAC in its findings.)
The information was �unreliable�, Kelly had said, �and it was in the dossier against our wishes�. Iraq�s weapons programme was �small�, the scientist told him. �The sanctions were effective. They did limit the programme. No usable weapons�, Kelly had continued. �He [Saddam] could not have killed very many people even if everything had gone right for him. Not really mass destruction in true meaning of the word�.
In the face of aggressive and hostile questioning from James Dingemans QC for the inquiry, Gilligan admitted that his use of language in one report "wasn't perfect". In his first, unscripted report for BBC�s Today programme, broadcast at 6 am on May 29, he had suggested that the government knew the 45-minute claim was wrong but had included it in the dossier regardless. But given the standing of his source, and the fact that a subsequent dossier released by the government, on February 2003, had been proved to be heavily plagiarised from a PhD thesis, Gilligan defended his decision to run his story.
Gilligan�s account of his discussions with Kelly was corroborated by evidence presented by Susan Watts, despite her efforts during the tribunal to disassociate herself from her colleague.
Watts also ran a story on differences within the intelligence services over the dossier, using Kelly as her source, for BBC�s Newsnight. At the inquiry, however, she claimed there were �significant differences� between her report and Gilligan�s. She insisted that Kelly had not said Campbell was responsible for �transforming� the dossier, and launched a bitter attack on the BBC, accusing it of trying to �mould� her evidence to suit its defence to the inquiry.
Her remarks were broadly trailed in the media, with many claiming that Watts had vindicated the government. But her notes of discussions with Kelly on three occasions during May, including a tape recording of her final conversation with the scientist, flatly contradicted her statement to the inquiry.
Notes of one conversation on May 7 regarding the 45-minute claim revealed that Kelly had said, �It was a mistake to put in. Alastair Campbell seeing something in there. Single source but not corroborated. Sounded good." Watts said she took the remarks as a "gossipy aside" and had not included them in her report. Only when it was confirmed later that the 45-minute claim was single sourced did she realise the significance of his remarks. "In hindsight, he [Kelly] was passing that information to me three weeks before it became public," she said, and she had �missed a trick�.
Watt�s recording of her telephone conversation with Kelly on May 30, which was played to the court, was even more controversial than Gilligan�s original report.
The court heard Kelly saying of the 45-minute claim and the government�s attitude to it, �I knew there was concern about the statement ... it just got out of all proportion ... they were desperate for information, they were pushing hard for information which could be released--that was one that popped up and was seized on.
"It was unfortunate that it was, which is why there is the argument between the intelligence services and cabinet office/number ten, because things were picked up on, and once they've picked up on it you can't pull it back, that's the problem."
He complained that future inspections in Iraq had been made difficult �because of the animosity between the UN and the US, both as institutions, and between people who are involved. There's tremendous, in Unscom possibly Unmovic--there's tremendous anti-US feeling�.
�There were lots of people� saying the 45-minute claim should not be put in, Kelly said. The issue was not Iraq�s current capabilities but what it may acquire in the future. That was not made the issue in the dossier, however, �because that takes away the case for war�.
Asked if he believed Campbell was responsible, the scientist replied that he could not say that. �All I can say is the Number 10 press office. I've never met Alastair Campbell so I can't (inaudible). But I think Alastair Campbell is synonymous with that press office because he's responsible for it.�
In his evidence, Gavin Hewitt, BBC News special correspondent, said he had also spoken to Kelly on May 29. Reading from his notes of their conversation, he said the scientist had told him that that "spin did come into play" in the drawing up of the dossier, and that the final week before its publication had been "very frenetic" and that the dossier had changed substantially.
Government hounded Kelly
On Thursday August 15, the inquiry heard damning evidence of how the government had intervened directly to �out� the scientist and then hound him.
Dr Bryan Wells, Kelly�s line manager at the MoD, revealed that Kelly was already under investigation as being the possible source of other leaks on Iraq, including a report in the Observer on June 15. A separate police inquiry was also underway into whether the scientist was responsible for a report by Gilligan in February, undermining government claims of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, that had been based on a top secret document.
As the two parliamentary inquiries by the FAC and ISC got underway, the pressure built. On July 1, Kelly admitted to contacts with Gilligan in a letter to Wells, but insisted he could not be the main source for the Today report. In it Kelly stressed he was �sympathetic� to the war with Iraq and had �never attempted to undermine government policy in any way�.
At a July 4 meeting between the scientist, Wells and Hatfield, Kelly was told no further action would be taken but that any further breaches would result in disciplinary action.
But as soon as Kelly�s identity became known, his fate was to be determined at the highest echelons of the state.
Evidence to the tribunal showed that Blair intervened to call for Kelly to be questioned again. A memo from the permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office, Sir David Omand, showed that the prime minister had insisted that "before we decide on what next step should be taken, it would be sensible to try and go into a bit more detail into the differences between what Dr Kelly said and what Mr Gilligan had claimed."
Kelly was recalled for a further meeting on July 7. That day John Scarlett, JIC chair, sent a memo to Sir David Omand stating, "Kelly needs a proper, security-style interview in which all these inconsistencies are thrashed out." (It should be noted that an email submitted by the BBC to the inquiry revealed that Scarlett himself had doubts over the September dossier. According to a briefing note by Nik Gowing, BBC World, who met with Scarlett during a conference in January, the JIC chair �was clearly troubled about the issue of credibility of intelligence relating to Iraq�).
Also on July 7, Kelly was told his planned trip to Iraq would be postponed.
On July 8 a MoD press statement was released saying that an official had come forward to admit meeting with Gilligan. In the next days, the government �outed� the scientist�s name. In an unprecedented decision it was decided that Kelly would have to appear publicly before the FAC, which was televised, as well before the ISC, which meets in private.
According to a July 10 memo revealed to the inquiry, MoD permanent secretary Kevin Tebbit had objected to Kelly�s appearance before the FAC, telling Defence Minister Geoff Hoon to have �some regard for the man himself. The man came forward voluntarily, is not used to being thrust into the public eye, and is not on trial.� But Hoon overruled the objection, citing �presentational issues� and the need to undermine Gilligan�s claims before the FAC.
Kelly was summoned to appear before both committees on July 15, and attended a coaching session at the MoD on his testimony beforehand, which suggested he should steer clear of presenting his personal views on the dossier.
Just before his appearance at the FAC, Kelly was handed another letter which concluded to the effect, "that if he was holding back on any contact (with Mr Gilligan), he might be in greater trouble", the inquiry heard.
A confidential memo from the MoD revealed �Kelly is apparently feeling the pressure and does not appear to be handling it well.� On July 16 the scientist gave evidence to the ISC. Later he was informed that he would be contacted on July 18 to provide further details of his discussions with journalists. On July 17 he told his wife he was going for a walk. His body was found the next day.
See Also:
Britain: the political issues underlying the Hutton Inquiry
[11 August 2003]
Blair�s press conference and the crisis of political legitimacy
[5 August 2003]
Britain�s whistleblower scandal: Slanders against BBC�s Andrew Gilligan
[30 July 2003]
The death of Dr. Kelly
Britain: Inquiry exposes lies on Iraq war
By Chris Marsden and Julie Hyland
23 August 2003
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
At one point during his questioning by James Dingemans QC, the chief counsel in the judicial inquiry by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of whistleblower Dr. David Kelly, Alastair Campbell was asked to explain a phrase used in his personal diary.
Campbell, Prime Minister Tony Blair�s director of communications, made a show of reluctance due to his supposed concern that he would inadvertently misrepresent Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
He told Dingemans, �The reason I did not use it in answer to you now is I think it does risk being unfair to Mr. Hoon. He actually said his initial instinct was, as I say, to be severe in this regard but there was a case for trying get some kind of plea bargain. That is what I recorded.�
Dingemans asked, �A plea bargain with?� Campbell replied, �In relation to the person who had come forward,� a reference to Kelly who had admitted that he was the probable source of BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan�s May report claiming the government had �sexed up� intelligence material to justify its pre-emptive war on Iraq.
