Butler II
Contrary to my pessimistic expectations Lord Butler’s report was not a Brian Hutton ‘see no evil’ where it came to the government’s conduct.Hampered though he was by his remit Butler has proved – insofar as a report can ever prove anything – that the government’s September dossier, whilst not the ‘complete horlicks’ that their February dossier was to be, was essentially ‘sexed up’. Furthermore when the PM said that the intelligence contained in it had established ‘beyond doubt’ the existence of Saddam’s weapons etc etc he was not telling the truth.
There’s an amusing pretence now on the part of those who support the war and support Blair (WarBlairer's? or Starters?) to suggest that the September dossier was irrelevant to the case for war, only made a stir for a few days and then was forgotten. This is similar to the attempt they made over the dreadful February dossier (if you have forgotten basically the Foreign Secretary, Alistair Campbell and unknown others cut and pasted (with a few embellishments, naturally) a decade old doctorial thesis), where they pretended it had only gone to a few journalists hence didn’t matter.
As an argument it doesn’t wash. These are some of the newspaper headlines the day after the publication of the September dossier.
Dossier reveals Iraq can attack in 45 minutes - The Daily Telegraph
Missiles fire in 45 minutes - The Times
Brits 45 mins from doom - Sun
Mad Saddam set to attack; 45 minutes from a chemical attack - Daily Star
If you believe those had no effect on public opinion then ok, but let’s not hear anything about the power of the press in other fields.
Thus we know now that this dossier was stripped of all the caveats and warnings that were originally associated with the intelligence. We don’t know – as it wasn’t part of Butler’s remit – why or how or who. Nevertheless a revealing insight comes from the comment from Jonathan Powell, a week prior to release, who said, “Alastair, what will be the headline in the Standard on the day of publication?",
It’s hard not to agree with Kenneth Clark, who said, “Can you think of any explanation for the removal of all the caveats and doubts … other than that John Scarlett had been persuaded by your press secretary and others to remove all the cautionary words and stiffen up the case”.
Nevertheless it’s probably time to move on. The PM is clearly damaged goods and as Michael Howard said yesterday the country is not likely to trust him on any foreign wars in the country. But that hardly seems like a bad thing. Furthermore there is a real danger that this government could lose the next election and despite many of the Tories attractive policies – higher spending on pensions, education and health and lower spending on defence and law & order – they don’t present a credible or attractive opposition.
posted by Matthew @ 7/15/2004 08:13:00 AM
Comments: 0
