[R-G] Fw: Ex-BBC boss slams judge over report

[Tim Murphy]

Agence France Presse Friday January 30, 10:46 PM

One day after he quit as BBC director general, Greg Dyke took aim at a 
judicial inquiry that severely criticized the public broadcaster while 
absolving the government of any blame in the suicide of a British arms 
expert.

Speaking on BBC radio and GMTV television, Dyke said he did not accept all 
of Lord Brian Hutton's report into the death of weapons expert David 
Kelly, saying it was lacking in balance and tainted with errors.

"I, others at the BBC, certainly our legal team, were certainly very 
surprised by the nature of the report," said Dyke on BBC radio's flagship 
"Today" news programme.

"It is remarkable how he has given the benefit of judgment to virtually 
everyone in the government and to no one at the BBC," he said Friday.

On the commercial GMTV channel, Dyke -- whose resignation Thursday 
triggered spontaneous walkouts and demonstrations by hundreds of BBC staff 
around the country -- said: "We were shocked that it was so black and 
white."

"We knew mistakes had been made by us but we didn't believe they were only 
by us," he said.

He went further, accusing Hutton -- one of the most senior jurists in 
Britain -- of making mistakes.

"I would be very interested in what a few other law lords on looking at 
Hutton thought of it," he said. "We have an opinion that there are points 
of law in there where he is quite clearly wrong."

Dyke's remarks built on comments he made in the hours after he resigned 
Thursday, when he said on BBC television: "I don't necessarily accept the 
findings of Lord Hutton".

On the blanket apology that BBC governors made to Prime Minister Tony 
Blair, he said: "I couldn't quite work out what they were apologizing 
for."

Dyke's criticism, and his vow to speak out even more in the coming weeks, 
dashed any hopes entertained by Blair and the remaining BBC governors that 
a line could be drawn under the Kelly affair.

In his report Wednesday, Hutton cleared Blair's government of any serious 
wrongdoing in the events surrounding the suicide last July of Kelly, a 
highly respected Ministry of Defence expert on Iraqi biological weapons.

A YouGov poll in the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper Friday found 
that 56 percent of Britons believed Hutton's report was a "whitewash", and 
that 67 percent trusted BBC journalists -- compared with 31 percent who 
trusted Blair's government.

The National Union of Journalists is threatening "whatever action is 
necessary" if the BBC fires Andrew Gilligan, the "Today" reporter at the 
center of the Kelly affair.

Kelly took his life just days after he was exposed by the government as 
the source of a unscripted report in May by Gilligan alleging that the 
government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq and its alleged weapons of 
mass destruction had been "sexed up".

The most sensational part of that dossier -- a crucial part of Blair's 
effort to build public support for war -- was the claim that Saddam 
Hussein's regime could deploy chemical or biological weapons in just 45 
minutes.

Hutton concluded that the dossier had not been "sexed up" even though it 
emerged during his inquiry that the 45-minute claim referred to 
battlefield weapons only and that it came from just one source.

But the judge came down hard on BBC governors and management, accusing 
them of poor editorial supervision and failure to take seriously the 
denial issued by the prime minister's office in Downing Street that it had 
exaggerated the threat.

While commentators attacked Hutton's report as a whitewash, the BBC 
plunged into crisis, with its chairman Gavyn Davies resigning Wednesday 
and Dyke leaving Thursday after the BBC governors "unreservedly 
apologised" to Blair.

Dyke, a wealthy socialist dubbed "Tony's crony" when he was appointed by 
the prime minister as the BBC's top executive, said Friday he had no 
choice but to stand down because he no longer had the support of the 
governors.

Blair's official spokesman called Friday for an end to the controversy.

"It's time to draw a line and move on," he said. "A dispassionate judge 
has looked at the facts and has made his judgment on the facts. That's 
where the matter should rest."

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