Two things of importance are revealed by Campbell�s response. Firstly, he protesteth too much. For weeks, government efforts to shield itself from criticisms that it had misused intelligent material to justify its illegal war against Iraq had focussed on attacking the BBC for reporting the allegations. That strategy went disastrously wrong with the discovery of Kelly�s body in woodland on July 18, necessitating the convening of the inquiry under Lord Hutton.
Even within the narrow remit of the inquiry itself, whose terms were laid down by Prime Minister Tony Blair and limited to investigating the circumstances surrounding Kelly�s apparent suicide, a mass of highly damaging material has emerged.
Campbell�s naming of Hoon is in line with the latest attempts by the government to mount a damage-limitation exercise, which focuses on efforts to shield Campbell and ultimately Blair from direct criticism by apportioning blame to Hoon, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) for both the production of the September 2002 dossier on Iraq and the later outing of Kelly as Gilligan�s source.
In both cases, however, the government has suffered badly over the last weeks of the inquiry.
The second week has been dominated by the testimony of a number of key Blair personnel, including Campbell, Jonathan Powell and Sir David Manning, both from the prime minister�s office, and Sir Kevin Tebbit and Pam Teare from the MoD.
Though efforts were made by all concerned to exonerate the government, all were equally anxious to ensure they individually did not carry the can. Therefore, it became impossible to present a common picture of events in order to shield Blair.
Testimony, documents given over to the inquiry and leaks to the press have made clear that Blair was intimately involved at every stage in the drafting of intelligence dossiers, particularly through the person of Campbell, and that he was personally involved in directing the policy of outing Kelly and forcing him to testify before the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) investigating the veracity of the allegations reported by the BBC.
Blair�s and Campbell�s defence is essentially to claim that they were acting on the advice of the civil service and Hoon himself, who bore immediate responsibility for this area of policy.
Under the limited terms of the inquiry, greatest emphasis has been placed upon the circumstances leading up to Kelly�s death. The picture that has emerged shows that the government was intent on rebutting the BBC�s report for a number of reasons and that Kelly�s testimony before the FAC was considered vital in this regard.
Kelly and Gilligan had pointed up an open rift between the government and substantial sections of the security services over the advisability of going to war against Iraq and the use of unsubstantiated claims to justify this.
Not only was such a schism embarrassing in itself, but also it focussed attention on the campaign of lies and misinformation employed by the government to steamroller overwhelming popular opposition to the war and defy all legal norms in launching unprovoked military aggression against a largely defenceless country.
The BBC became a target for the government not because of any anti-war agenda on its part, but because a narrow focus on whether or not Campbell himself had been responsible for sexing up the dossier by including the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within 45 minutes gave the government room for denial in a way that it could not deny the broader charge that it had lied to parliament and the British public.
This was perfectly illustrated by Campbell�s own testimony. At one point, he explained why he and Blair agreed to his testifying before the FAC inquiry and the strategy behind this. �I accepted some of the criticisms that were being made in relation to the February briefing paper [the February 2003 dossier that was found to have been plagiarised from a US Ph.D. thesis], and forcefully rebutted the allegations made on the WMD dossier of September... My approach was going to be to acknowledge the mistakes that were made in relation to the briefing paper, to forcefully defend the government and myself on the September dossier and to make public the efforts that we had been making trying to get redress from the BBC and to demand an apology.�
He was then asked, �And I think you conclude your entry on 25th June with a comment about the BBC. What is the comment and what do you mean by it?�
He replied, �What I said is that I felt that the hearing had gone pretty well, I found it gruelling, I was exhausted but I felt a lot better and I had opened a flank on the BBC.�
It was for this reason that Kelly�s testimony at the FAC was considered essential. He had to speak and deny that he had told Gilligan that the dossier had been sexed-up by Campbell. Kelly was therefore named and put before the inquiry, where he claimed that he did not recollect mentioning Campbell�s name to Gilligan and did not believe he was the main source of his report.
We now know that Kelly was lying and that he had made almost identical statements to another BBC reporter, Susan Watts. He could have done this in his own defence, of course, but he probably did so as part of a deal with the government or as a result of being coerced. This may be a reason why Campbell was genuinely concerned about using his diary statements on Hoon. Later, he was asked, �Why do you say that [the entry on Hoon] is likely to be misinterpreted or unfair?� He replied, �Because I think it carries a suggestion that Mr. Hoon was saying to me: I think we can do some kind of deal with this guy, and that is not what he was saying.�
Sometimes, however, appearances are not deceiving. That a deal was done with Kelly is likely. And Campbell uses some formulations suggesting a degree of cooperation with him. At several points, he explained that Kelly�s name was not released immediately because Kelly had made clear he did not want to be in �the first wave of publicity��referring to the efforts to discredit Gilligan and the BBC before the FAC.
Kelly�s death is important, but with regard to the inquiry�s focus it has a negative political role to play in elevating the minutiae of Kelly�s outing and its tragic consequences above the more substantial question of the lies told by the government and its trampling on the democratic process.
It is this fundamental issue that the inquiry is aimed at obscuring. But despite its proscribed limits, there has been a series of damaging revelations relating to the distortion of intelligence material.
Any objective reading of the evidence given on this count proves that the government was intent on shaping intelligence material to suit its war aims. In testimony from Powell, Campbell and others, it emerged that the prime minister�s office and his top officials were all involved in a campaign to secure from the intelligence services the type of material they felt necessary to justify recourse to war.
Campbell�s questioning by Dingemans was informed by references to a series of e-mails sent by himself and others close to the government. Campbell wrote to Powell on September 5 that the final dossier�s structure should be �as TB�s [Tony Blair�s] discussion.�
On September 11, Foreign Office press officer Daniel Pruce wrote to Campbell asking, �Why don�t we issue [the dossier] in the name of the JIC? Makes it more interesting to the media.�
Later he added, �The more we advertise that unsupported assertions (e.g., Saddam attaches great importance to the possession of WMD) come from intelligence the better.�
On September 17, Powell wrote to Campbell explaining the thinking behind using the JIC�s authority to endorse government policy. �I think it is worth explicitly stating what TB keeps saying. This is the advice to him from the JIC. On the basis of this advice what other action could he as PM take? Something like �I am today taking the exceptional step of publishing JIC advice to me because I want MPs and the British public to see the advice on which I am acting. When you have read this I ask you to consider what else a responsible PM could do than follow the course we have in face of this advice.��
Other memos make clear that at every stage of the dossier�s preparation, it was the government that determined content and style. Despite his denials, Campbell had seen drafts earlier than September 10, including ones that did not contain the 45-minutes claim. And he was chiefly responsible for drafting the introduction attributed to Blair that focussed on this claim.
There is correspondence between Campbell and JIC head John Scarlett in which Campbell makes a number of detailed suggestions that certainly read as efforts to strengthen or sex up the dossier. One that was rejected by Scarlett is a query: �Can we say he [Saddam] has secured uranium from Africa.�
Significantly, one that was incorporated was Campbell�s complaint that the word �may� used in relation to the 45-minute claim was too weak. JIC head John Scarlett dutifully replied that this had been �tightened� so that the final version of the dossier read �The Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes� (our emphasis).
A number of other key advisers tried to get in on the act, making similar suggestions.
Despite the best efforts of a largely pliant and supportive media, anyone who has followed the inquiry would find much in it to confirm that the government lied repeatedly to justify war and was well aware of the weakness of its case.
