Hutton
Gavyn's gone, but will he be the last? Having now read the report in a bit more detail I have to say I find it a bit odd in places, in particularly there's lots of this kind of thing, where Hutton raises the possibility of government wrong doing, but a bit like a doting parent, immediately says he doesn't believe it."As the dossier was one to be presented to, and read by, Parliament and the public, and was not an intelligence assessment to be considered only by the Government, I do not consider that it was improper for Mr Scarlett and the JIC to take into account suggestions as to drafting made by 10 Downing Street and to adopt those suggestions if they were consistent with the intelligence available to the JIC. However I consider that the possibility cannot be completely ruled out that the desire of the Prime Minister to have a dossier which, whilst consistent with the available intelligence, was as strong as possible in relation to the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's WMD, may have subconsciously influenced Mr Scarlett and the other members of the JIC to make the wording of the dossier somewhat stronger than it would have been if it had been contained in a normal JIC assessment. Although this possibility cannot be completely ruled out, I am satisfied that Mr Scarlett, the other members of the JIC, and the members of the assessment staff engaged in the drafting of the dossier were concerned to ensure that the contents of the dossier were consistent with the intelligence available to the JIC."
Overall though it completely clears Mr Blair, and I expect there will be a lot of apologies from the BBC, Michael Howard and others who have been throwing allegations around.
Update: Greg Dyke has said this in a memo to all BBC staff 'The BBC does accept that certain key allegations reported by Andrew Gilligan on the Today programme on May 29 last year were wrong and we apologise for them. However, we would point out again that at no stage in the last eight months have we accused the Prime Minister of lying and have said this publicly on several occasions.'
posted by Matthew @ 1/28/2004 04:50:00 PM
Comments: 0
