Whitewash: some random observations
I can't even bring myself to link to it. But it's everywhere. Anyone interested enough will find it for themselves. Start you know where, on you know which pages.
1. Had Hutton been more critical of the government and less critical of the BBC, you can be sure that the status of his enquiry, and not merely the content of his findings, would have been invoked in support of calling down who knows what degree of punitive or remedial action against Blair, Hoon and whoever else. But he wasn't, and so that status for the whitewash-criers is neither here nor there. It's all 'narrow terms of reference', 'he's only one person, and human', and so forth. The norms of procedural justice within a liberal democracy? Forget about it.
2. Of course, people are entitled to question the findings of judicial bodies, but the questioning would be easier to respect in this case if it wasn't so blunderingly self-assured and lacking in any sense of its own partiality and its own blindspots.
3. Item (a) in support of that last assertion is the claim that Hutton's terms of reference were too narrow - Gilligan, 'sexing up', the 45-minute claim, etc. OK, so how should the terms of reference be broadened? Just in this respect: no WMD have been found, that was the prospectus on which the Iraq war was sold, so we need an enquiry to look into that whole question. And that's it. Why no other questions? Given that what Hutton was looking into concerned an aspect of the government's relationship to the BBC, why not also broaden things out in the other direction? Not only to cover the government's overall record with respect to the war but to cover the BBC's as well? After all, the Beeb itself complains it was under attack from Alistair Campbell for having an anti-war agenda, a perception (Campbell's) that is shared by many. A wider enquiry, therefore, to take in that issue? Nope, not a peep (that I've come across) about this.
4. And most of the whitewash stuff is being produced by whom? Why, by journalists for liberal, anti-war media. Have you read even one of these who has acknowledged that there might be a problem with substituting his or her perception of the issues for Lord Hutton's over a matter on which they have at least two strong reasons for being partisan towards one side and against the other? I haven't. This relates, though, to a war which they vehemently opposed; and to findings against a media organization to which they are well-disposed and in favour of a government to which they aren't well-disposed. It's a bit of a caricature, but not too much of one, to suggest that this is like me coming before a judicial tribunal of some sort, and in which my own conduct is under scrutiny, and saying 'The hell with judge and tribunal. I can decide.'
5. Item (b) in support of 2 above is this. Suppose it turns out there is not even a single particle of a WMD in Iraq, nor was there one in the run-up to the war. That would be, indeed, a significant matter and in need of explanation. No question about it. But adverting to that - the need for an enquiry with wider terms of reference - in the context of Hutton's findings (as Jeremy Paxman repeatedly did last night on Newsnight) is, in a key way, refusing to face up to one main thrust of those findings: that Blair and his government did not lie or wilfully deceive the public. They spoke from the available intelligence (and intelligence, moreover, pretty much in common with that of other countries). If there are and were no Iraqi WMD, then that will have been a massive intelligence failure, and it will need to be accounted for. But this is something different from the flagrant dishonesty of a government towards its own electorate. And those now waving their hands towards the need for an enquiry with wider terms of reference are being nicely vague about the difference.
6. Further to 3. Lord Hutton was highly critical of the BBC's procedures with regard to Andrew Gilligan's reporting. Virtually everyone, so far as I can see, even amongst the whitewash-criers, is willing to allow that at least some of that criticism was merited: the Beeb was at fault. Any percentage in asking why it might have made a mistake like this in the particular matter that was under dispute? Concern for the independence of the Corporation from government bullying? OK. It's possible that this was a motive. Any other possibilities swim into view? No? Well, I think there are some, and so do a lot of other people, not all of us enemies of the BBC or of independent public broadcasting.
7. Aggravated times. Some willingness to accept and respect the recognized procedures for resolving disputes is one of the things we have that keep us talking to each other.