Campbell�s special adviser Philip Bassett wrote to to Pruce on one draft stating, �Very long way to go, I think. Think we�re in a lot of trouble with this as it stands now.� And in another e-mail, Powell had warned, �We will need to make it clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he [Saddam] is an imminent threat.�
To which Campbell replied evasively to Dingemans, �We always sought to describe it [Iraq�s supposed WMD programme] as a serious and credible threat,� rather than an imminent one.
But if there was no imminent threat, there was no justification for war.
The Hutton inquiry may be aimed at limiting political damage to the government, but events are not wholly under its control. Even a partial lifting of the veil of government secrecy provides a unsavoury picture of how the political process has become divorced from all genuine democratic accountability and how state policy is decided in a manner more akin to a conspiracy.
It could not be any other way. Government policy is objectively opposed to the social and political interests of the broad mass of the British population. Its domestic programme is dictated by what best facilitates the further enrichment of the narrow layer of the super-rich and the profit drive of big business. It involves destroying social services, shifting the tax burden onto working people and cutting wages to the bare minimum. Internationally, it means a renewal of the strivings of British imperialism to seize control of vital resources and markets, essentially as a junior partner of the Bush administration. No government could possibly secure a popular mandate for such an agenda. Hence, the recourse to politics of the big lie and dirty deeds in the dead of night.
But the fact that this situation can be glimpsed in the proceedings of the Hutton inquiry does not lend the inquiry itself any legitimacy. The inquiry�s outcome is not predetermined. It is clear that there are strenuous efforts to protect Blair, but even if this were to prove impossible and he was forced to quit, nothing fundamental would be resolved. Labour under a new leadership, or the coming to power of any combination of the opposition parties, would not alter the political relations that have been exposed in the Kelly affair.
Only an independent and conscious intervention by the working class can secure a decisive shift in the balance of political power in favour of the broad majority of the population. The deliberate shortcomings of the Hutton inquiry have only confirmed the necessity for a full and genuinely independent investigation into how the government conspired to drag the country into war against Iraq and to what ends, and for the working class to create its own political vehicle to fight for such an outcome.
See Also:
Britain: Hutton Inquiry hears damning evidence against government
[16 August 2003]
Britain: the political issues underlying the Hutton Inquiry
[11 August 2003]
Questions Blair government must answer over death of whistleblower Dr Kelly
[25 July 2003]
Britain: Inquiry exposes lies on Iraq war
By Chris Marsden and Julie Hyland
23 August 2003
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
At one point during his questioning by James Dingemans QC, the chief counsel in the judicial inquiry by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of whistleblower Dr. David Kelly, Alastair Campbell was asked to explain a phrase used in his personal diary.
Campbell, Prime Minister Tony Blair�s director of communications, made a show of reluctance due to his supposed concern that he would inadvertently misrepresent Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.
He told Dingemans, �The reason I did not use it in answer to you now is I think it does risk being unfair to Mr. Hoon. He actually said his initial instinct was, as I say, to be severe in this regard but there was a case for trying get some kind of plea bargain. That is what I recorded.�
Dingemans asked, �A plea bargain with?� Campbell replied, �In relation to the person who had come forward,� a reference to Kelly who had admitted that he was the probable source of BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan�s May report claiming the government had �sexed up� intelligence material to justify its pre-emptive war on Iraq.
Two things of importance are revealed by Campbell�s response. Firstly, he protesteth too much. For weeks, government efforts to shield itself from criticisms that it had misused intelligent material to justify its illegal war against Iraq had focussed on attacking the BBC for reporting the allegations. That strategy went disastrously wrong with the discovery of Kelly�s body in woodland on July 18, necessitating the convening of the inquiry under Lord Hutton.
Even within the narrow remit of the inquiry itself, whose terms were laid down by Prime Minister Tony Blair and limited to investigating the circumstances surrounding Kelly�s apparent suicide, a mass of highly damaging material has emerged.
Campbell�s naming of Hoon is in line with the latest attempts by the government to mount a damage-limitation exercise, which focuses on efforts to shield Campbell and ultimately Blair from direct criticism by apportioning blame to Hoon, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) for both the production of the September 2002 dossier on Iraq and the later outing of Kelly as Gilligan�s source.
In both cases, however, the government has suffered badly over the last weeks of the inquiry.
The second week has been dominated by the testimony of a number of key Blair personnel, including Campbell, Jonathan Powell and Sir David Manning, both from the prime minister�s office, and Sir Kevin Tebbit and Pam Teare from the MoD.
Though efforts were made by all concerned to exonerate the government, all were equally anxious to ensure they individually did not carry the can. Therefore, it became impossible to present a common picture of events in order to shield Blair.
Testimony, documents given over to the inquiry and leaks to the press have made clear that Blair was intimately involved at every stage in the drafting of intelligence dossiers, particularly through the person of Campbell, and that he was personally involved in directing the policy of outing Kelly and forcing him to testify before the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) investigating the veracity of the allegations reported by the BBC.
Blair�s and Campbell�s defence is essentially to claim that they were acting on the advice of the civil service and Hoon himself, who bore immediate responsibility for this area of policy.
Under the limited terms of the inquiry, greatest emphasis has been placed upon the circumstances leading up to Kelly�s death. The picture that has emerged shows that the government was intent on rebutting the BBC�s report for a number of reasons and that Kelly�s testimony before the FAC was considered vital in this regard.
Kelly and Gilligan had pointed up an open rift between the government and substantial sections of the security services over the advisability of going to war against Iraq and the use of unsubstantiated claims to justify this.
Not only was such a schism embarrassing in itself, but also it focussed attention on the campaign of lies and misinformation employed by the government to steamroller overwhelming popular opposition to the war and defy all legal norms in launching unprovoked military aggression against a largely defenceless country.
The BBC became a target for the government not because of any anti-war agenda on its part, but because a narrow focus on whether or not Campbell himself had been responsible for sexing up the dossier by including the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within 45 minutes gave the government room for denial in a way that it could not deny the broader charge that it had lied to parliament and the British public.
This was perfectly illustrated by Campbell�s own testimony. At one point, he explained why he and Blair agreed to his testifying before the FAC inquiry and the strategy behind this. �I accepted some of the criticisms that were being made in relation to the February briefing paper [the February 2003 dossier that was found to have been plagiarised from a US Ph.D. thesis], and forcefully rebutted the allegations made on the WMD dossier of September... My approach was going to be to acknowledge the mistakes that were made in relation to the briefing paper, to forcefully defend the government and myself on the September dossier and to make public the efforts that we had been making trying to get redress from the BBC and to demand an apology.�
He was then asked, �And I think you conclude your entry on 25th June with a comment about the BBC. What is the comment and what do you mean by it?�
He replied, �What I said is that I felt that the hearing had gone pretty well, I found it gruelling, I was exhausted but I felt a lot better and I had opened a flank on the BBC.�
It was for this reason that Kelly�s testimony at the FAC was considered essential. He had to speak and deny that he had told Gilligan that the dossier had been sexed-up by Campbell. Kelly was therefore named and put before the inquiry, where he claimed that he did not recollect mentioning Campbell�s name to Gilligan and did not believe he was the main source of his report.
We now know that Kelly was lying and that he had made almost identical statements to another BBC reporter, Susan Watts. He could have done this in his own defence, of course, but he probably did so as part of a deal with the government or as a result of being coerced. This may be a reason why Campbell was genuinely concerned about using his diary statements on Hoon. Later, he was asked, �Why do you say that [the entry on Hoon] is likely to be misinterpreted or unfair?� He replied, �Because I think it carries a suggestion that Mr. Hoon was saying to me: I think we can do some kind of deal with this guy, and that is not what he was saying.�
Sometimes, however, appearances are not deceiving. That a deal was done with Kelly is likely. And Campbell uses some formulations suggesting a degree of cooperation with him. At several points, he explained that Kelly�s name was not released immediately because Kelly had made clear he did not want to be in �the first wave of publicity��referring to the efforts to discredit Gilligan and the BBC before the FAC.
