Monthly Archives: September 2003

says that only when we lose the BBC will we realise what we have lost. Not so. I know perfectly well I will miss this blog. Come the glorious day all the B-BBC posters will feel some of the emptiness that must have touched Carl Bernstein’s soul when he realised that, truly, he no longer had Nixon to kick around any more. With Othello we will bid farewell to the pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war and lament that our occupation’s gone. I may even find a little tear trickling down my cheek as I take my £116 to the bank.

The theme of Tom Carver’s advocacy piece seems to be his wish that Americans would be as distrustful of George as Brits are of Tony. Here’s how the teaser on the front page reads (at the time of writing)–

“Case for war: Why has Bush escaped anger facing Blair over intelligence on Iraq?”

And here’s the caption (at the time of writing) under President Bush giving the State of the Union speech to Congress–

Some of Bush’s claims have been disputed, but there is no US inquiry

Is the BBCi caption writer hoping for an American version of the Hutton proceedings? Sadly, for the BBC at least, there is no such inquiry in the USA.

Carver raises the usual arguments against the overthrow of Saddam (no WMD found, unwarranted claims of uranium purchases from Africa, etc.). Conveniently, there is no mention of the barbarity of the Baathist ‘thugocracy’ and its use of chemical weapons on its own people along with some thirty years of a human rights nightmare. It would be educational for Mr Carver to simply read Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview on NBC’s Meet the Press which aired yesterday. What does Cheney say about these ‘uranium in Africa’ charges? Here’s his answer to the interviewer, Tim Russert.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I guess the intriguing thing, Tim, on the whole thing, this question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa. In the British report, this week, the Committee of the British Parliament, which just spent 90 days investigating all of this, revalidated their British claim that Saddam was, in fact, trying to acquire uranium in Africa.

And later-

MR. RUSSERT: If they [intelligence assessments about Iraq WMD’s] were wrong, Mr. Vice President, shouldn’t we have a wholesale investigation into the intelligence failure that they predicted…

VICE PRES. CHENEY: What failure?

MR. RUSSERT: That Saddam had biological, chemical and is developing a nuclear program.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: My guess is in the end, they’ll be proven right, Tim. On the intelligence business, first of all, it’s intelligence. There are judgments involved in all of this. But we’ve got, I think, some very able people in the intelligence business that review the material here. This was a crucial subject. It was extensively covered for years. We’re very good at it. As I say, the British just revalidated their claim. So I’m not sure what the argument is about here. I think in the final analysis, we will find that the Iraqis did have a robust program. How do you explain why Saddam Hussein, if he had no program, wouldn’t come clean and say, “I haven’t got a program. Come look”? Then he would have sanctions lifted. He’d earned $100 billion more in oil revenue over the last several years. He’d still be in power. The reason he didn’t was because obviously he couldn’t comply and wouldn’t comply with the U.N. resolutions demanding that he give up his WMD. The Security Council by a 15-to-nothing vote a year ago found him still in violation of those U.N. Security Council resolutions. A lot of the reporting isn’t U.S. reporting. It’s U.N. reporting on the supplies and stocks of VX and nerve agent and anthrax and so forth that he’s never accounted for. So I say I’m not willing at all at this point to buy the proposition that somehow Saddam Hussein was innocent and he had no WMD and some guy out at the CIA, because I called him, cooked up a report saying he did. That’s crazy. That makes no sense. It bears no resemblance to reality whatsoever.

Carver’s article (on BBCi at this writing) uses the subheading “Hoax” when discussing the issue of uranium in Africa and the aluminium tubes cited by Colin Powell, quite a serious and unsubstantiated charge. To quote Carver–

That was mentioned by the president in his State of the Union speech in January, which the White House now admits was based on a hoax.

It would have been good of Carver to point us to the relevant admission by the White House. Just as Gilligan seems to have done with Dr. Kelly’s off-the-record chats, such an admission would be difficult to pull out of thin air. The Hutton inquiry has Dyke in the dock about just this kind of thing. So I ask– Can the BBC change its spinning, spiteful ways?

BBC reporter Stuart Hughes has my sympathy and best wishes for recovery from his landmine injury in Iraq. I’m not very sympathetic, however, toward the BBCi editors who insist on pushing an opinion piece disguised as ‘news’. It may be an analysis but news it ain’t! Hughes writes:

The United States is at the centre of the debate over landmines. The US remains the largest donor to mine clearance projects, giving more than $70 million last year. Even so, the US has slashed its mine action funding in recent years and has yet to conclude a review of landmine policy begun more than two years ago. Washington urgently needs to show leadership by signing up to the mine ban treaty.

Maybe Hughes is right. He is entitled to his opinion. Just give it a proper label.

Sweden had a referendum today on whether to join the Euro. Voting was overshadowed by the murder of Anna Lindh, foreign minister and leading voice of the Yes campaign. The BBC had six quickie quotes from Swedes exiting the polls, clearly gathered before the result was known. How come five out of the six people whose views were quoted had voted Yes? The No campaign led the polls throughout, and in the end won.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some hurried revision of this story. So, just for the record, the people quoted were Per Schonborg, Halldis Hag Andersson, Beatrice Janzon (the sole No), Jon Lagerberg, Annika Schwarts and Roger Charmete.

I listened to the lyrics of this song a couple of weeks ago, as I was heading out the door in the morning. Caught it again today, and looked them up to check. And yes, Black Eyed Peas – Where Is The Love is nuts….

“What’s wrong with the world, mama

People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas

I think the whole world addicted to the drama

Only attracted to things that’ll bring you trauma

Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism

But we still got terrorists here livin’

In the USA, the big CIA”

The CIA are terrorists? This may be chatting about various cold war stuff, in which case we’re in well charted regions of politics, fine, let it slide. But the context makes me feel much more suspicious that we’re talking crack epidemic/September 11th/Oklahoma conspiracy theories

“The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK

….

