The sands in the hourglass are finite, and dwindling.
We are in a race against time. The US body politic has
to be cleansed of the Bush Cabal, and the coup of 2000
has to be reversed, or before too long...even the
sources of information overseas, which we rely on here
in Orwell's America, will be compromised...
Greg Palast: He did not say, "hello," or even his name, just left a one-word message: "Whitewash." It came from an embattled journalist whispering from inside the bowels of a television and radio station under siege, on a small island off the coast of Ireland: from BBC London. And another call, from a colleague at the Guardian: "The future of British journalism is very bleak."
Break the Bush Cabal's Stranglehold on the US News
Media, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush
(again!)
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=311&row=0
BBC AT WAR: M'LORD HUTTON BLESSES BLAIR'S ATTACK ON BBC'S INVESTIGATION OF IRAQ WAR CLAIMS
By Greg Palast
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
He did not say, "hello," or even his name, just left a
one-word message: "Whitewash." It came from an
embattled journalist whispering from inside the bowels
of a television and radio station under siege, on a
small island off the coast of Ireland: from BBC
London. And another call, from a colleague at the
Guardian: "The future of British journalism is very
bleak."
However, the future for fake and farcical war
propaganda is quite bright indeed. Today, Lord Hutton
issued his report that followed an inquiry revealing
the Blair government's manipulation of
intelligence to claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons
of mass murder threatening imminent attack on London.
Based on the Blair government's claim, headlines
pumped the war hysteria: SADDAM COULD HAVE NUCLEAR
BOMB IN YEAR, screeched the London Times. BRITS 45
MINS FROM DOOM, shrieked the Sun newspaper.
Given these facts only a sissy pacifist, a lunatic or
a Saddam fellow traveler would fail to see that Prime
Minister "Winston" Blair had no choice but to
re-conquer it's former Mesopotamian colony.
But these headlines were, in fact, false, and deadly
so. Unlike America's press puppies, BBC reporters
thought it their duty to check out these life or death
claims. Reporters Andrew Gilligan
and Susan Watts contacted a crucial source, Britain's
and the United Nation's top weapons inspector. He told
reporter Watts that the Weapons of Mass Destruction
claims by Blair and our own
President Bush were, "all spin." Gilligan went
further, reporting that this spin, this "sexed up"
version of intelligence, was the result of
interventions by Blair's PR henchman, Alistair
Campbell.
Whatever reading of the source's statements, it was
clear that intelligence experts had deep misgivings
about the strength of the evidence for war.
The source? Dr. David Kelly. To save itself after the
reports by Gilligan and Watts, the government,
including the Prime Minister himself, went on an
internal crusade to out the name of
its own intelligence operative so it could then
discredit the news items.
Publishing the name of an intelligence advisor is
serious stuff. In the USA, a special criminal
prosecutor is now scouring the White House to find the
person who publicly named a CIA agent. If
found, the Bushite leaker faces jail time.
Blair's government was not so crude as to give out Dr.
Kelly's name. Rather, they hit on a subterfuge of
dropping clues then allowing reporters to play '20
questions' - if Kelly's name were
guessed, they'd confirm it. Only the thickest
reporters (I name none here) failed after more than a
couple tries.
Dr. Kelly, who had been proposed for knighthood was
named, harangued and his career destroyed by the
outing. He then took his own life.
But today is not a day of mourning at 10 Downing
Street, rather a day of self-congratulations.
There were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear
warheads just short of completion, no "45 minutes to
doom" bombs auguring a new London blitz. The exile
group which supplied this raw claim
now calls the 45 minute story, "a crock of shit."
Yet Blair's minions are proclaiming their vindication.
This is not just a story about what is happening "over
there" in the United Kingdom. This we must remember:
David Kelly was not only advisor to the British but to
the UN and, by extension, the
expert for George W. Bush. Our commander-in-chief
leaped to adopt the Boogey Man WMD stories from the
Blair government when our own CIA was reticent.
So M'Lord Hutton has killed the messenger: the BBC.
Should the reporter Gilligan have used more cautious
terms? Some criticism is fair. But the extraordinary
import of his and Watts' story is
forgotten: our two governments bent the information
then hunted down the questioners.
And now the second invasion of the Iraq war proceeds:
the conquest of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Until now, this quasi-governmental outlet has refused
to play Izvestia to any prime minister, Labour or
Tory.
As of today, the independence of the most independent
major network on this planet is under attack. Blair's
government is "cleared" and now arrogantly sport their
kill, the head of Gavyn Davies, BBC's chief, who
resigned today.
"The bleak future for British journalism" portends
darkness for journalists everywhere - the threat to
the last great open platform for hard investigative
reporting. And frankly, it's a worrisome
day for me. I'm not a disinterested by-stander. My
most important investigations, all but banned from US
airwaves, were developed and broadcast by BBC
Newsnight, reporter Watts' program.
Will an iron curtain descend on the news? Before dawn
today, I was reading Churchill's words to the French
command in the hours before as the Panzers breached
the defenses of Paris. Churchill
told those preparing to surrender, "Whatever you may
do, we shall fight on forever and ever and ever." This
may yet be British journalism's Finest Hour.
*****
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times
bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His
reports for BBC Newsnight and The Guardian papers and
other writings may be viewed at
www.GregPalast.com.
Join Greg, Janeane Garafalo, Tom Tomorrow, and others
for the launching of the Greg Palast Non-Profit
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