Kelly�s death is important, but with regard to the inquiry�s focus it has a negative political role to play in elevating the minutiae of Kelly�s outing and its tragic consequences above the more substantial question of the lies told by the government and its trampling on the democratic process.
It is this fundamental issue that the inquiry is aimed at obscuring. But despite its proscribed limits, there has been a series of damaging revelations relating to the distortion of intelligence material.
Any objective reading of the evidence given on this count proves that the government was intent on shaping intelligence material to suit its war aims. In testimony from Powell, Campbell and others, it emerged that the prime minister�s office and his top officials were all involved in a campaign to secure from the intelligence services the type of material they felt necessary to justify recourse to war.
Campbell�s questioning by Dingemans was informed by references to a series of e-mails sent by himself and others close to the government. Campbell wrote to Powell on September 5 that the final dossier�s structure should be �as TB�s [Tony Blair�s] discussion.�
On September 11, Foreign Office press officer Daniel Pruce wrote to Campbell asking, �Why don�t we issue [the dossier] in the name of the JIC? Makes it more interesting to the media.�
Later he added, �The more we advertise that unsupported assertions (e.g., Saddam attaches great importance to the possession of WMD) come from intelligence the better.�
On September 17, Powell wrote to Campbell explaining the thinking behind using the JIC�s authority to endorse government policy. �I think it is worth explicitly stating what TB keeps saying. This is the advice to him from the JIC. On the basis of this advice what other action could he as PM take? Something like �I am today taking the exceptional step of publishing JIC advice to me because I want MPs and the British public to see the advice on which I am acting. When you have read this I ask you to consider what else a responsible PM could do than follow the course we have in face of this advice.��
Other memos make clear that at every stage of the dossier�s preparation, it was the government that determined content and style. Despite his denials, Campbell had seen drafts earlier than September 10, including ones that did not contain the 45-minutes claim. And he was chiefly responsible for drafting the introduction attributed to Blair that focussed on this claim.
There is correspondence between Campbell and JIC head John Scarlett in which Campbell makes a number of detailed suggestions that certainly read as efforts to strengthen or sex up the dossier. One that was rejected by Scarlett is a query: �Can we say he [Saddam] has secured uranium from Africa.�
Significantly, one that was incorporated was Campbell�s complaint that the word �may� used in relation to the 45-minute claim was too weak. JIC head John Scarlett dutifully replied that this had been �tightened� so that the final version of the dossier read �The Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes� (our emphasis).
A number of other key advisers tried to get in on the act, making similar suggestions.
Despite the best efforts of a largely pliant and supportive media, anyone who has followed the inquiry would find much in it to confirm that the government lied repeatedly to justify war and was well aware of the weakness of its case.
Campbell�s special adviser Philip Bassett wrote to to Pruce on one draft stating, �Very long way to go, I think. Think we�re in a lot of trouble with this as it stands now.� And in another e-mail, Powell had warned, �We will need to make it clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he [Saddam] is an imminent threat.�
To which Campbell replied evasively to Dingemans, �We always sought to describe it [Iraq�s supposed WMD programme] as a serious and credible threat,� rather than an imminent one.
But if there was no imminent threat, there was no justification for war.
The Hutton inquiry may be aimed at limiting political damage to the government, but events are not wholly under its control. Even a partial lifting of the veil of government secrecy provides a unsavoury picture of how the political process has become divorced from all genuine democratic accountability and how state policy is decided in a manner more akin to a conspiracy.
It could not be any other way. Government policy is objectively opposed to the social and political interests of the broad mass of the British population. Its domestic programme is dictated by what best facilitates the further enrichment of the narrow layer of the super-rich and the profit drive of big business. It involves destroying social services, shifting the tax burden onto working people and cutting wages to the bare minimum. Internationally, it means a renewal of the strivings of British imperialism to seize control of vital resources and markets, essentially as a junior partner of the Bush administration. No government could possibly secure a popular mandate for such an agenda. Hence, the recourse to politics of the big lie and dirty deeds in the dead of night.
But the fact that this situation can be glimpsed in the proceedings of the Hutton inquiry does not lend the inquiry itself any legitimacy. The inquiry�s outcome is not predetermined. It is clear that there are strenuous efforts to protect Blair, but even if this were to prove impossible and he was forced to quit, nothing fundamental would be resolved. Labour under a new leadership, or the coming to power of any combination of the opposition parties, would not alter the political relations that have been exposed in the Kelly affair.
Only an independent and conscious intervention by the working class can secure a decisive shift in the balance of political power in favour of the broad majority of the population. The deliberate shortcomings of the Hutton inquiry have only confirmed the necessity for a full and genuinely independent investigation into how the government conspired to drag the country into war against Iraq and to what ends, and for the working class to create its own political vehicle to fight for such an outcome.
See Also:
Britain: Hutton Inquiry hears damning evidence against government
[16 August 2003]
Britain: the political issues underlying the Hutton Inquiry
[11 August 2003]
Questions Blair government must answer over death of whistleblower Dr Kelly
[25 July 2003]
Blair Aides Shaped Iraq Dossier
Inquiry Into Expert's Death Reveals How Intelligence Services Were Used
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 23, 2003; Page A14
LONDON, Aug. 22 -- The public inquiry into the apparent suicide of a British weapons expert has opened a rare window on how Prime Minister Tony Blair used Britain's intelligence services to help sell the case for war in Iraq to a reluctant public.
Eight days of testimony have shown how Blair's top aides worked closely with senior intelligence officials in compiling a dossier for public distribution, pressing for changes that sharpened the language and conclusions in the document.
The judicial inquiry has heard testimony that at least two intelligence officials raised objections to this process, as did David Kelly, the weapons expert. He told a BBC reporter that the process of turning raw intelligence data into a polished document had led to distortions that made the threat posed by Iraq appear more imminent and alarming than it really was.
Officials sought to ensure that the objections did not reach the House of Commons committee that oversees intelligence agencies, according to internal Defense Ministry documents. A memo from Martin Howard, deputy chief of defense intelligence, recommended that the ministry "resist any calls" from the committee "to disclose the identities of the individuals concerned, call them as witnesses or have access to their written comments."
The British government is known for guarding its inner workings from public scrutiny. The disclosure about the process of compiling the dossier was one of several revelations that have emerged since Lord Justice Brian Hutton began hearing evidence two weeks ago.
The controversy has been compared with the debate in the United States over the Bush administration's use of intelligence, but has been more damaging politically for Blair than for President Bush. An ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper this week found 68 percent of respondents believed the government mistreated Kelly and only 24 percent believed the government's claim that it had not embellished the intelligence dossier.
The hearings have shed light on Blair's involvement in the government's campaign to discredit a controversial BBC report on the intelligence dossier, which was published last September and became a key part of the government's case for participating in the U.S.-led war. They have shown how government officials pressed Kelly in the days leading up to his apparent suicide to renounce the BBC report. But they have also disclosed flaws in the BBC's original reporting. And they have suggested that Kelly may have had other reasons for suicide besides the controversy over the dossier.
Kelly's body was found on July 18 near his home in Oxfordshire, about 50 miles northwest of London, three days after he testified before a parliamentary committee about his meeting with Andrew Gilligan, a BBC reporter.
Gilligan's original report, on May 29, cited a confidential source in alleging that the government had "sexed up" the dossier by ordering intelligence officials to insert a claim that officials knew was probably wrong: namely, that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes. In his testimony, Gilligan acknowledged that he had misspoken in alleging that officials knew the claim was wrong.
Kelly's actual allegation was more subtle. He told another BBC reporter, Susan Watts, who tape-recorded the interview, that Blair's aides had seized upon the 45-minute claim to make the dossier more dramatic.
"It was a statement that was made and it just got out of all proportion," Kelly told Watts, according to the transcript entered into evidence. Blair's aides "were pushing hard for information which could be released, [and] that was one that popped up and it was seized on."