It just ain’t the same, always unchanged

New days are strange, is the world insane

If love and peace is so strong

Why are there pieces of love that don’t belong

Nations droppin’ bombs

Chemical gasses fillin’ lungs of little ones”

Other than tear gasses etc, which can be dangerous but which don’t come from bombs normally and aren’t intended to be fatal, what chemicals have been used as weapons recently? (I include Russian use of sleeping gas). Last use of chemical weapons I know of by a nation state was by Iraq, over a decade ago…

“With the ongoin’ sufferin’ as the youth die young

So ask yourself is the lovin’ really gone

So I could ask myself really what is goin’ wrong

In this world that we livin’ in people keep on givin’

in

Makin’ wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends

Not respectin’ each other, deny thy brother

A war is goin’ on but the reason’s undercover

The truth is kept secret, it’s swept under the rug….”

Did I mention conspiracy theories?

There’s other stuff in there too that seems a little suspicious. But it strikes me that odd facts and at least hints at conspiracy theories are on the play list at Radio 1 (and I think high in the charts, though the catchiness of the tune may be a factor there….)

In his latest roundup of the EuroPress, Denis Boyles notes the convienient disappearance of that embarrassing Gilligan story.

In London, a parliamentary committee has reported that Andrew Gilligan and the BBC lied when they broadcast the allegation that the Blair government had “sexed up” its claims of Iraqi threats in an effort to convince Britons to go to war. The BBC had staked its reputation on the accuracy of that claim, yet somehow, in the fog of the British press, exemplified by this report in the Guardian, the committee’s findings have morphed from an obvious indictment of the BBC into yet another Blair blunder, with defense chief Geoff Hoon accused of being “potentially misleading” (as opposed to the BBC, which was actually and persistently misleading) and once again left hanging limply in the wind. Poor Hoon could moonlight as an American flag in Paris and get more respect.

In a similar vein, Andrew Sullivan mentions a couple of “Baathist Broadcasting Corporation” stinkbombs.

might support an organisation called “Conservative Soul”, others might not. Either faction can profitably read the organization’s account of how BBC culture is skewed to the left.

has spotted a BBC interviewer (John Pienaar) apparently comparing the Coalition in the recent Iraq war to the Nazis.

To be fair, if Pienaar really has read Anne Frank, he might have intended a more subtle and accurate comparison. I haven’t a copy to hand, but in her diary Anne Frank several times expresses her support and admiration for the Allied bomber crews – even though she was at risk of being bombed herself. So Pienaar might have meant to equate the citizens of Baghdad hiding in cellars from American planes dropping bombs, all the while praying for the bombers to be victorious so that the tyrant Saddam will be overthrown, to the citizens of Amsterdam hiding in cellars (or attics in Anne Frank’s case) from American planes dropping bombs, all the while praying for the bombers to be victorious so that the tyrant Hitler will be overthrown.

He might have meant that.

John Pienaar used to work as a political correspondent for The Independent.

writes:

This is for the “BBC Bias” files. It shows how they rewrite stories

that aren’t sufficiently negative.

This is how the story originally appeared:

Sunday, 7 September, 2003, 03:43 GMT 04:43 UK

Second wave heads for Iraq

Another 50 British troops have flown to Iraq, taking the total number of reinforcements this weekend to more than 100.

Part of the second battalion light infantry based in Cyprus, they landed

at Basra airport at 0330 local time (1230 BST).

Their duties are likely to include guarding oil pipelines in the south

of Iraq.

(etc.)

The way it appears now – exact same URL:

Sunday, 7 September, 2003, 11:58 GMT 12:58 UK

Fears over troops’ training

British troops being sent to Iraq may not be getting the training they

need, the commander of UK soldiers during the first Gulf War has warned.

Major General Sir Patrick Cordingley raised his concerns as 50 extra

soldiers were flown to Iraq – taking the total reinforcements dispatched

this weekend to more than 100.

Then it goes on to quote the inimitable Clare Short, railing on about Dr Kelly.

Evidently the first version was not pessimistic enough.

I have the original version, taken from the BBC site, if you’d like to

see it.

Mike Zorn

Santa Ana CA

of Black Triangle writes:

“Bush has just given his speech, the BBC report it as: Bush vows to defeat Iraq resistance.

“Given that the majority of Iraqi’s do not want the US to leave and the people in the resistance are disguntled hardline Baath party members, or foreigners with their own agenda, then calling them ‘Iraq resistance’ seems a bit biased.

“Surely the real Iraqi resistance are those working with the Americans to make their country democratic.”

For myself, I would find it slightly artificial to call the pro-democracy Iraqis “the resistance” now that Saddam is gone. (While he was in power it would have been the correct term for them both literally and emotionally.) However the use of the term “resistance” with all its glorious anti-Nazi overtones for a bunch of Ba’ath gangsters and foreign fanatics is typical BBC. Typical in that, sure, it could be defended by recourse to the strict meaning of the word – and you can bet they have such a defence ready – but you know and I know and they know that they get a distinct thrill from using that word to describe groups killing Americans. The BBC proclaims with loud self-righteousness that it must take the greatest care to avoid using any word with negative overtones for those who slaughter busloads of civilians. I think it employs equal care in the selection and use a word with positive overtones for those who kill American soldiers and worshippers at a mosque. By “it”, of course, I mean the aggregate mindset of the BBC community: I do not claim there is a policy document telling staff they must use the word “resistance” to describe the remnants of Saddam’s regime. I mean that, quite unprompted, that is the sort of word the sort of person employed by the BBC will use. As Charles Moore is quoted as saying in the post below, BBC bias is a state of mind.