Contents:
The government angrily denounced the reports and accused the corporation of poor journalism. In subsequent weeks the corporation stood by the report, saying that it had a reliable source. Following intense media speculation, Kelly was finally named in the press as the source for Gilligan's story on 9 July.
Kelly committed suicide in a field close to his home on 17 July. An inquiry was announced by the British government the following day.
The inquiry was to investigate "the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly". The inquiry opened on 1 August. Hearings began on 11 August. The first phase of the inquiry closed on 4 September. A second session of witness-calling began on Monday 15 September, where some witnesses from the first session, such as Andrew Gilligan, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon , BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and Alastair Campbell were recalled for further questions arising from the first phase, and some witnesses were called for the first time. The taking of evidence closed on Wednesday 24 September.
The inquiry heard evidence on 22 days, lasting hours, from 74 witnesses. At the conclusion of the Inquiry there was widespread approval of the process conducted by Hutton. Virtually all the documentation provided to the Inquiry was quickly provided to the public on the Inquiry's website. A British ambassador called David Broucher reported a conversation with Dr Kelly at a Geneva meeting in February , which he described as from "deep within the memory hole".
Broucher related that Kelly said he had assured his Iraqi sources that there would be no war if they co-operated, and that a war would put him in an 'ambiguous' moral position. I now see that he may have been thinking on rather different lines.
Hutton initially announced that he expected to be able to deliver his report in late November or early December. The report was eventually published on 28 January The main conclusions were: The report exonerated the government much more completely than had been expected by many observers prior to its publication. Evidence presented to the inquiry had indicated:. Despite this evidence, Hutton's report largely cleared the government of any wrongdoing.
In large measure this was because Hutton judged that the government had not known of the reservations in the intelligence community: Furthermore, the Inquiry had heard that these were not the words used by Gilligan's source, but his own inference. However, the judgement that No. Instead the report placed a great deal of emphasis on evidence of the failings of Gilligan and the BBC, many of which had been explicitly acknowledged during the course of the Inquiry. Gilligan, for example, admitted and apologised for surreptitiously briefing politicians on a select committee in order to put pressure on Kelly.
Gilligan, whilst disagreeing with the overall thrust of the report, also admitted that he had attributed inferences to Kelly which were in fact his own. The Inquiry specifically criticised the chain of management that caused the BBC to defend its story.
The BBC management, the report said, had accepted Gilligan's word that his story was accurate, in spite of his notes being incomplete. Davies had then told the BBC Board of Governors that he was happy with the story, and told the Prime Minister that a satisfactory internal inquiry had taken place. The Board of Governors, under Davies' guidance, accepted that further investigation of the government's complaints were unnecessary.
In his report Hutton wrote of this:. There was considerable speculation in the media that the report had been deliberately written to clear the government, a claim disputed by Lord Hutton at a later press conference.
The Hotton Report [Robert K. McDonald] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. At on the morning of December 16, , a quarter-million . "In December , the Allied Expeditionary Forces under General Dwight D. Elsenhower were caught sleeping by Hitler's surprise offensive through the.
Many people remain convinced that this was the case. Suggestions of whitewash were supported by Hutton's careful choice of language at certain points in the report. For example, he argued that the use of the phrase ' sexed up ' by Gilligan would have been taken by the general public to indicate an outright lie rather than mere exaggeration, and thus the claim was untrue. It was because of the report's criticism of his actions that Gavyn Davies resigned on the day of publication, 28 January Reporters from rival news organisation ITN described the day of publication as "one of the worst in the BBC's history".
Greg Dyke, the director-general, resigned two days after the publication of the report, following a meeting of BBC Governors where it is reported he only retained the support of one third of the board. However, after announcing his resignation, Dyke stated:. Andrew Gilligan resigned because of his part in the affair on 30 January, making three BBC resignations in three days. However, in his resignation statement he questioned the value of Hutton's report:. Blair, who had been repeatedly under fire for the "sexing-up" allegations, told the House of Commons in the debate following the release of the report that he had been completely exonerated.
He demanded a retraction from those who had accused him of lying to the House, particularly Michael Howard , the Leader of the Opposition:. Howard sidestepped the demand for an apology. Dyke, who has not given the conclusions of the Hutton report his full backing, said that he "could not quite work out" what the BBC was apologising for. Although this was denied by the BBC, it was confirmed in when the BBC was forced to publish minutes of a governors meeting at the BBC that took place directly after the Hutton report. At the end of the report Hutton recalled how the final part of David Kelly's life had not been representative of his whole career in the civil service:.
Deliberately or otherwise, Dr. Kelly had raised wider questions about the quality, interpretation and presentation of intelligence that Hutton had left unanswered. Some of these were to be addressed in a new inquiry , announced by the government on 3 February Amongst other things, the Butler Report concluded that "the fact that the reference to the 45 minute claim in the classified assessment was repeated in the dossier later led to suspicions that it had been included because of its eye-catching character".
There was considerable speculation in the media that the report had been deliberately written to clear the government, a claim disputed by Lord Hutton at a later press conference. Despite this evidence, Hutton's report largely cleared the government of any wrongdoing. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. I advised him the story appeared to have many legs that could lead anywhere or nowhere, especially as it occurred in the fluid first days of what would become known as the Battle of the Bulge. A second session of witness-calling began on Monday 15 September, where some witnesses from the first session, such as Andrew Gilligan, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon , BBC chairman Gavyn Davies and Alastair Campbell were recalled for further questions arising from the first phase, and some witnesses were called for the first time. Colonel Robert Howze, who directed a mixed bag of incredibly brave men from several units. The inquiry opened on 1 August.
Andrew Gilligan claims that this has vindicated his original story that the dossier had been "sexed up". Over a dozen years later, the Chilcot Inquiry came to different conclusions. Such a description hardly applies to the monumental inquest that has been published by Sir John Chilcot. To ask other readers questions about The Hotton Report , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Nov 08, Bill Leeper rated it it was amazing. McDonald, and thought I should pass on well-deserved thumbs up on an interesting and enlightening chronicle.
This will probably be one of the last books written on any battle from WWII derived from the testimony of the participants. The author has done an incredible amount of research on unit and individual actions. The characters are fleshed out very well, with enough background information to make me identify and really appreciate them.
The book flows very well, especially considering the amount of material covered. I thought I should mention that I read it twice, as I sometimes do in order to better understand the overall events. When I started the second read in Chapter 1, with the pastoral description of the quaint village of Hotton, I actually had a Gene Kelly coming into Brigadoon moment. Douglas Hackney rated it really liked it Feb 14, Patricia RiderBermon rated it it was amazing Aug 30, Louis Pofi rated it liked it Dec 15, Kevin Poirier rated it liked it Dec 06, Lawrence Myers rated it it was amazing Feb 11, Luisa rated it liked it May 16,