Editorial • February 1 2004

The Hutton whitewash and the lessons to be learnt

‘I have been brought up to believe that you cannot choose your own referee and that the referee’s decision is final. There is an honourable tradition in British public life that those charged with authority at the top of an organisation should accept responsibility for what happens in that organisation.’ This was the immediate reaction of Mr Gavyn Davies to Lord Hutton’s report on the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly.
There is a lesson to be learnt from the words of the resigning head of the BBC. Essentially, Mr. Davies was publicly acknowledging that as head of the organisation the buck stops with him. No such fatalities are ever seen in Malta.
In writing to the Prime Minister and tendering his resignation, he was showing that he was prepared to carry the can. The first lesson is his acceptance of the culture of accountability. Here is a person taking full responsibility for the act of a subordinate. The Hutton report found the BBC at fault and listed its faults: "The incorrect reporting of a BBC journalist and the act of omission on the part of the BBC, the fact that the BBC did not probe sufficiently when being put on notice by the Government that the report was false."
The resignation is what enshrines the workings of a healthy democracy, even if a closer look at Lord Hutton’s report confirms that what we accuse politicians and their appointees to be in Malta, may well apply in Britain too.
The British media and the public believe that the stern looking and stiff upper lip Lord Hutton and his findings are nothing but a whitewash.
Their reasoning is based on the ‘core’ issue in this turbulent and sad story. The fact that the United Kingdom’s intervention in Iraq on the premise that weapons of mass destruction were being stacked, was a blatant lie. The Hutton report is a coup for Mr Blair, but it does not change in any way the fact that the US and the UK have, to date, not discovered any weapons of mass destruction.
The Hutton report conveniently fails to explore the veracity of the laughable statement in an intelligence report that the preparedness of the Iraqi war machine was such that Mr Sadam Hussein could deploy chemical weapons in 45 minutes. Perhaps Mr Blair did not ‘sex up’ the report but that statement is in itself so ludicrous.
The Hutton report should not in any way soften the resolve of journalism here in Malta.
There are definitely lessons to be drawn from the ‘responsibility’ shouldered by managers when the going gets sour.
If we require anything in this small republic it is more daring journalism that chooses to ignore the established powers that be that have controlled the mindsets of most of our editors for far too long.