emc
July 23, 2003, 09:54 AM
Wall St. Journal Editorial - July 21, 2003
The Campaign to Bring Down Blair
If history doesn't go your way, rewrite it. That's the way demagogues have operated through the ages and, while it seldom works in the long term, it can succeed in the short run, where elections are won and lost. This strategy is now being fully deployed on both sides of the Atlantic in an attempt to nullify the victory in Iraq.
In Britain, the battle to erase the war's gains has so far succeeded better than in the U.S., where scandal-hungry media are obsessed with half-baked accusations on yellowcake. Tony Blair is more exposed than President Bush in large part because the British Prime Minister's foes have a powerful megaphone; it's called the British Broadcasting Corporation.
It's not every day that a government is caught in a life-and-death struggle with a state broadcaster. What started as tendentious BBC reporting before and during the war has turned, in its aftermath, into what can only be comprehended as a campaign to bring down Mr. Blair. Last week, this clash claimed an unintended victim with the suicide of a Defense Ministry adviser who was the source on which the BBC based one of its most controversial claims. This tragic event is already looming as the biggest crisis in Mr. Blair's seven-year-old government.
Dr. David Kelly, a microbiologist, was by all accounts an honest, straightforward scientist who took seriously the threat of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein. When Mr. Blair's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, took issue with a report by the BBC's Andrew Gilligan that he had "sexed up" intelligence reports, and challenged the broadcaster in public, Dr. Kelly came forward and informed his bosses that he had met with Mr. Gilligan.
But Dr. Kelly denied having told the reporter that Mr. Campbell had inserted, against the wishes of the intelligence services, unreliable evidence that Saddam had the ability to deploy WMDs toward the British Isles within 45 minutes. In fact, Dr. Kelly told a parliamentary investigating committee in testimony two days before his death, "from the conversation I had, I don't see how [the BBC reporter] could make the authoritative statements he was making from the comments I made."
For days Mr. Gilligan insisted on his reporter's right not to reveal his source, a point we understand. But yesterday the BBC finally fessed up and admitted that, yes, Dr. Kelly had been the source of what it continues to maintain was an accurate report. Dr. Kelly's testimony, however, clearly indicates that the BBC story misrepresented what he told the reporter. In that light, it was the BBC that "sexed up" its reports and then refused for days to set the record straight.
The Prime Minister would not be half as beleaguered were his enemies all arrayed on the left. But the Conservatives, smelling blood early on, have joined the BBC-led chorus questioning whether the government exaggerated intelligence claims on Iraq. And they have their own media megaphones, the highbrow Daily Telegraph and the tabloid Daily Mail among them. The latter on Saturday grotesquely ran a headline with the story about the Kelly suicide that read "Proud of Yourselves?" above photographs over Messrs. Blair, Campbell and Defense Minister Geoff Hoon. Mr. Bush can thank his lucky stars that he does not have problems of this magnitude.
We believe Britons will be able to make up their own minds about this affair, Mr. Blair and Iraq no matter how the BBC spins events. It would also be a good moment to consider privatizing the BBC , which is funded by a $180-a-year license fee that every Briton who owns a television set is required to pay whether or not he watches BBC channels.
In any event, Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush can have the satisfaction of knowing they have liberated 25 million Iraqis and removed a terrible threat to the rest of civilization. Whatever the short term deals them in politics, history will take this view.
The Campaign to Bring Down Blair
If history doesn't go your way, rewrite it. That's the way demagogues have operated through the ages and, while it seldom works in the long term, it can succeed in the short run, where elections are won and lost. This strategy is now being fully deployed on both sides of the Atlantic in an attempt to nullify the victory in Iraq.
In Britain, the battle to erase the war's gains has so far succeeded better than in the U.S., where scandal-hungry media are obsessed with half-baked accusations on yellowcake. Tony Blair is more exposed than President Bush in large part because the British Prime Minister's foes have a powerful megaphone; it's called the British Broadcasting Corporation.
It's not every day that a government is caught in a life-and-death struggle with a state broadcaster. What started as tendentious BBC reporting before and during the war has turned, in its aftermath, into what can only be comprehended as a campaign to bring down Mr. Blair. Last week, this clash claimed an unintended victim with the suicide of a Defense Ministry adviser who was the source on which the BBC based one of its most controversial claims. This tragic event is already looming as the biggest crisis in Mr. Blair's seven-year-old government.
Dr. David Kelly, a microbiologist, was by all accounts an honest, straightforward scientist who took seriously the threat of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein. When Mr. Blair's director of communications, Alastair Campbell, took issue with a report by the BBC's Andrew Gilligan that he had "sexed up" intelligence reports, and challenged the broadcaster in public, Dr. Kelly came forward and informed his bosses that he had met with Mr. Gilligan.
But Dr. Kelly denied having told the reporter that Mr. Campbell had inserted, against the wishes of the intelligence services, unreliable evidence that Saddam had the ability to deploy WMDs toward the British Isles within 45 minutes. In fact, Dr. Kelly told a parliamentary investigating committee in testimony two days before his death, "from the conversation I had, I don't see how [the BBC reporter] could make the authoritative statements he was making from the comments I made."
For days Mr. Gilligan insisted on his reporter's right not to reveal his source, a point we understand. But yesterday the BBC finally fessed up and admitted that, yes, Dr. Kelly had been the source of what it continues to maintain was an accurate report. Dr. Kelly's testimony, however, clearly indicates that the BBC story misrepresented what he told the reporter. In that light, it was the BBC that "sexed up" its reports and then refused for days to set the record straight.
The Prime Minister would not be half as beleaguered were his enemies all arrayed on the left. But the Conservatives, smelling blood early on, have joined the BBC-led chorus questioning whether the government exaggerated intelligence claims on Iraq. And they have their own media megaphones, the highbrow Daily Telegraph and the tabloid Daily Mail among them. The latter on Saturday grotesquely ran a headline with the story about the Kelly suicide that read "Proud of Yourselves?" above photographs over Messrs. Blair, Campbell and Defense Minister Geoff Hoon. Mr. Bush can thank his lucky stars that he does not have problems of this magnitude.
We believe Britons will be able to make up their own minds about this affair, Mr. Blair and Iraq no matter how the BBC spins events. It would also be a good moment to consider privatizing the BBC , which is funded by a $180-a-year license fee that every Briton who owns a television set is required to pay whether or not he watches BBC channels.
In any event, Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush can have the satisfaction of knowing they have liberated 25 million Iraqis and removed a terrible threat to the rest of civilization. Whatever the short term deals them in politics, history will take this view.