Lord Butler: the man who will investigate (WMD enquiry: britain)

[legin]

snip>>

His record as the former head of the civil service shows that he consistently showed deference to those in power. During the height of the Conservative sleaze scandals of the 1990s, Sir Robin, as he then was, chose to believe the dishonest arms sales minister Jonathan Aitken and attacked journalists who were investigating him.

He followed this up by defending Whitehall deceit during the Scott inquiry into covert arms sales to Iraq. During that investigation too, he went out of his way to attack the media for undermining "our system of government" by what he called "grossly distorted and prejudicial allegations".

<<snip>>

In the midst of the Aitken row, in September 1994, John Major, then prime minister, summoned Sir Robin and asked him also to investigate as yet unpublished allegations of bribe-taking against Neil Hamilton.

Sir Robin delayed for a fortnight before questioning Hamilton, and gave him advance notice of his intentions. Mr Hamilton told an untrue story of the way he had become involved with Mohamed Al Fayed, owner of Harrods and payer of the bribes. Sir Robin failed to investigate what turned out to be a crucial question - whether Hamilton had any financial relationship with Mr Fayed's lobbyist.

<<snip>>

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1140406,00.html

Pure whitewash, not even bothering with the charade that it will be anything else.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Is he also one of those guys...

From the Monty Python "Upperclass Twits" skit? ;-)

[Spentastic]

2. It's getting quite amusing

In a tragic way. The BBC are obviously fully fucked off with Blair. Last night's report on the enquiry was really biting.

"Lord Butler's approach to the Aitken enquiry was to ask Mr Aitken if he'd done anything wrong, he said "no" and Lord Butler said "O.K then"."

That was the night after they blatantly took the piss out of Bush's "we need to know what we were supposed to be thinking" quote.

[T_i_B]

4. And then there's the WMD story

That's getting big traction in the UK press.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=487557

The intelligence official whose revelations stunned the Hutton inquiry has suggested that not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

As Mr Blair set up an inquiry yesterday into intelligence failures before the war, Brian Jones, the former leading expert on WMD in the Ministry of Defence, declared that Downing Street's dossier, a key plank in convincing the public of the case for war, was "misleading" on Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological capability. Writing in today's Independent, Dr Jones, who was head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) until he retired last year, reveals that the experts failed in their efforts to have their views reflected.

Dr Jones was the man whose decision to give evidence electrified the Hutton inquiry as he disclosed that he had formally complained about the dossier. The Government attempted to dismiss his complaints as part of the normal process of "debate" within the DIS and claimed that other sections of the intelligence community were better qualified to assess the 45-minute and chemical production claims.

But today Dr Jones makes clear that he was not alone and declares that the whole of the Defence Intelligence Staff, Britain's best qualified analysts on WMD, agreed that the claims should have been "carefully caveated". Furthermore, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which allowed the contentious claims to go into the dossier, lacked the expertise to make a competent judgement on them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=345964

[Democat]

3. The U.S. investigation will be the same

Bush will probably appoint his mom and dad to investigate.

[Another Bill C.]

5. The master of the brush.

Anyone who follows British actions in Northern Ireland can tell you that the British government is the true master of the whitewash brush. In this case, they'll probably find that all culpability falls on the late Mr. Kelly.

[legin]

6. Somebody told me about an article

in which it was being discussed what would have happened if Lord Hutton had been in charge of the enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic.

It wouldn't have been the captain's fault (for obvious reasons). Nor the crew. Definatly not the iceberg's fault. It was the passengers fault (they were over-weight or something).

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

10. Enter the Guardian "Huttonise History" competition!

Lord Hutton published his findings from the inquiry into the death of scientist David Kelly last week.His report went down fairly well with Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell, but left Greg Dyke distinctly unimpressed, while some sections of the media denounced it as a "whitewash".

How might other historic events have benefited from the "Hutton treatment"? What would the great man have made of the charge of the Light Brigade, for example, or Bill Clinton's encounter with Monica Lewinsky?

If you can "Huttonise" an episode in history in 150 words or less, you could earn one of 10 copies of the Guardian's new book, The Hutton Inquiry and its Impact, and save yourself £7.99.

Send entries to: [e-mail]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/hutton/story/0,13822,1140160,00.html

[legin]

7. Dupe n/t

[T_i_B]

8. Terry Jones on Emperor Blair's new clothes

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=486587

Lord Hutton has finally published his long-awaited report into the Emperor's New Clothes. Speculation in the media that the Emperor has been walking around stark naked for the past few months has finally been put to rest. Lord Hutton concludes that not only has there been no duplicity whatsoever on the part of the manufacturers of the clothes, but that there has been no hint of gullibility on the part of the Emperor or any of his ministers, officers of state or indeed anyone associated with the Emperor.

Indeed Lord Hutton goes on to stress that it is perfectly obvious for all to see that the Emperor's New Clothes are of excellent workmanship, that they have been cut to fit the Emperor perfectly and that they are made of the very finest materials - including top quality satin with rare silk linings and intricate lace cuffs. The colours, he says, are remarkable

Singled out for particular criticism in the report is a small child who claimed that he could see the Emperor as naked as the day that he was born. Lord Hutton states that the child had no factual evidence for making this statement, and that the claim amounted to a "very grave" attack upon the credibility and dignity of the Emperor and, indeed, upon all his ministers of state and advisers. In future no small children should be allowed to make unsubstantiated statements of fact detrimental to the Emperor that are not based on solid research and verified by a parliamentary sub-committee and by at least two law lords nominated by the Emperor.

Reaction to Lord Hutton's report has been divided. The Emperor's staff are said to be ecstatic, and the Emperor himself has stated that "the lie that I was walking around without any clothes on has now been proved to be the real lie". Outside the Emperor's immediate circle, however, some fear that the long-term effect of Lord Hutton's work may be to bring into disrepute the whole system of public inquiries and to reduce to a laughing stock the idea of getting an elderly law lord to turn a serious and important matter of public debate into an all-out attack on the Emperor's critics.

[truthspeaker]

9. is anyone else singing Monty Python's "Brave Sir Robin" as they read this?

Brave Sir Robin ran away,
Bravely ran away, away.
When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly, he chickened out. Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin.

He is packing it in and packing it up
And sneaking away and buggering up
And chickening out and pissing off home,
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge.

from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", of course. Lyrics from here.