....LMB: "The Sexing-Up Inquiry"....

I think "highly respected" is a stretch unless you count the British ruling class.

Hutton let us not forget is **so** commited to the due process of justice, that he was more than willing to serve as a "Diplock" judge [ie acted as judge and jury] in the 1970s in Northern Ireland. He also acted for the UK government in Strasbourg when the European Court was investigating the state's mistreatment of detainees in NI.

The man was born into Ulster's protestant ruling class and has defended his class interest consistently through his life. You don't end up being a Law Lord by being fair and equitable. I wouldn't trust him to be impartial as far as I could chuck a bus.

If he digs up stuff on how Blair and his cronies lied to the UK people/Parliament/the UN/the media et al to prop up his immoral war---all well and good.

I stand corrected. I was given to understand that Hutton was seen as an honest figure who would conduct this inquiry properly, which is one of the only reasons I put any trust in the thing. Maybe that was not justified.

the u.k. needs a whipping boy solely for the status of their unemployment rate right now and the candidate, the richard the 3rd of the 21st centry , tony blair. blair has not only auctioned off his own country for his own aspirations but also his colleagues within the labour party, i.e. the woman whose name i can't remember offhand, but got portioned off to some international low radar site but rocked the office and is now openly critical of him,(many more are driving up in their mini metros in hopes of mowing him down on the m1 of parliament) but... he teamed up with idiot bush of all people, who can't burp without an inaccurate briefing being given to him (for eric's entertainment). blair is on the way out....( i have no sympathy for those ruled by international conglomerates) and he wishes he had had an illict tryst in his office with full detail of his male member on the local rags, he'd at least leave office with nod from my grandad...haha ----

I think you can say Blair has dodged the bullet only by adopting an extremely narrow definition of what the bullet is. Here's the money quote from the Guardian story:

Andrew Gilligan's story that No 10 wanted to "sex up" the Iraq dossier has largely been vindicated, but his claim that Downing Street inserted the 45 minute claim knowing it to be wrong has not been substantiated

I think the BEST you can say about Blair and No. 10 is that they didn't give tinker's damn whether it was true or not. It was hot, it was sexy, it made the Americans pant for more -- and that was good enough for them.

But these people aren't completely stupid -- I think they had to at least suspect that the information was bogus.

the richard the 3rd of the 21st centry , tony blair

I would have said Charles I -- who also tried to betray his country to a foreign power to shore up his autocratic status.

Barebones Parliament, anyone?

I think you can say Blair has dodged the bullet only by adopting an extremely narrow definition of what the bullet is. Here's the money quote from the Guardian story:

Andrew Gilligan's story that No 10 wanted to "sex up" the Iraq dossier has largely been vindicated, but his claim that Downing Street inserted the 45 minute claim knowing it to be wrong has not been substantiated

I think the BEST you can say about Blair and No. 10 is that they didn't give tinker's damn whether it was true or not. It was hot, it was sexy, it made the Americans pant for more -- and that was good enough for them.

But these people aren't completely stupid -- I think they had to at least suspect that the information was bogus.

the richard the 3rd of the 21st centry , tony blair

I would have said Charles I -- who also tried to betray his country to a foreign power to shore up his autocratic status.

Barebones Parliament, anyone?

well said billmon, i do indeed see the sharp connection to that branch of the stuarts -- main emphasis lie though within the comparison of tony blair to richard the 3rd because of his unwillingness to admit to the killing of the modern day young princes: 1) u.k.'s economy and 2)soldiers (proletariat class) with the committment to the war on iraq, terrorism, whatever the hell they're deeming it today.