Talk:Hutton Inquiry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Former featured article Hutton Inquiry is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on March 19, 2004.

Contents

[edit] introductory paragraph

The introductory text is way too long. Most of it should be moved into the body text.

I am boldly replacing the current 3 paragraphs, with a single paragraph summary from British political scandals, which I think is nice and short.

[edit] proposed

The suicide of Dr David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry. On 17 July 2003, Kelly, an employee of the Ministry of Defence, committed suicide after being misquoted by BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan as saying that Tony Blair's Labour government had knowingly "sexed up" the "September Dossier", a report into Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. The government was cleared of wrongdoing, while the BBC was strongly criticised by the subsequent inquiry, leading to the resignation of the BBC's chairman and director-general.

[edit] current

The Hutton Inquiry was a British judicial inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton, appointed by the United Kingdom Labour government to investigate the death of a government weapons expert, Dr David Kelly. The inquiry opened in August 2003 and reported on January 28, 2004. Its terms of reference were to "urgently [...] conduct an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. Kelly".

In his report, Hutton began by saying that he was "satisfied that Dr Kelly took his own life". He then concluded that the British Broadcasting Corporation's allegations that the government had knowingly "sexed up" a report into Iraq's weapons of mass destruction — the "September Dossier" — were unfounded. The inquiry's findings prompted the immediate resignation of the BBC's chairman, Gavyn Davies, its Director General (chief executive) Greg Dyke, and the journalist at the centre of the allegations, Andrew Gilligan. Lord Hutton retired as a Law Lord following the report's publication.

An unexplained inconsistency within the Hutton report is that evidence provided to the enquiry by BBC journalist Susan Watts confirmed that Kelly had indeed had serious doubts about the "45 minutes" claim published by the British government, and that he considered the Number 10 press office to be responsible for the inappropriate insertion of this claim into the published dossier on WMD. This was probably one of the reasons why the report was greeted with a wide degree of scepticism by the British public and media. The I still don't see how you can justify the comment that David Kelly committed suicide until the coroner's report is available. I don't think that's what Hutton actually said, and even if it did, surely it's the coroner's inquest report that counts. David Martland 14:16, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hutton said he "was satisfied" that Kelly committed suicide. Is it in any dispute whatsoever? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:17, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Actual quote is the first line of paragraph 467 of the report. "I am satisfied that Dr Kelly took his own life..." Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:27, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The article makes the suicide claim in the "Background" section. I have made a footnote at this point. The other points in the article it is just us reporting Hutton's view so the footnote is not required.

The article refers to three BBC journalists, yet only one is mentioned. This should be checked and verified, and possibly expanded, or alternatively corrected. David Martland 14:24, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There are definitely at least two, Andrew Gilligan and Susan Watts. I have been troubled by the mention of three see I started adding stuff to the article because I have only heard of those two. But hadn't dared to do anything about it until now. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:17, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Got him. The third was Gavin Hewitt, who broadcast it on the Ten o'clock news on 29 May. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:24, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
You mentioned that the Gavin Hewitt link is still red. I have been trying to fill in some of the gaps (e.g., Susan Watts, but Gavin Hewitt (good journalist, I'm sure) doesn't really inspire. and his role in the Kelly Affair/Hutton Inquiry was fairly limited. I'm more concerned about Geoff Hoon who played an important part in the Kelly Affair, has a very brief bio at present. He has also been at the centre of controversy about failings in the supply of key material to the Iraq theatre, which lead to the death of at least one British soldier. Someone should have a crack at bringing his page up to date. Washington irving 09:54, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Yes Geoff Hoon is pretty appalling (the article that is, no comment on the man :-) but it would be a genuine bit of work to do a decent article on him. Gavin Hewitt however was a no-brainer - ain't much to say - and the red link in a sea of blue was getting on my nerves so I got rid of it. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:16, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Date of retirement