Blair's top aide, communications director Alastair Campbell, insisted in his testimony that he and his aides had provided only "presentational" advice on the dossier, which he said was solely the work of the top-secret Joint Intelligence Committee, headed by John Scarlett. But memos between the two men suggest Campbell helped "tighten" the language of the 45-minute claim, changing the phrase "may be able to deploy" to "are able to deploy."
Other analysts said the very process of turning intelligence data into a public document distorted its meaning because the data often consist of clues, suppositions and inferences rather than solid facts, "Intelligence is all about interpretation," said Garth Whitty, defense analyst for the Royal United Services Institute, a London research organization. "When you start changing words to make them more palatable or readable, you're introducing another level of interpretation, and you risk the intelligence being read as fact, which it rarely is."
Rupert Allason, a former Conservative Member of Parliament who has written on intelligence under the name Nigel West, said the dossier process had damaged the reputation and morale of the intelligence community. "To have the JIC involved in writing what was a political pamphlet undermines its authority in every possible way," said Allason, who has been a strong critic of the Blair government.
Kelly told reporters that he had no doubt that Saddam Hussein's government was seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction. But he said the threat was not imminent, and he believed the dossier was manipulated to make it appear so. "It was not so much what they have now, but what they would have in the future," he told Watts, referring to the Iraqis. "But that unfortunately wasn't expressed strongly in the dossier because that takes away the case for war, to a certain extent.
"In the end it was just a flurry of activity and it was very difficult to get comments in because people at the top of the ladder didn't want to hear some of the things."
Two intelligence officials agreed, including one unnamed senior official who wrote a memo to his superior stating: "I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessments for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier" that he was moved to write formally "recording and explaining my reservations."
Deputy intelligence chief Howard testified that another dissenter said that the wording of a section claiming Iraq had 20 tons of biological growth agent was "not wrong but it has [a] lot of spin on it."
Testimony has indicated that Blair was personally involved in determining how to proceed from the moment in late June when Kelly told his superiors at the Defense Ministry that he might have been Gilligan's source. The prime minister ordered Kelly to be questioned a second time to find out what he might say if called before the Foreign Affairs Committee.
He also participated in a discussion about whether it would be possible to keep Kelly's name confidential. In the end, the Defense Ministry devised a strategy of describing Kelly in sufficient detail to reporters that they were able to guess his name, which the ministry then confirmed.
Kelly himself expressed shock that his name was divulged. "I was told it would all be confidential," he told Sunday Times journalist Nick Rufford, who testified Thursday. Rufford said Kelly looked wan and tired when he saw him on July 8. "Off the record, I have been through the wringer," he told Rufford.
But a colleague of Kelly's suggested another possible motive for suicide. In February Kelly told David Broucher, a British diplomat working on disarmament issues, that he was still in contact with senior Iraqi officials and was seeking to persuade them to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. Kelly said he assured them they had nothing to fear.
But he told Broucher that he was worried an invasion would proceed anyway, and feared some of his contacts would be killed and that others would believe he had betrayed them.
"As Dr. Kelly was leaving, I said to him, 'What will happen if Iraq is invaded?' and his reply was, 'I will probably be found dead in the woods.' "
Broucher said he believed at the time it was a "throwaway line" that might have referred to being tracked down by Iraqi agents. "I now see that he may have been thinking on rather different lines."
� 2003 The Washington Post Company
Inquiry Into Expert's Death Reveals How Intelligence Services Were Used
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 23, 2003; Page A14
LONDON, Aug. 22 -- The public inquiry into the apparent suicide of a British weapons expert has opened a rare window on how Prime Minister Tony Blair used Britain's intelligence services to help sell the case for war in Iraq to a reluctant public.
Eight days of testimony have shown how Blair's top aides worked closely with senior intelligence officials in compiling a dossier for public distribution, pressing for changes that sharpened the language and conclusions in the document.
The judicial inquiry has heard testimony that at least two intelligence officials raised objections to this process, as did David Kelly, the weapons expert. He told a BBC reporter that the process of turning raw intelligence data into a polished document had led to distortions that made the threat posed by Iraq appear more imminent and alarming than it really was.
Officials sought to ensure that the objections did not reach the House of Commons committee that oversees intelligence agencies, according to internal Defense Ministry documents. A memo from Martin Howard, deputy chief of defense intelligence, recommended that the ministry "resist any calls" from the committee "to disclose the identities of the individuals concerned, call them as witnesses or have access to their written comments."
The British government is known for guarding its inner workings from public scrutiny. The disclosure about the process of compiling the dossier was one of several revelations that have emerged since Lord Justice Brian Hutton began hearing evidence two weeks ago.
The controversy has been compared with the debate in the United States over the Bush administration's use of intelligence, but has been more damaging politically for Blair than for President Bush. An ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper this week found 68 percent of respondents believed the government mistreated Kelly and only 24 percent believed the government's claim that it had not embellished the intelligence dossier.
The hearings have shed light on Blair's involvement in the government's campaign to discredit a controversial BBC report on the intelligence dossier, which was published last September and became a key part of the government's case for participating in the U.S.-led war. They have shown how government officials pressed Kelly in the days leading up to his apparent suicide to renounce the BBC report. But they have also disclosed flaws in the BBC's original reporting. And they have suggested that Kelly may have had other reasons for suicide besides the controversy over the dossier.
Kelly's body was found on July 18 near his home in Oxfordshire, about 50 miles northwest of London, three days after he testified before a parliamentary committee about his meeting with Andrew Gilligan, a BBC reporter.
Gilligan's original report, on May 29, cited a confidential source in alleging that the government had "sexed up" the dossier by ordering intelligence officials to insert a claim that officials knew was probably wrong: namely, that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes. In his testimony, Gilligan acknowledged that he had misspoken in alleging that officials knew the claim was wrong.
Kelly's actual allegation was more subtle. He told another BBC reporter, Susan Watts, who tape-recorded the interview, that Blair's aides had seized upon the 45-minute claim to make the dossier more dramatic.
"It was a statement that was made and it just got out of all proportion," Kelly told Watts, according to the transcript entered into evidence. Blair's aides "were pushing hard for information which could be released, [and] that was one that popped up and it was seized on."
Blair's top aide, communications director Alastair Campbell, insisted in his testimony that he and his aides had provided only "presentational" advice on the dossier, which he said was solely the work of the top-secret Joint Intelligence Committee, headed by John Scarlett. But memos between the two men suggest Campbell helped "tighten" the language of the 45-minute claim, changing the phrase "may be able to deploy" to "are able to deploy."
Other analysts said the very process of turning intelligence data into a public document distorted its meaning because the data often consist of clues, suppositions and inferences rather than solid facts, "Intelligence is all about interpretation," said Garth Whitty, defense analyst for the Royal United Services Institute, a London research organization. "When you start changing words to make them more palatable or readable, you're introducing another level of interpretation, and you risk the intelligence being read as fact, which it rarely is."
Rupert Allason, a former Conservative Member of Parliament who has written on intelligence under the name Nigel West, said the dossier process had damaged the reputation and morale of the intelligence community. "To have the JIC involved in writing what was a political pamphlet undermines its authority in every possible way," said Allason, who has been a strong critic of the Blair government.
Kelly told reporters that he had no doubt that Saddam Hussein's government was seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction. But he said the threat was not imminent, and he believed the dossier was manipulated to make it appear so. "It was not so much what they have now, but what they would have in the future," he told Watts, referring to the Iraqis. "But that unfortunately wasn't expressed strongly in the dossier because that takes away the case for war, to a certain extent.
"In the end it was just a flurry of activity and it was very difficult to get comments in because people at the top of the ladder didn't want to hear some of the things."
