Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2004, pages 34-35

European Press Review

 

Czech Paper Describes BBC as “Choking On Judge’s Wig” After Hutton Report

 

By Lucy Jones

Lord Brian Hutton arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Jan. 28, 2004 to summarize the conclusions of his report into the suicide of weapons expert David Kelly (AFP photo/Stefan Rousseau/WPA Pool).

ON JAN. 28 Lord Hutton published the results of his inquiry into the death of British weapons expert David Kelly, who the BBC reported as questioning Britain’s case for war against Iraq. To the BBC’s amazement, Lord Hutton found wholeheartedly in favor of the government. Dr. Kelly had not made the remarks ascribed to him by the “BBC Today” program’s Andrew Gilligan, said Hutton, who called the resulting broadcast “unfounded” and the BBC’s editorial procedures “defective.”

“Of course Andrew Gilligan should have thought about what he was going to say, of course there should have been closer editorial checks,” said the next day’s Daily Telegraph, “but did this offense deserve the annihilation of the BBC?”

“This unbalanced and partial report has strengthened the case for an independent inquiry into the intelligence failures that took this country into an unjustifiable war,” the Jan. 29 Independent editorialized. “The extent to which Mr. Blair strained at the bounds of the intelligence to make the case for war was obvious from the evidence to Lord Hutton,” it added.

“The argument about whether Britain should have gone to war…is one that will not go away,” wrote Philip Stephens in the UK’s Financial Times the same day. “Nor will the profound questions about the quality of the intelligence on which the judgment was made. But,” he added, “Mr. Blair was…exonerated of the charges of duplicity laid day-by-day, week-by-week since the suicide of Mr. Kelly.”

The Jan. 29 Daily Mail agreed that Blair had been cleared, but said it was “legitimate to point out that Lord Hutton’s remit was so excruciatingly narrow and his report so overwhelmingly critical of one side that it positively invites a degree of skepticism.” Lord Hutton, the newspaper said, clearly has an “establishment” mind-set that assumes politicians and civil servants always tell the truth.” But, it continued, it was “right to report that the intelligence services were pressed to come up with stronger evidence about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.”

The BBC also won sympathy from newspapers outside Britain. Describing Prime Minister Blair as “a warrior who really regards international law as a nuisance,” the Czech Republic’s Pravo of Jan. 29 said the BBC was “left to suffocate choking on the judge’s wig.” Instead, it argued, “The most important thing is that those at the top lied to us and nobody is being brought to book for that.”

Austria’s Der Standard of the same day agreed: the report failed to answer “the question which is behind all this…namely, whether or not Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.”

Blair chose Lord Hutton for the inquiry, speculated Germany’s Die Tageszeitung of Jan. 29, because “Hutton always knows where his duty lies. The tactic almost worked,” it added, “only Hutton did his job too well.” For the sake of credibility, the paper argued, the report should have contained some “minor criticism” of the government.

 

Austria’s Der Standard: Did Blair and Bush “Weigh Up” Intelligence?

London and Washington, on Feb. 3 and 6 respectively, announced the setting up of inquiries to examine the intelligence which led the allies to war over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair and George W. Bush “have not at any time indicated whether or not they weighed up the quality of this information,” Austria’s Der Standard said Feb. 2, welcoming Blair’s announcement. “This is something an investigation may reveal.”

Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel of Feb. 4 found the failure to find weapons of mass destruction “an embarrassment,” and “evidence of shortcomings and a political disaster both for the intelligence services and those who trusted them.”

“There are a lot of signs indicating that the invasion of Iraq was contemplated in the first days of the Bush administration and that this accelerated” after Sept. 11, 2001, wrote Spain’s El Pais the same day. Wrote Spain’s ABC on Feb. 3, “The weapons of mass destruction [issue] has highlighted a collective error rather than an illusion.…Establishing why everyone was deceived is a necessary exercise.”

