Workers back former BBC chief (new comments from Gilligan)

[huckleberry]

January 31, 2004

BY BETH GARDINER ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON -- Thousands of British Broadcasting Corp. employees took out a full-page newspaper ad Saturday voicing support for the chief executive who resigned after a judge harshly criticized a BBC report alleging the government exaggerated evidence on Iraqi weapons.

The Daily Telegraph ad backing former BBC director general Greg Dyke came a day after the resignation of Andrew Gilligan, the correspondent who broadcast the radio piece that set off a bitter feud between the network and the government. Gilligan's was the third resignation prompted by the judicial report.

snip

On Friday, the journalist stood behind most of his story.

"The government did sex up the dossier, transforming possibilities and probabilities into certainties, removing vital caveats; the 45-minute claim was the 'classic example' of this; and many in the intelligence services, including the leading expert in WMD, were unhappy about it," he said.

more at
http://www.suntimes.com/output/iraq/britainadvisor31.html

[JohnyCanuck]

1. Meanwhile Tony says

"Who you gonna believe, me or my flunky Hutton?"

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

2. Also ...

protestors burned a copy of the Hutton report outside Downing St this avo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3445919.stm