Two intelligence officials agreed, including one unnamed senior official who wrote a memo to his superior stating: "I was so concerned about the manner in which intelligence assessments for which I had some responsibility were being presented in the dossier" that he was moved to write formally "recording and explaining my reservations."
Deputy intelligence chief Howard testified that another dissenter said that the wording of a section claiming Iraq had 20 tons of biological growth agent was "not wrong but it has [a] lot of spin on it."
Testimony has indicated that Blair was personally involved in determining how to proceed from the moment in late June when Kelly told his superiors at the Defense Ministry that he might have been Gilligan's source. The prime minister ordered Kelly to be questioned a second time to find out what he might say if called before the Foreign Affairs Committee.
He also participated in a discussion about whether it would be possible to keep Kelly's name confidential. In the end, the Defense Ministry devised a strategy of describing Kelly in sufficient detail to reporters that they were able to guess his name, which the ministry then confirmed.
Kelly himself expressed shock that his name was divulged. "I was told it would all be confidential," he told Sunday Times journalist Nick Rufford, who testified Thursday. Rufford said Kelly looked wan and tired when he saw him on July 8. "Off the record, I have been through the wringer," he told Rufford.
But a colleague of Kelly's suggested another possible motive for suicide. In February Kelly told David Broucher, a British diplomat working on disarmament issues, that he was still in contact with senior Iraqi officials and was seeking to persuade them to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. Kelly said he assured them they had nothing to fear.
But he told Broucher that he was worried an invasion would proceed anyway, and feared some of his contacts would be killed and that others would believe he had betrayed them.
"As Dr. Kelly was leaving, I said to him, 'What will happen if Iraq is invaded?' and his reply was, 'I will probably be found dead in the woods.' "
Broucher said he believed at the time it was a "throwaway line" that might have referred to being tracked down by Iraqi agents. "I now see that he may have been thinking on rather different lines."
� 2003 The Washington Post Company
Friday, August 22, 2003
The dispute over intelligence on Iraq grew more complex and dramatic Thursday with testimony in the capitals of the two closest U.S. allies in the war. Tension built as Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared to take the stand.
In London, the inquiry into a weapons expert's death learned that he had predicted he might end up "dead in the woods" if war broke out. The judge directing the inquiry, Lord Hutton, announced that Blair would give evidence Aug. 28, a day after an appearance by Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon.
In Canberra, an Australian intelligence expert told a parliamentary panel that the government "lied every time" it discussed Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Those purported weapons were a major justification for the war, but U.S. search teams have reported finding no weapons to date, raising questions about whether prewar intelligence was inaccurate or misused.
In Britain, the weapons doubts have led to a political crisis for Blair.
A May 29 BBC report accused the government of "sexing up" a September dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to bolster its argument for war, including a claim that Saddam Hussein's forces could deploy some of those weapons on 45 minutes' notice.
The report sparked an acrimonious dispute between the BBC and the government, which denies manipulating intelligence.
Ultimately, former U.N. inspector David Kelly was named as the source of the story. He was found dead on July 18, and an inquiry was ordered into his death.
David Broucher, a British representative to U.N. conference on disarmament in Geneva, told the inquiry Thursday that he met Kelly in Switzerland on Feb. 27 after requesting a briefing on Iraq and biological weapons.
Kelly, Britain's leading expert on Baghdad's weapons programs, said he had been urging his Iraqi contacts to allow full inspections to avoid the threat of attack, but the Iraqis feared that if they disclosed too much about their state of readiness, they might become more vulnerable, Broucher said.
"My impression was that he felt he was in some personal difficulty or embarrassment about this because he felt the invasion might go ahead anyway and somehow it was putting him in a morally ambiguous situation," Broucher said.
"As David Kelly was leaving, I said to him, 'What do you think will happen if Iraq is invaded?'
"His reply was, which at the time I took to be a throwaway remark, he said, 'I will probably be found dead in the woods.'"
According to the Times of London, Broucher's remark was met with gasps from the gallery.
Broucher said Kelly also told him that the government had pressured intelligence experts to make sure the September dossier was "robust as possible, that every judgment (in the dossier) had been robustly fought over".
Kelly also told Broucher that he doubted that Iraq could arm WMDs in 45 minutes.
The inquiry has been embarrassing both for the BBC and Blair. Internal emails showed BBC bosses were worried that their correspondent's reporting was sloppy, and testimony demonstrated Kelly doubted that the accusations attributed to him were accurate.
Sunday Times journalist Nick Rufford testified that Kelly told him he was "a bit shocked" that he had been identified as a possible source behind the BBC report at the center of the controversy.
"'I was told it would all be confidential,'" Rufford quoted Kelly was saying.
But a defense ministry memo revealed Thursday showed the ministry tried to keep Kelly from testifying about WMD issues when he appeared in parliament shortly before his death.
The inquiry has also learned that there were grave doubts among some intelligence advisers and Blair aides over how imminent Iraq's threat was.
"The document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam," Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, wrote to the chair of the government's overarching intelligence committee just days before the dossier was published.
The Australian expert, Andrew Wilkie, quit his government job over the war. He told parliament Thursday that the case for war had been "sexed up."
"The government lied every time. It skewed, misrepresented, used selectively and fabricated the Iraq story," he said.
"I deny that absolutely," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.
�MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
In London, the inquiry into a weapons expert's death learned that he had predicted he might end up "dead in the woods" if war broke out. The judge directing the inquiry, Lord Hutton, announced that Blair would give evidence Aug. 28, a day after an appearance by Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon.
In Canberra, an Australian intelligence expert told a parliamentary panel that the government "lied every time" it discussed Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
Those purported weapons were a major justification for the war, but U.S. search teams have reported finding no weapons to date, raising questions about whether prewar intelligence was inaccurate or misused.
In Britain, the weapons doubts have led to a political crisis for Blair.
A May 29 BBC report accused the government of "sexing up" a September dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to bolster its argument for war, including a claim that Saddam Hussein's forces could deploy some of those weapons on 45 minutes' notice.
The report sparked an acrimonious dispute between the BBC and the government, which denies manipulating intelligence.
Ultimately, former U.N. inspector David Kelly was named as the source of the story. He was found dead on July 18, and an inquiry was ordered into his death.
David Broucher, a British representative to U.N. conference on disarmament in Geneva, told the inquiry Thursday that he met Kelly in Switzerland on Feb. 27 after requesting a briefing on Iraq and biological weapons.
Kelly, Britain's leading expert on Baghdad's weapons programs, said he had been urging his Iraqi contacts to allow full inspections to avoid the threat of attack, but the Iraqis feared that if they disclosed too much about their state of readiness, they might become more vulnerable, Broucher said.
"My impression was that he felt he was in some personal difficulty or embarrassment about this because he felt the invasion might go ahead anyway and somehow it was putting him in a morally ambiguous situation," Broucher said.
"As David Kelly was leaving, I said to him, 'What do you think will happen if Iraq is invaded?'
"His reply was, which at the time I took to be a throwaway remark, he said, 'I will probably be found dead in the woods.'"
According to the Times of London, Broucher's remark was met with gasps from the gallery.
Broucher said Kelly also told him that the government had pressured intelligence experts to make sure the September dossier was "robust as possible, that every judgment (in the dossier) had been robustly fought over".
Kelly also told Broucher that he doubted that Iraq could arm WMDs in 45 minutes.
The inquiry has been embarrassing both for the BBC and Blair. Internal emails showed BBC bosses were worried that their correspondent's reporting was sloppy, and testimony demonstrated Kelly doubted that the accusations attributed to him were accurate.
Sunday Times journalist Nick Rufford testified that Kelly told him he was "a bit shocked" that he had been identified as a possible source behind the BBC report at the center of the controversy.
"'I was told it would all be confidential,'" Rufford quoted Kelly was saying.