Denmark’s Information of the same day called on its government to set up a similar commission to look at the basis on which the country joined the coalition forces in Iraq. While Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s counterparts in the U.S. and Britain “sweat,” the newspaper observed, Rasmussen so far has been able “to relax” as the main opposition parties agreed “to close the issue of the Danish basis for going to war through agreement on the completely laughable Iraq hearing on March 24 [2003].”

Russia’s daily newspaper Trud of Feb. 6, however, was disparaging of Blair’s commission, saying that it was “already clear” that whatever conclusions it came to, “they will not shake the prime minister’s certainty that the decision to go to war with Iraq was absolutely correct.” The newspaper predicted that “This would be the case” because “the commission’s remit does not include political judgments on the Iraq war.”

The decision to hold the investigations, said Hungary’s Nepszabadsag on Feb. 2, suggests that U.S. and British leaders “need scapegoats” to explain the failure to find WMD in Iraq.

 

Headscarf Debate a “Battleground,” Says French Press

As the French parliament was due to debate a bill to ban all “conspicuous religious symbols” from state schools, the Jan. 30 Nouvel Observateur opined that there “is a battle underway.” The battle, however, was not between Islam and Christianity, the newspaper said, but between the supporters of the “secular state” and “those who wish to put religion in charge of politics.” This second camp, it continued, includes “a George W. Bush who since his conversion from alcohol to evangelism brings God into every issue,” as well as Hindu extremists and the Israeli far-right. “Their strategy of provocation,” it argued, “is no different from that used by the Party of French Muslims when it threatens the Republic with ‘confrontation’ if the bill passes.”

Observing that “Secularism is no longer a principle but a battlefield,” the Jan. 30 L’Express of Paris also anticipated a fight. In the paper’s opinion, the French government is faced with “a pincer-movement offensive” from an alliance of France’s Islamic fundamentalists and the far-right. One seeks to “bring trouble to the streets,” it said, while the other has “electoral goals.”

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin was quoted in the Jan. 23 Le Figaro as saying that such a law “would wrong-foot France’s foreign policy,” and place Paris “in a very delicate situation in the international arena.” Villepin’s office denied the remarks.

 

Veil “not the Same” as Cross, says Die Welt

The debate over headscarves also is raging in Germany, where the Education Ministry wants to ban any public showing of religion or politics in schools—which, it says, could jeopardize the neutrality of the state education system. Frankfurter Rundschau on Jan. 23rd praised a speech by President Johannes Rau opposing such a move. It quoted Rau as saying that “it is not the state’s job to rule on the merits of one religion or another, or to grant one preferential treatment.”

The same day’s Die Welt, however, had mixed feelings about the president’s position. The paper rejected his “equal treatment of the Islamic headscarf and the crucifix,” arguing that the crucifix is “well defined” as a symbol of redemption and peace, while the headscarf “can express political as well as religious convictions.” The newspaper added, however, that “the president is right to warn that a headscarf ban may lead to full-blown secularism in Germany.”

A purpose of the headscarf is “to visibly subjugate” women, argued Bild on Jan. 5, adding that there “are many women in Germany who would love to ban it. For this reason alone,” it said, “Muslim teachers who insist on wearing the headscarf are out of place in our classrooms.” Germany’s culture is rooted in “the Christian-Western tradition,” the paper continued. “Nobody wants to impose it on others, but it should be so dear to us that we should grant the crucifix preferential treatment over symbols of other faiths.”

 

German Press Welcomes Sex Education Ruling

Also in Germany, Die Welt on Jan. 21 hailed a court ruling rejecting a Muslim mother’s application for her daughter to be exempted from sex education lessons as “splendid.” It cited the judges’ arguments that education laws must be complied with, that knowledge of human sexuality is a precondition for responsible behavior, and that an exemption could lead Muslim girls to see themselves as different. “Compliance with the law is not the only issue,” the paper added. “More is at stake: the approval of enlightenment, freedom and responsibility for your own actions.”

