to cover this.
UPDATE: It’s 19 November and still not a sniff from the Beeb on this. It’s as clear an example in recent memory of committing bias by omission. Conflicted? What’s to be conficted about if you just ignore it?
I hope the BBC will not be too conflicted
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Sad thing about the memo is that the basic proposition is not all that new. In the days after 9/11, there were reports out of the Czech Republic of meetings between bin Laden cronies and Iraqi intelligence.
I doubt that the Hussein and bin Laden where sitting about a room choosing targets. However, al-Qaeda is not really one organization, it is like the Mafia, a shadowy connection of small groups who know each other. The memo suggests that the Iraqis gave money, contacts, training, etc., to bin Laden supporters.
Yet, for many on the left, unless you have videotape of bin Laden and Hussein teaching Atta how to fly a plane, it will not be enough. And even then, the left would point out that (i) the tape was faked or (ii) bin Laden and Hussein did not actually tell Atta what building to hit, so it was all quite innocent.
“The memo contained reports by US intelligence services, widely lambasted for their incorrect assessment of Iraqi WMDs, showing links between…”
Whaddya think; should I apply for a job at the BBC now or practice more? 😉
Saddam was the largest money-launderer in the world. Why wouldn’t he be involved even indirectly???
PJF,
Well done. You’d have to throw in the fact that Weekly Standard is a neo-conservative publication up front of course.
OFF TOPIC
The Big Read
The BBC are building this into a big budget presentation.
The other week we had John Humphrys flown out to Alabama to talk about “To kill a mockingbird”.
Humphreys used our funds to pen an anti-Blair article for his Sunday Times column.
Yesterday John Sargeant went one better. He gor a round the world trip to talk about “Catch 22”. He filmed in Vietnam & Washington. You may wonder what these 2 locations have got to do with “Catch 22”. The answer is that Sargeant wanted to indulge his anti-US sentiments.
Anyone not familiar with “Catch 22” would have been left with the impression that it was written about the Vietnam war & that Yossarian was dropping napalm on Vietnamese children (you will be familiar with the heartrending archive film).
A visit to Washington was necessary to remind us about Dr King. Not much to do with “Catch 22” but everything to remind us that the US is a racist nation.
Jim –
1) I think you’ll find Humphreys used Murdoch’s funds to write his anti-Blair Times piece…
2) Of course, none out of Washington bureaucracy, US military adventurism, or racism are features in Catch 22. Oh wait, they’re some of the book’s main points.
Thanks for playing.
1)I think you’ll find that Humphrys will spout anti-US opinion whether he’s paid to or not- even on Mastermind I’ve caught him at it. Whether the windbag deserves to be a senior Beeb reporter is a related issue- don’t forget that Rod Liddell resigned as Today editor over his anti-countryside march newspaper article in the Guardian.
2)The Weekly Standard may be neo-con (whatever that means) but it also aspires to a standard or investigative journalism that many other publications never come close to. I’ve followed the Hayes stories (this is just a furtherance of previous stuff) and I’m backing Hayes to come out on top.
3)Vietnam’s also found its way conspicuously onto the BBC website this week (a little more mutedly onto CNN too), and it seems to be used with suggestive frequency by BBC journalists in general at the moment. What of that? Great minds think alike. On the other hand, wait a minute…