But a defense ministry memo revealed Thursday showed the ministry tried to keep Kelly from testifying about WMD issues when he appeared in parliament shortly before his death.
The inquiry has also learned that there were grave doubts among some intelligence advisers and Blair aides over how imminent Iraq's threat was.
"The document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam," Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, wrote to the chair of the government's overarching intelligence committee just days before the dossier was published.
The Australian expert, Andrew Wilkie, quit his government job over the war. He told parliament Thursday that the case for war had been "sexed up."
"The government lied every time. It skewed, misrepresented, used selectively and fabricated the Iraq story," he said.
"I deny that absolutely," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.
�MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Thursday, August 21, 2003
oday's Date: Aug. 21
Aquarius 1/20 - 2/18
Get into doing things today, dear Aquarius. It's a prime time to get busy. Activities that require focus or creativity will be supported, but more so, physical strength and energy will encourage you to do something active. If you've been feeling sluggish, tired or even a little under the weather, this can put an end to all of it. Consider artistic projects that take strength to do, such as building something out of wood or carving. Make something special for your favorite person
Aquarius 1/20 - 2/18
Get into doing things today, dear Aquarius. It's a prime time to get busy. Activities that require focus or creativity will be supported, but more so, physical strength and energy will encourage you to do something active. If you've been feeling sluggish, tired or even a little under the weather, this can put an end to all of it. Consider artistic projects that take strength to do, such as building something out of wood or carving. Make something special for your favorite person
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Iraqi Free-for-All?
Some U.S. and British officials now say recent violent attacks in Baghdad are being carried out not by Saddam loyalists but by Islamic terrorists. Why the sudden change in tune? Plus, nobody looks good in Britain�s inquiry into prewar intelligence
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Aug. 20 � For months, U.S. and British intelligence officials maintained that a wave of deadly attacks on American and British troops in Iraq was principally the work of dead-end Saddam loyalists. But the two bloody bombings of non-American targets in Baghdad have now led intelligence sources to acknowledge that Islamic terrorists may indeed be a major threat to Coalition forces.
U.S. OFFICIALS say it is far too early to tell who carried out Wednesday�s truck bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the United Nations� chief representative to Iraq, among others. But analysts note there are some rough similarities between the attack on the U.N. office and the suicide attack two weeks ago on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad. Among the parallels: neither target was directly connected to Coalition forces, both attacks apparently involved suicide bombers and both targets were comparatively �soft��security was lower than at facilities used by Coalition forces.
Before the Jordanian Embassy bombing, U.S. and British intelligence officials argued forcefully that attacks on U.S. soldiers were likely the work of die-hard elements of Saddam�s Baathist regime, including former members of the fedayeen militia and the Special Republican Guard. U.S. officials, perhaps worried about the perception that postwar Iraq was a lawless zone, initially rejected the idea that bin Laden-style jihadi fighters were much of a presence or problem in post-Saddam Iraq. And British intelligence officials said their information indicated that the foreign jihadis who entered Iraq via Syria to fight Coalition forces actually left Iraq once the war had ended.
Within days after the Jordanian Embassy attack, U.S. intelligence officials began revising their view. Officials close to the CIA now acknowledge that among the principal suspects in the Jordan Embassy attack is Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist made infamous by Secretary of State Colin Powell in a United Nations speech last February. (Powell asserted that Zarqawi was a major link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.)
U.S. intelligence believes that Zarqawi, who before September 11 headed a Jordanian terrorist group called Al-Tawhid, visited Baghdad for about two months a year ago to receive medical treatment for a leg injury he sustained fighting American forces in Afghanistan after 9/11. In his U.N. speech, Powell asserted that while in Baghdad, Zarqawi was joined there by as many as two dozen jihadi associates. Before the war, U.S. officials acknowledged that they had no proof that either Zarqawi nor his alleged coterie had any direct dealings with Saddam or elements of his regime. But the Bush administration asserted that Zarqawi�s mere presence in Baghdad established the possibility that Saddam might collaborate with, and even give weapons of mass destruction to, Islamic terrorists.
U.S. intelligence officials say they are not sure what happened to Zarqawi after his medical treatment in Baghdad was completed last summer. According to some reports, he may have moved on to Syria and then to an alleged terrorist camp in Lebanon. By the time U.S. forces attacked Baghdad earlier this year, U.S. intelligence believed that Zarqawi most likely had migrated to an enclave in northern Iraq controlled by Ansar al-Islam, a pro-jihad group that Powell claimed had been infiltrated by a high-ranking agent of Saddam�s regime. During the war, Ansar�s training camp on the Iraq-Iran border was obliterated by U.S. and Kurdish special forces, but some Ansar militants are believed to have escaped across the mountains into Iran. Among them, U.S. officials believe, was Zarqawi. Until the Jordanian Embassy bombing, U.S. intelligence sources said they still thought Zarqawi might be in Iran, though they did not believe that he was one of several high-ranking Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden�s son Saad, captured by Iran and being held (the Iranians claim) for trial.
U.S. officials still have little fix on Zarqawi�s whereabouts or what kind of operational and support network he might have in Baghdad. They say he is a suspect in the attack on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad because Zarqawi and his group have sworn to oust the current government of Jordan and replace it with an Islamic regime, giving them an obvious motive.
Still, even two weeks after the embassy attack, U.S. officials concede they have little hard evidence of who was behind it. And they say that it is also possible that Zarqawi was not involved in the attack, and that instead it was carried out by Baathist remnants, or even remnants of Ansar al-Islam who somehow infiltrated their way back into Iraq. Another possibility: that Zarqawi teamed up with Ansar al-Islam fighters to carry out the attack.
Zarqawi or Ansar al-Islam are also high on the list of possible suspects in Wednesday�s attack on the U.N.�s Baghdad operation. And intelligence sources say that the CIA believes that an audiotape by Al Qaeda �spokesman� Abdelrahman Al-Najdi which surfaced this week, in which Najdi promised more jihadi fighters would be heading for Baghdad (and also declared that bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar were alive and in good health) was probably authentic, though the agency is not positive.
So why weren�t U.S. and British officials willing to admit until now that jihadists could be at work in Iraq? Were they worried about public perception of chaos? Or are the theories of terrorists on the loose simply a convenient cover story as Iraq moves closer toward outright hostility against Coalition forces? Nobody was willing to say.
BLAIR�S CONTINUING �SEX� SCANDAL
Tony Blair�s British government has had no end of grief over a claim, in an intelligence �dossier� made public last September, that Saddam�s chemical and biological weapons could be readied for use within 45 minutes. The same claim made it into at least one of President Bush�s radio addresses, even though CIA analysts did not believe the information, and, according to a source close to the agency, would have cautioned the White House to steer clear had it asked for guidance.
After the BBC reported in May that some intelligence officials believed Blair�s office had used the 45-minute claim to �sex up� the published dossier in order to marshal political support for a war to oust Saddam, the British government launched a witch hunt for the source of news leaks to the BBC. During the course of its search for the leaker, David Kelly, a government expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction who over the years had spoken on background to many journalists, including BBC reporters, was publicly fingered as the main source for the BBC�s �sexing up� allegation. Shortly after appearing before a parliamentary committee to deny he was the BBC�s main source, Kelly apparently committed suicide, forcing Blair to order a public inquiry into his death.
That inquiry, conducted in public by a British law lord, is already producing some embarrassments for both of the main antagonists. Witness testimony and documentary evidence suggests that not all BBC journalists felt comfortable with the �sexing up� allegation. Supervisors of the BBC reporter who initially reported the charge believed that his story could have been worded better and that he should be supervised much more closely in the future.
But documents dumped into the record by the inquiry team also raise new questions about the validity of the Blair government�s information about Saddam�s weapons capabilities. British intelligence sources initially told journalists that the 45-minute claim came from a high-ranking source still in place inside the Iraqi military. But the judicial inquiry last week made public a briefing note, apparently prepared by the Foreign Office for use by government spokesmen, which seemed to admit that the data did not come directly from an Iraqi military source but rather from a third party who was in touch with the Iraqi military source.