The article on Lord Hutton says he retired on January 11. This article says he retired after the release of the report. One must be wrong. Adam 12:01, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Originally this article said "Hutton is set to retire after the publication of the report." which was what the press was saying in August/September time. This got changed in this article so that it fitted in with the report being published. So my guess, but no confirmation, is that Jan 11 was the official date. Course, what exactly this means I am not sure as he hasn't finished his Inquiry work just yet - has yet to appear in front of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee - I guess the Kelly work is distinct from Law Lord work. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:21, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I added it as the 11th, after a report published somewhere on BBC News that said he had retired effective of that day; ISTR that the pre-retirement wording was that (paraphrasing, of course) Hutton was to retire just before the publication of his report...
James F. (talk) 09:17, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

---

I like the picture of Hutton at the top! I think I might add a couple more pictures, nothing too big, but this new thumbnail feature is very convenient. fabiform | talk 23:27, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There is acres of white space to the right of all the pictures, which doesn't look great, at least on my screen. Is it possible to use this new feature in the same way as the old manual way - so that the text fills in wherever available? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:21, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Also re the pictures... sadly I think their use is a little dubious. They are from the BBC, right? There is no mention of their source of their image pages. They are British images uploaded by a British user in an article about British people... these images probably would not be permissible under British law... but we are using US law.. so we are just about getting away with it... but it must be heavily restricting how this article could be re-used... but I really am nowhere near being a lawyer... anyone have any thoughts? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:48, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps you should ask on the pump about this too. I'm no legal expert either, but the things we do must conform to US law, so I saw no reason not to make use of "fair use" as well just because it was useful rather than restrictive. fabiform | talk 09:36, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Actually I just saw that some discussion of this topic is going on at the mailing list. As per current policy and guidelines your actions were absolutely correct, I think. Sorry if I sounded critical - was writing things as they poured out my head :-).
By the way, they aren't all from the BBC, they are from a variety of different sources. And when have I mentioned my nationality? fabiform | talk 09:40, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Must've dreamt it if you haven't mentioned it. Apologies! As for the former point - at least one was from the BBC and I jumped to a conclusion on the others.... all the more reason to cite a source... whether fair use or GFDL or public domain :) Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:26, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Am I the only one who doesn't like the new Thumbnail/enlarge thing? It doesn't look very neat to me. Having the magnifying glass icon in the bottom right of the caption makes it all look lob-sided. Mintguy (T) 08:45, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:48, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I don't mind the look of the new thumbnails, they are a lot easier to put in the page, and you only have to upload the large picture, the thumbnail is generated for you (halving the work required!). (The three-in-a-row I did don't look so good, I agree, if anyone wants to play with them to make them more the same size, and/or remove the "thumb" from the markup... go right ahead, although in that case you'll need to include the captions in the table, etc). fabiform | talk 09:01, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I love the new photo thing, although it is going to greatly increase the number of very large photos people (well me anyway) upload. I hope the servers can cope. Adam 11:41, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Actually pictures are not a big problem - they just bandwidth more than computation power, I believe. The new markup is great, the only bit I didn't like was the magnifying glass. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:18, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I like the thumbnail thing, not so much for the magnifying glass, but because of the border around the pic and caption which sets it nicely apart from the text. Just my humble opinion. The pictures look fine either way.Washington irving 15:05, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This article has just been nominated by Kingturtle on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates.  :) fabiform | talk 08:25, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It is now listed on Wikipedia:Featured articles. fabiform | talk 08:34, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Gilligan's editor not summoned to inquiry?

Although I think this is a great article, there is one later development that seems to be missing. The editor of the Today programme on which Gilligan broadcast his complaints, Kevin Marsh, publicly complained that he had not been summoned to the Hutton Inquiry. (See The Guardian, 8th Feburary 2004, for example. There were articles elsewhere, but I can't find any). I'm not sure how important this is, but I think it's worth a sentence at least

Keep up the good work!

[edit] Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when a few references have been added to the article. - Taxman 18:04, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Alastair Campbell?

Should something be included about the fact that Alastair Campbell resigned from the head of the communications office for Prime Minister Tony Blair on August 29th, 2003, a month after Kelly's death, and soon after the opening of the Hutton inquiry?

