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July 22, 2003

President George Bush, BBC Reporter Andrew Gilligan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Which One Lied?

By Jon Christian Ryter
Copyright 2003 - All Rights Reserved
To distribute this article, please post this web address or hyperlink

It seemed to come from nowhere. Andrew Gilligan, a reporter for the BBC in London broke the story that a vague, faceless "reputable senior intelligence source" rebuked Bush's claims that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy uranium from Niger as Bush reported in his State of the Union address. A couple days later, a second report that appeared to come from yet another source, was aired on BBC TWO.
     Without anyone asking the BBC if they could support the accuracy of their claim, the BBC report was picked up by the national media in the United States. When the New York Times reported the story, it almost appeared, from their article, that the "leaks" were American. That's because the liberals at the Times used their liberal friends in the liberal bureaucracy of the federal government to "confirm" the faceless rumors that surfaced in Europe making it appear to the man on the street that the BBC story was being confirmed everywhere. The Old Gray Lady, who is suffering from a major credibility problem in the United States, saw a potential Pulitzer Prize in the story that would diffuse their current credibility flap, and they ran with it. Nine Democrats who have been looking for anything that would set them apart from the masses of wannabe Democratic presidential nominees and establish them as the front-runner, ran with it as well, fanning the fires of political discord as they accused Bush of fabricating a story and using (gasp) his State of the Union address to set the stage for war--even though British intelligence (which supplied Bush with the information about Saddam's desires to buy uranium from Niger) still stood by the validity of their claim that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium.
     As accusations and finger-pointing consumed the DC beltway crowd, the Washington Post broke a front page story on Sunday, July 13 designed to destroy Bush: "THE CIA GOT URANIUM MENTION CUT IN OCT: Why Bush Used It In January Is Unclear." The article said that CIA Director George Tenet had argued against using the information in a presidential speech because it had been confirmed by only one source--and Tenet apparently believed that source was shaky." The liberals in the Democratic National Committee hierarchy decided that Bush had made a calculated decision, in January, to use fabricated information to justify invading Iraq. Marching orders came down from "Terry McAuliffe Central" and the attacks began.
     The only problem was, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose intelligence service uncovered the Niger uranium purchase plot, stuck by the story as both the Bush and Blair governments scrambled to ferret out the "reputable senior intelligence source" who had leaked a fabricated story to the media.
     On July 9 the name of a British UN weapons inspector, Dr. David Kelley, popped up on the radar screen as someone who admitted to having an "unauthorized" meeting with BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. Kelly, a low level bureaucrat in the Ministry of Defense, served as an Iraqi weapons inspector from 1991 until 1998. Kelly was a microbiologist and was purported to be an expert in biological warfare. Before joining the Ministry of Defense, he served first at the Porton Downs Research Center and then as a senior advisor to the Foreign Office (therein Gilligan's characterization of his "deep throat" as a senior intelligence source when, in fact, Kelly was not an intelligence source of any type). In none of his government capacities was Kelly exposed to military intelligence data--not even second hand information over a game of cribbage or scrabble. He simply was not in the proverbial loop. David Kelly was, to put it bluntly, an intelligence wannabe who believed his nation's policies concerning Iraq were misguided.
     When Kelly stepped forward on July 9 and admitted to the Ministry that he had spoken with Gilligan, adding that he was not the primary source of the uranium hoax story. Ministry Secretary Geoff Hoon wrote a candid letter to BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies and demanded to know whether Kelly was the source of Gilligan's story, which sparked the transcontinental flap. Davies declined to confirm Kelly's identity until after the biochemist committed suicide in a wooded area near his Oxfordshire home on July 17.
     In the meantime, suspecting that Kelly was the leak to the BBC, Kelly was summoned before Parliament to testify. Since the Blair government knew that Kelly was not privy to any information concerning intelligence matters and they were equally convinced that Kelly was the source of Gilligan's story, the biochemist found himself in the proverbial hot seat testifying before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
     Kelly argued to the members that he may have been one of the sources used by Andrew Gilligan, but that he could not have been the main source since much of what Gilligan wrote in his report did not come from him.
     When the BBC issued its statement on Sunday, July 20 naming the now deceased David Kelly as the only source for the story, Andrew Gilligan issued his own statement denying that he had "misquoted or misrepresented" Kelly, Kelly was also the sole source for the second report aired by BBC TWO.
     After the release of the BBC admission, Peter Mendelson, a member of Parliament, issued his own statement in which he said: "I have been very keen to quell what, I think, has been an unedifying public row between the government and the BBC for some time. I think this statement by the BBC yesterday helps in that...But it does raise certain fundamental questions: namely, why the BBC continued for so long describing their principle source for this story as a reputable senior intelligence source when obviously Dr. Kelly was no such thing? How the BBC can reconcile its statement yesterday, that it correctly interpreted Dr. Kelly's views, when Dr. Kelly--in his own [appearance before] the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, directly repudiated Mr. Andrew Gilligan's central assertions?"
      It is beginning to appear that as the credibility of America's Old Gray Lady becomes tarnished by its own recent journalistic integrity scandals, so might the credibility of the BBC and the goliath mass circulation liberal newspapers in Great Britain and America that helped build the bonfire that the liberals hoped would ignite and destroy the administrations of both George W. Bush in the United States and Tony Blair in England because of their Iraqi policy.
     Now it is the integrity of the New York Times and the BBC that is in question. A recent poll taken in the United States showed that America has lost its faith in the honest newsgathering capabilities of the New York Times. Only 47% of those polled felt they could believe what they read in the New York Times. I guess, in the United States at least, the news that is fit to print isn't on the front pages of the Old Gray Lady; and in England, the BBC is not the most reliable news source to quote.
     And the liberals, who have been accustomed to controlling the news in America for the past 96 years, wonder why the American public is looking for a "fair and balanced" approach to news gathering where they are allowed to decide what the "news" means instead of having an overpaid, aging network news anchor tell them what it means.

Jon Christian Ryter's shocking expose:
Whatever Happened To America?

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