�� It came from a reliable and established source, quoting a well-placed senior officer,� the briefing note says, referring to the 45-minute claim. According to the briefing note, �against the background of other reporting at the time, the reporting was assessed as credible.�
Nonetheless, the apparent acknowledgement that the 45-minute claim was based on intelligence hearsay has certainly not enhanced the declining credibility of Blair�s government. By contrast, the Bush White House appears to have faced little consequence, even though it repeated the same claim without checking it with the CIA.
� 2003 Newsweek, Inc
Some U.S. and British officials now say recent violent attacks in Baghdad are being carried out not by Saddam loyalists but by Islamic terrorists. Why the sudden change in tune? Plus, nobody looks good in Britain�s inquiry into prewar intelligence
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Aug. 20 � For months, U.S. and British intelligence officials maintained that a wave of deadly attacks on American and British troops in Iraq was principally the work of dead-end Saddam loyalists. But the two bloody bombings of non-American targets in Baghdad have now led intelligence sources to acknowledge that Islamic terrorists may indeed be a major threat to Coalition forces.
U.S. OFFICIALS say it is far too early to tell who carried out Wednesday�s truck bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed the United Nations� chief representative to Iraq, among others. But analysts note there are some rough similarities between the attack on the U.N. office and the suicide attack two weeks ago on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad. Among the parallels: neither target was directly connected to Coalition forces, both attacks apparently involved suicide bombers and both targets were comparatively �soft��security was lower than at facilities used by Coalition forces.
Before the Jordanian Embassy bombing, U.S. and British intelligence officials argued forcefully that attacks on U.S. soldiers were likely the work of die-hard elements of Saddam�s Baathist regime, including former members of the fedayeen militia and the Special Republican Guard. U.S. officials, perhaps worried about the perception that postwar Iraq was a lawless zone, initially rejected the idea that bin Laden-style jihadi fighters were much of a presence or problem in post-Saddam Iraq. And British intelligence officials said their information indicated that the foreign jihadis who entered Iraq via Syria to fight Coalition forces actually left Iraq once the war had ended.
Within days after the Jordanian Embassy attack, U.S. intelligence officials began revising their view. Officials close to the CIA now acknowledge that among the principal suspects in the Jordan Embassy attack is Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist made infamous by Secretary of State Colin Powell in a United Nations speech last February. (Powell asserted that Zarqawi was a major link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.)
U.S. intelligence believes that Zarqawi, who before September 11 headed a Jordanian terrorist group called Al-Tawhid, visited Baghdad for about two months a year ago to receive medical treatment for a leg injury he sustained fighting American forces in Afghanistan after 9/11. In his U.N. speech, Powell asserted that while in Baghdad, Zarqawi was joined there by as many as two dozen jihadi associates. Before the war, U.S. officials acknowledged that they had no proof that either Zarqawi nor his alleged coterie had any direct dealings with Saddam or elements of his regime. But the Bush administration asserted that Zarqawi�s mere presence in Baghdad established the possibility that Saddam might collaborate with, and even give weapons of mass destruction to, Islamic terrorists.
U.S. intelligence officials say they are not sure what happened to Zarqawi after his medical treatment in Baghdad was completed last summer. According to some reports, he may have moved on to Syria and then to an alleged terrorist camp in Lebanon. By the time U.S. forces attacked Baghdad earlier this year, U.S. intelligence believed that Zarqawi most likely had migrated to an enclave in northern Iraq controlled by Ansar al-Islam, a pro-jihad group that Powell claimed had been infiltrated by a high-ranking agent of Saddam�s regime. During the war, Ansar�s training camp on the Iraq-Iran border was obliterated by U.S. and Kurdish special forces, but some Ansar militants are believed to have escaped across the mountains into Iran. Among them, U.S. officials believe, was Zarqawi. Until the Jordanian Embassy bombing, U.S. intelligence sources said they still thought Zarqawi might be in Iran, though they did not believe that he was one of several high-ranking Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden�s son Saad, captured by Iran and being held (the Iranians claim) for trial.
U.S. officials still have little fix on Zarqawi�s whereabouts or what kind of operational and support network he might have in Baghdad. They say he is a suspect in the attack on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad because Zarqawi and his group have sworn to oust the current government of Jordan and replace it with an Islamic regime, giving them an obvious motive.
Still, even two weeks after the embassy attack, U.S. officials concede they have little hard evidence of who was behind it. And they say that it is also possible that Zarqawi was not involved in the attack, and that instead it was carried out by Baathist remnants, or even remnants of Ansar al-Islam who somehow infiltrated their way back into Iraq. Another possibility: that Zarqawi teamed up with Ansar al-Islam fighters to carry out the attack.
Zarqawi or Ansar al-Islam are also high on the list of possible suspects in Wednesday�s attack on the U.N.�s Baghdad operation. And intelligence sources say that the CIA believes that an audiotape by Al Qaeda �spokesman� Abdelrahman Al-Najdi which surfaced this week, in which Najdi promised more jihadi fighters would be heading for Baghdad (and also declared that bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar were alive and in good health) was probably authentic, though the agency is not positive.
So why weren�t U.S. and British officials willing to admit until now that jihadists could be at work in Iraq? Were they worried about public perception of chaos? Or are the theories of terrorists on the loose simply a convenient cover story as Iraq moves closer toward outright hostility against Coalition forces? Nobody was willing to say.
BLAIR�S CONTINUING �SEX� SCANDAL
Tony Blair�s British government has had no end of grief over a claim, in an intelligence �dossier� made public last September, that Saddam�s chemical and biological weapons could be readied for use within 45 minutes. The same claim made it into at least one of President Bush�s radio addresses, even though CIA analysts did not believe the information, and, according to a source close to the agency, would have cautioned the White House to steer clear had it asked for guidance.
After the BBC reported in May that some intelligence officials believed Blair�s office had used the 45-minute claim to �sex up� the published dossier in order to marshal political support for a war to oust Saddam, the British government launched a witch hunt for the source of news leaks to the BBC. During the course of its search for the leaker, David Kelly, a government expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction who over the years had spoken on background to many journalists, including BBC reporters, was publicly fingered as the main source for the BBC�s �sexing up� allegation. Shortly after appearing before a parliamentary committee to deny he was the BBC�s main source, Kelly apparently committed suicide, forcing Blair to order a public inquiry into his death.
That inquiry, conducted in public by a British law lord, is already producing some embarrassments for both of the main antagonists. Witness testimony and documentary evidence suggests that not all BBC journalists felt comfortable with the �sexing up� allegation. Supervisors of the BBC reporter who initially reported the charge believed that his story could have been worded better and that he should be supervised much more closely in the future.
But documents dumped into the record by the inquiry team also raise new questions about the validity of the Blair government�s information about Saddam�s weapons capabilities. British intelligence sources initially told journalists that the 45-minute claim came from a high-ranking source still in place inside the Iraqi military. But the judicial inquiry last week made public a briefing note, apparently prepared by the Foreign Office for use by government spokesmen, which seemed to admit that the data did not come directly from an Iraqi military source but rather from a third party who was in touch with the Iraqi military source.
�� It came from a reliable and established source, quoting a well-placed senior officer,� the briefing note says, referring to the 45-minute claim. According to the briefing note, �against the background of other reporting at the time, the reporting was assessed as credible.�
Nonetheless, the apparent acknowledgement that the 45-minute claim was based on intelligence hearsay has certainly not enhanced the declining credibility of Blair�s government. By contrast, the Bush White House appears to have faced little consequence, even though it repeated the same claim without checking it with the CIA.
� 2003 Newsweek, Inc