The same day’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung also welcomed the ruling, noting that “Compulsory school attendance applies to both sexes, to members of all religions and to all subjects—even when Christian parents don’t like the teaching of evolution in biology or a conservative father thinks the subject of comic strips is out of place in German lessons.”

 

*eiled Worker’s Reinstatement Heralded by Aftenposten

In Norway, meanwhile, Oslo’s Aftenposten of Jan. 23 welcomed a furniture store’s decision to reinstate a Muslim woman sacked for wearing a headscarf, describing the decision to reinstate 25-year-old Ambreen Pervez as “necessary and correct.” The Norwegian government is planning to introduce legislation which would enshrine the right to wear a veil, it reported, with exceptions being granted only for hygiene or safety reasons. “These exceptions are hardly relevant to selling furniture,” the paper noted. “Fortunately, A-Mobler [the furniture store] has taken this into account.” It concluded that, “The greatest challenge to any human society is tolerating and respecting other people’s differences and individuality.”

 

Mzoudi Trial Called a “Disaster”

German newspapers criticized the U.S. for withholding information during the trial of suspected Sept. 11 terrorist Abdelghani Mzoudi, who was acquitted by a Hamburg court Feb. 5. "The disaster in the courtroom in Hamburg revealed the miserable situation of the judicial system,” Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger wrote the following day. Since 9/11, it said, courts in the U.S., Britain and Germany have “systematically been refused” access to vital data. The newspaper compared the attempt to uncover the truth in the Mzoudi trial with trying to “complete a puzzle with some of the pieces missing.”

“The court had extensive doubts about Mzoudi’s guilt,” Munich’s Feb. 6 Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote. “And that was the fault of the American authorities.” Accusing Washington of holding back evidence as it saw fit, the newspaper criticized the U.S. for not allowing to appear in court the prosecution’s main witness, Ramzi Binalshibh, a suspected al-Qaeda member from Yemen being held by the U.S. The jury also was not permitted to see the transcription of Binalshibh’s interrogation, the newspaper pointed out, charging that the U.S. “behaved as if it had already found Mzoudi guilty, and the German court had only to put its seal on the verdict.” The court was “absolutely right” in sticking to the principles of a fair trial, the newspaper concluded.

Mzoudi’s case had been “a puzzle of circumstantial evidence, which fell apart with his acquittal,” wrote the Feb. 6 Nürnberger Zeitung. There were good reasons for suspecting Mzoudi, the paper said: he was a friend and housemate of Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the attacks, and he even went to Afghanistan to train in an al-Qaeda camp. However, the newspaper concluded, “hard and fast evidence” of Mzoudi’s involvement “was missing.”

“Everyone is innocent until proven guilty,” the same day’s Neue Rhein/Neue Ruhr Zeitung in Essen noted, adding that this applies “even in cases like that of Abdelghani Mzoudi.” Hamburg is not Guantanamo,” the paper proudly declared. Though Mzoudi’s acquittal may be “unsatisfactory and even shocking,” it concluded, “it does highlight the difference between the American and German judicial systems.”

 

Swedish Suicide Bomber Exhibit “Not Anti-Semitic”

Commenting on the diplomatic row between Sweden and Israel which erupted in the wake of the Israeli ambassador to Sweden’s attack on a work of art showing a Palestinian suicide bomber, the Stockholm tabloid Aftonbladet of Jan. 19 called on the Swedish government to strongly refute allegations of anti-Semitism. “The Swedish government has taken a powerful stance against anti-Semitism,” the paper said. “The work of art in the Museum of Antiquities is not anti-Semitic. Vandalism and violence cannot be tolerated, even if they are committed by an ambassador.”

Austria’s Die Presse of the same day said that the incident shows the extent to which Israel and Europe are “unable to understand each other.” The charge of anti-Semitism has become “commonplace,” the paper noted, but “The idea that this accusation could be used to make Israel’s policy on the Palestinians immune to criticism cannot work.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.

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