Tuesday, 25 March, 2008
- 25 Mar 08, 11:03 AM
Liz Gibbons is today's programme producer. Here is her early email to the team.
Hope you all had a Happy Easter.
So - today we have a film almost ready to run about an Iraqi defector known as Curveball. The evidence he gave his German handlers in the years before the Iraq war formed a key part of the intelligence case made by Colin Powell. He was the key source for the allegation that Iraq had several mobile chemical weapons labs.
Since the war his evidence has been discredited. And he's been called a fabricator. We've worked alongside Spiegel magazine and tracked him down in Germany – he now claims he never said that Iraq had WMD. This leaves us with a whole host of questions about intelligence work and the Iraq war.
Otherwise - the programme is pretty wide open - and there are a lot of good stories around. So let's have a heated debate about what's around and what we can bring to the stories.
Comments Post your comment
When are you going to be covering the plight of the Gurkhas?
Have a look at yesterday's column in The Daily Telegraph
Source:
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I agree with the mistress - the Gurkhas have been dumped upon from a great height, not that the MoD is treating the accommodation of the rest of the Armed Forces any better.
The Iraq intelligence story sounds fascinating. It would be great to get a round-up from Adam Brookes, Hugh Sykes, Caroline Wyatt and John Simpson of their best guess at what the next 5 years will bring, and when significant troop reductions can begin. Do any of them share the gloomy prospects aired by Robert Fisk, or do the recent polls showing that some sectors of Iraqi society are more optimistic about the future.
Please keep focussing on this issue - many countries have simply forgotten about Iraq.
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why are we still paying for our intelligence services? It is truly amazing that all these new revelations are falling out of wardrobes five years on from the fateful day of taking the nation into an illegal and immoral war. I suspect hanky panky
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Go with the Ghurkas ...... studio guests to include Cherie Booth QC
who has been fighting for them -
and Lt Harry Wales who is just
back from the frontline in Iraq
where he was fighting with them.
Who wants to hear about Jack Straw, Britishness or his draft Bill of Rights if Ghurkhas are excluded?
Shameful 'New Labour' hypocrisy!
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After the whitewash that was 10 days to war, I suggest that the ±«Óătv takes a real look at the reasons for war. It's time to to redeem your sorry selves and broaden the scope of the discussion to take into account: Gulf oil, Central Asian gas & oil, the great game between NATO, Russia & China, plus the influence of Israel, AIPAC and the Likudniks in the Washington administration.
You had a whole fortnight to discuss these issues and you bottled it. The discussion in the Commons into an enquiry gives you the opportunity to get it right.
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REGARDING WARDROBES
Steve's post puts me in mind of the Emperors New Clothes, for which, I suspect, the deluded Blair has a whole wardrobe set aside. With regard to what "we are paying for" I feel the real error is universal suffrage granted to simple folk, then manipulation of that pool of simpletons by cunning politicians who elevate to near absolute power the most aberrant of their kind.
Thus we arrive at a wholly imaginary democracy run by a nutter with no clothes on about which/whom the aware can do nothing.
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Further to post #4 compare/contrast the treatment of The Ghurkas with the 'easier route' for the MoD, FCO, DfID & British Council staff in Iraq who now want to get into the UK:
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QUITE STEVE. ONE ASSUMES THAT WE'RE PAYING THESE NONENTITIES BECAUSE THEY'RE DOING WHAT THE WHOLE LOT OF THEM DO, IE. DO THE GOVT'S BIDING, WHETHER THEY'RE CALLED MANDARINS, DIPLOMATS, FORMER HIGH COURT JUDGES IN CHARGE OF THE LATEST ESTABLISHMENT COVER-UP OR DECISION NOT TO CHARGE AN MP WHO HAS FRAUDULENTLY PAID HIS BRAT FOR WORK THAT HE HASN'T DONE, WITH TAX-PAYERS' MONEY. WHEN A SELF-SERVER AND DELUDED( TO QUOTE BARRIE)
FREAK LIKE BLAIR REACHES THE PM'S OFFICE AND PUTS OUT A "LAST CALL FOR INTELLIGENCE ON WMD'S", THESE CHAPPIES WITH AN INTELLIGENCE/SECURITY DESIGNATION JUST DISH IT UP.
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EMBRIOLOGY
I am at a loss to see why MPs should vote in terms of their conscience – on anything.
The standard – rosette stand – politician, who is effectively a Westminster card-vote of one, with their party name stamped on the card, is in most constituencies a “plug-in” party unit. Voters vote for the rosette/party, not the stand, and certainly not the unplumbed depths of the rosette-stand’s conscience! How many voters know what the dummy they voted for thinks on embryology – and why? For Brown, or any other leader, to present their MPs with a free vote is, surely, to bestow that which is not theirs to give? The workings of British democracy seem more illogical by the day.
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STEALTH WEAPON
The military say that they approach school children to: “raise awareness to their work”. I remember when the tobacco industry said it only advertised to "maintain brand-share". In both cases I say: “Yeah – right.” A law was put in place to stop tobacco advertising near schools, presumably in the realisation that tobacco can damage your health – like armed combat. The smart, well-groomed, military presence is seductive; kids should be protected from such activities.
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