Also, it is slightly dissapointing how the media backlash against the Hutton Inquiry is chalked up to partisan politics.

[edit] Sources put on that do NOT support the claim

The sentence "At the conclusion of the Inquiry there was widespread approval of the process conducted by Hutton" is "supported" by a reference to a CNN article that does NOT support this claim if the CNN artilce is read. The article merely describes the process and does not make any qualitative assertions on the matter like the sentence suggests.

I suggest this sentence is completely removed for its biasedness.

In addition, I suggest a more thorough filtering of the sources by us all. We make a big effort to make sure we have sources for the claims but not nearly as much to make sure the reference supports the claim in question. -- joaosaa (talk) 12:08, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree, "At the conclusion of the Inquiry there was widespread approval of the process conducted by Hutton" is a disgrace of a comment. Sounds like Alastair Campbell himself wrote that line. If you read the first source link, it completely conflicts with this statement. I have serious questions about the agenda of the person who made the statement in question here. Raphjd (talk) 06:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] sunday times

I recall the Sunday Times being described in evidence as a conduit for "intelligence light" - anyone have a citation for this? The official inquiry site has no search facility.--Shtove 17:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] uncategorized comments

I just spotted a beautiful quote from Andrew Gilligan's statement on quitting the BBC (from this article, full text here):
"This report casts a chill over all journalism, not just the BBC's. It seeks to hold reporters, with all the difficulties they face, to a standard that it does not appear to demand of, for instance, Government dossiers."

Could this be added somewhere? I suppose we'd need more quotes from other sources (Hutton, Blair, etc) to balance the article though. fabiform | talk 22:39, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've put it in a quotes section. Needs more, as you say. - David Gerard 00:18, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)
I'll see what the BBC has to offer... fabiform | talk 03:10, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Here are some suggestions:

Blair, from PM statement on Hutton report:
"The allegation that I or anyone else lied to this House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence on WMD is itself the real lie. And I simply ask that those that made it and those who have repeated it over all these months, now withdraw it, fully, openly and clearly."
and
"There was no dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous strategy to name Dr Kelly. He was named for the reason we gave. And again I ask that those that have repeatedly claimed that I lied over this issue or that Sir Kevin Tebbit did, now withdraw that allegation also, unequivocally and in full."
and
"We can have the debate about the war; about WMD; about intelligence. But we do not need to conduct it by accusations of lies and deceit. We can respect each other's motives and integrity even when in disagreement."

Hutton, from his summary of his conslusions:
"Dr Kelly's meeting with Mr Gilligan was unauthorised and in meeting Mr Gilligan and discussing intelligence matters with him, Dr Kelly was acting in breach of the Civil Service code of procedure which applied to him."
and
"Therefore the Governors should have recognised more fully than they did that their duty to protect the independence of the BBC was not incompatible with giving proper consideration to whether there was validity in the Government's complaints, no matter how strongly worded by Mr Campbell, that the allegations against its integrity reported in Mr Gilligan's broadcasts were unfounded and the Governors failed to give this issue proper consideration."
and
"There was no dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous strategy by the Government covertly to leak Dr Kelly's name to the media."

The quote within this quote from Hutton's final observations (might make a good ending to the quote section?):
"The evidence at this Inquiry has concentrated largely on the last two months of Dr Kelly's life, and therefore it is fitting that I should end this report with some words written in Dr Kelly's obituary in The Independent on 31 July by Mr Terence Taylor, the President and Executive Director of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Washington DC and a former colleague of Dr Kelly:
'It is most important that the extraordinary public attention and political fallout arising from the events of the past month do not mask the extraordinary achievements of a scientist who loyally served not only his Government but also the international community at large.'"

