The Hutton Inquiry

[Guest DeputyHawk]

while i don't think this investigation is quite the british watergate that some over-eager media types have been building it up to be, i'm curious as to what, if anything, will come out of the whole affair.

 

there seems little doubt that geoff hoon will take the fall for leaking out david kelly's name, but the much more interesting issue lies with establishing if the iraq dossier was indeed tampered with in order to persuade parliament to back the war.

 

alastair campbell has previously claimed the 45-minute warning was already in the dossier when he gave it an initial read-through last september. this has only until now been disputed by kelly, who's now dead. richard ottway of the foreign affairs committe has now come straight out and said he believes campbell is lying about having no knowledge of the insertion or how it got there.

 

it's already proven the document was retitled Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction as modified from the original Iraq's Programme For Weapons of Mass Destruction, which insinuates no such weapons actually exist.

 

even if it's proven the government did change the dossier, do you really think it will have an effect? bring down the government? end tony blair's tenure? hoon's going to go over kelly, campbell's leaving anyway, i can see blair being able to distance himself from all of this, even though he would obviously have known it was occuring.

 

while the removal of saddam was implicitly a Good Thing, the fact remains that - if guilty - the prime minister effectively tricked parliament and public into approving a war which no one wanted.

 

that's a fuck of a precedent to leave unpunished, but i can't see (or even at this time really want)anything else happening over it. strange times for old blighty.

[Zorin Industries 0]

http://media.guardian.co.uk/huttoninquiry/...1021074,00.html

 

Looks like this is getting close and close to Blair, if he does survive this (and he problely will) I think the last of his crediablity will be shot.

[Zorin Industries 0]

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/...1020592,00.html

 

Good article here on the reporting of the Hutton Inquiry by the press

[Guest DeputyHawk]

good reads zorin, cheers for the links. i will comment on them later, though i fear you may be the only person to respond to the topic, as was the case last time this came up.

 

this board needs more brits interested in politics. represent, r2dfooster mcsockman!

[Zorin Industries 0]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3170593.stm

 

Dr David Kelly told a UK diplomat he would probably be "found dead in the woods" if the UK invaded Iraq, the Hutton inquiry has heard.

 

Diplomat David Broucher said the scientist made what he regarded as a "throwaway remark" in February.

 

It was only when he heard that Dr Kelly had been found dead in Oxfordshire woodland last month that Mr Broucher thought the comment might be more significant.

 

I'll go out on a limb here and say the media MAY be all over this by tonight

[Guest DeputyHawk]

the 'dead in the woods' thing was just an admission he would probably commit suicide, not an indication of anything more sinister (ie murder), i don't think.

 

however, i'm actually starting to think this whole mess could be tony's downfall. i'm sure he'll find some way out of it as usual but the link below is making me very much look forward to wednesday. looks like hoon is going to refuse to take the bullet for the good of the government. oh dear. if i were old 'buff', i wouldn't be taking any walks in the woods over the next three days. just to be on the safe side.

 

http://www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=932192003

[Guest DeputyHawk]

today in court:

 

ardal o'hanlon stars as geoff 'father dougal' hoon

 

prosecution: did you release the name to the press

hoon: no, ted.

prosecution: but you did though.

hoon: oh right...

[Mystery Eskimo 0]

today in court:

 

ardal o'hanlon stars as geoff 'father dougal' hoon

 

prosecution: did you release the name to the press

hoon: no, ted.

prosecution: but you did though.

hoon: oh right...

 

It is getting to those levels of farce.

 

Tony will survive though. He's made of teflon. People will say they don't trust him, but he'll still win the next election easily.

 

It's almost enough to make you join the Liberals.

[Guest The Hamburglar]

Wooo! Fuck off Alistair you lying piece of toss. Be interesting to see how Tony does from now on. Without his bestest friend to protect him I predict that within a year or two Gordon Brown will have handily knifed him in the back and nicked the Prime Ministership. Oh, and its got to be almost a certainty that the next election will either be a Labour Victory with huge Liberal gains or just simply an unbelievably low turn-out. British politics, eh? We've got fucking no-one of any merit to vote for. How positively American of us. Oh wait, the Germans, the French and the Italians are all run by tossers too. Go democracy, yay.

[Guest DeputyHawk]

indeed, with such voter mistrust and apathy never has there been a more perfect time for a hardline military coup. wasn't the head honcho brit out in the gulf called michael jackson? ee-hee! i'd support him.

[Austin3164life 0]

In the age of information, both the US and the British governments' faults and blunders will be revealed more and more. Now, more than ever, it's obvious that both nations went into Iraq not because it posted a supposed threat, but because we wanted to control the Middle East.