Judge defends Iraq report against whitewash claim (Hutton report)

[Barrett808]

LONDON (AFP) - A senior British judge has for the first time in more than two years defended his report into the causes of the death of a confidential source in a report which claimed the government had "sexed up" its dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Lord Brian Hutton published his report into the suicide of David Kelly, a government weapons expert, in January 2004, absolving Prime Minister

Tony Blair of wrongdoing but made a scathing attack on the BBC.

Kelly was the previously unidentified source in a BBC radio report in May 2003 claiming that Britain had "sexed up" intelligence reports on Iraq in order to strengthen the case for going to war.

He committed suicide in July.

According to Hutton, writing in the journal Public Law, if he had "delivered a report highly critical of the government in terms which conformed to the hopes of some commentators I have no doubt that it would have received much praise."

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061102/wl_afp/britainmilitarydefenceiraqinquiry

[SoftUnderbelly]

1. it was a whitewash

i should probably go back to refresh my memory of the exact details but i remember clearly at the time that an enormous amount of people in this country simply could not believe the conclusions hutton drew.

[Kagemusha]

2. Hutton's POV is, our leaders are in the right - they said so, after all!

That's pretty much all you need to know. To be honest I found the circular logic in his argument to be rather shockingly thin. He swerves at the last moment at the end of long paragraphs to avoid total linguistic absurdity and make his arguments sound maybe a tiny bit plausible but.. it's sound and fury, signifying nothing.