fabiform | talk 03:38, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

They are all good quotes. Great research. I would suggest that rather than have a quotes section they be inlined into the article body at the relevant points... would make for a much better article. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:46, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
You've done a great job. I agree, they look better (and make more sense) inserted inline. fabiform | talk 18:16, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Can anyone confirm the text of the advert in the Daily Telegraph? The small picture of the advert on the BBC news story here seems to only show part of what I found quoted in all the other news sources. fabiform | talk 18:16, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think it is safe to trust the other news sources.. there may have been more at the bottom of the page. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:34, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've spilt "the report" into two sections as it was getting quite long: "the report" and the "immediate aftermath of publication". I think that the timeline (publication then three resignations) is clearer now, and I added a few quotes and that the BBC had apologised. But it needs fresh eyes, I just reread the beginning of "immediate aftermath of publication", it doesn't quite stand on its own as a section, could someone rephrase it so it's not quite so repetative and so that it doesn't seem to start almost in the middle of a paragraph?  :) fabiform | talk 19:02, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The splitting is a good idea. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:34, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

---

Fabiform - you put in a para about press reaction outside Britain, have we got references for that? (c.f. the refs for British press reaction) - David Gerard 19:11, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

That was based on general reading over the last two days, you're right it does need a source. I'll have a look and find something suitable. Thanks for your general copyediting, by the way.  :) fabiform | talk 19:34, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I'd be very interested to read those references too, from a personal perspective as well as getting this article substantially complete - hopefully things will calm down next week so that it is possible! Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:34, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Here is the article I had floating round in my memory. BBC correspondants commenting on the perception of it all in the countries they live in. Here are some snippets:

Matt Wells - New York:

BBC news has never been as well regarded in New York as it is now.
Public radio and television carry hours of output, and I have lost count of how many people tell me that BBC News Online is their home page.
Ironically, it is mistrust of their own commercial media, and the sense that it fails to question government policy enough, that has driven so many New Yorkers to overseas outlets.

Susannah Price - UN Headquarters in New York:

One UN official said it was not seen as a big deal and had just reinforced earlier opinions about the BBC: "Those who love it continue to do so, and the same with those who dislike it."

but...

One ambassador said the BBC was a very respected network and he did not believe the Hutton report had damaged it in any way.

Caroline Wyatt - Paris

In an editorial, it [the left-wing newspaper Liberation] also says "hats off to the English", commenting that the inquiry itself and the reporting on it by the BBC showed a lively democracy in action, and one which should inspire the French and France's own political classes.

--

To be honest, there's a wide range of opinions of the BBC at the moment, I only focused on one of them. But while I was searching for this article again, I found a fantastic one with quotes from newspapers all over the world about the Hutton report, Dr David Kelly, the War in Iraq etc etc. We should link to it even if we don't quote from it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3444299.stm

Some examples:

If the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and some of those close to him, mainly the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, are free of the blood of the British weapons expert, David Kelly, as it appears in the judicial inquiry, then they are certainly guilty of the blood of thousands of Iraqis who died and are still victims of this war. Syria's Al-Ba'th
The report now looks a little too politically convenient... For a matter as charged as the fallout from the Iraqi conflict, it was risky to appoint one man, however honourable he might be, to investigate it. Kenya's Nation
The error made by reporter Andrew Gilligan on such a crucial matter was a huge one. He must now bear the consequences... Lord Hutton may have cleared Mr Blair and his government, but the suspicion that the British people were misled - through bad judgment, at least - over the reasons for going to war is one which long remains. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post
Not even Mr Blair's most devoted spin doctors could have delivered a more devout defence... Hutton has resolved the conflict. He lays practically all the blame on the BBC... The obvious conclusion is that Hutton submitted a report which served the interests of the state. Blair won a short-term victory, democracy suffered a defeat. Sweden's Aftonbladet
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has given an impressive demonstration of how good governance can also be smart politics... Its report leaves him substantially vindicated, even though the reporting of British intelligence agencies on Iraq now appears to have been disastrously inaccurate... Establishing that the British Government did not lie is not the same as showing that it proceeded wisely or even competently in this area. US daily New York Times

etc etc.... fascinating reading! fabiform | talk 21:06, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I liked the way Bremner, Bird and Fortune put it. 18 months after we were sold a false pretext to go to war and the only 3 people lose their jobs over the death of one man. The sad postscript is that if a journalist sexes up his intelligence, one man dies. If the government sexes up its intelligence, 10,000 people die (and presumably no one resigns).

For obvious reasons, it'd be nice if we could find a good "the media likes the BBC" page that wasn't put up by the BBC ;-) - David Gerard 21:47, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)
I like linking to the BBC because it's archive is so stable. But, you could always follow the quotes to their cited sources if you prefer (it would be better, you're right). A good starting point for more research would be http://news.google.com/ fabiform | talk 00:00, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'd be a little wary of padding out this article with too many quotes from the world's liberal media sympathising with each other. The fact is that Hutton, whose integrity was recognised by all at the time of his appointment, has found that Gilligan acted unprofessionally, that his story was wrong, and that the BBC management were negligent in checking Gillgan's story - and the rest of the liberal media falsely accused Blair of lying about it. Their opposition to the war led them all into error. Editors here should be careful not to make the same mistake. Adam 00:09, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Apart from the paragraph about how the episode may have changed the perception of the BBC outside Britain (which I am not sure about even with the apparent substantial evidence from BBC Monitoring :-), I think this article is hanging on in there in terms of neutrality - maybe a bit of expansion on what the right-wing dailies said before Dyke resigned. However Andrew Gilligan needs some work - an anon has just greatly extended the basic bio I threw in there and spiced it up a with a few of his own opinions that are too-pro BBC/Gilligan. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 00:26, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I was the anon who made the slighly biased extension to Andrew Gilligan. I am a fairly new contributor (though I have read a lot), and had not created an account. For the same reason I may not quite have sussed out how to use the talk pages (apologies in advance). I tried to make the Gilligan article balanced (e.g, said he broke a cardinal rule of investigative journalism), but I confess that it could do with balancing further - it is a bit editorial in tone. I just think it should not be entirely critical of Gilligan who after all did raise a matter of grave public interest. I have made some related changes to this page (Hutton Inquiry) as I feel that the previous version did not make clear why it was expected that the government would be criticised. A lot of the evidence to the Inquiry was pretty damning of the Government, and this had not been mentioned. I think in the interests of blance, some of the evidence that implies goverment wrongdoing should be summarized here to offset the one-sided view presented by Hutton himself. I run the www.hutton.softblade.com website, and I have followed the evidence to the Inquiry very carefully. Washington irving
For what it's worth I think Washington's contributions have been among the better ones here and the standard is very high. I have been following this very carefully from the beginning. I don't believe the Hutton report was entirely fair. In Australia (where I am at the moment) the press coverage has more or less universally been along those lines. I have also read the online editions of several of the UK newspapers and the BBC and www.hutton.softblade.com web sites as well as parts of the Hutton report itself. The NPOV must, I think, reflect that Hutton has been a little too kind to the Govt and a little too harsh on the BBC. Let's be clear: Hutton did not say there were WMDs. And, reading his report, I fail to see how he avoided the conclusion that the dossier was "sexed-up". They sent it back to be rewritten in the strongest way possible to be consistent with single-source second hand evidence, that they didn't know was wrong because they had deliberately donned their blinkers. I know my last sentence might not be seen by everyone to be entirely NPOV but it is at least as NPOV as Hutton's. Please keep up the good work, everyone. And thanks! Psb777 15:33, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for your supportive comments Psb777. I have no intention of distorting the record. I was quite careful about the way I phrased my contributions to the Hutton Inquiry article, and I believe they are factually correct. I think Pete/Pcb21 has a fair point about the Andrew Gilligan article though -- I tried to keep it balanced but maybe I did "sex it up" a little. I'll have a crack a toning down the rhetoric, and keeping it factual. Check it later, and see if you think it needs further revision... Washington irving 21:36, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Nice to meet you, Washington. I'll be happy to read any revisions you do/did. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 08:21, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

In general I agree that given the strong views all of us have (one way or the other) about these issues, the article is admirable in its balance. Adam 02:34, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

---

[edit] Introductory paragraph, oversimplification

"Kelly . . . committed suicide after being misquoted by BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan" is an excessive simplification of the known facts. --smb1971 23:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)