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John Simpson defends the BBC's reporting of the Iraq war by F Kane 
Facing friendly fire Veteran reporter John Simpson defends the BBC's reporting of the Iraq war. By Frank Kane Sunday November 16, 2003 The Observer In his 34-year career at the BBC, John Simpson has witnessed - and been involved in - many scraps between the Corporation and the Government, but the confrontation between Labour and the BBC over the war in Iraq has been a defining moment. 'I'm proud of the way they've behaved - Greg Dyke, Gavyn Davies, and the whole of the news management team. Over the years, the BBC has been accused of arrogance in not owning up to mistakes, so it's important in this case for us not to hide the truth, that what we said was 98 per cent right and 2 per cent wrong. We cannot be accused of being craven in this,' he says. The 59-year-old broadcaster is recovering from an operation on his ear, a result of the 'friendly fire' attack by an American aircraft in northern Iraq. He has lost the hearing in one ear, and has shrapnel in a leg. 'My hearing will come back,' he says, almost nonchalantly, but he has used the enforced recuperation time to do some serious thinking about the war, the BBC's role in reporting it, and the Government's motives in pursuing it. 'Nobody will come out of this unmarked, there will be no pats on the back,' he says of the inquiry by Lord Hutton, who is finalising his report into the Kelly affair. 'But I don't think we can be condemned for bringing something to the public's attention that was overwhelmingly right. Whatever the detail, it is important that we told the people the anxieties that existed within the system about going to war with Iraq in the first place. We may have our knuckles rapped over the detail, but nobody can say we should have stayed silent on such an issue. I know it was right from my own experience in talking to great swathes of the offices of government,' Simpson says. 'I'm sure that Saddam had WMDs, because I saw the effect of them at first-hand in Halabja, but I think what Hans Blick said was right - they were destroyed some time in 1993-94. Saddam went on bluffing the world, and it worked, but not in the way he wanted." This is a forceful argument, coming from a man who has, in broadcasting terms, seen it all. So his reluctance to blame Tony Blair for leading Britain into an unjust war is all the more convincing. 'I think Blair believed there were WMDs, but it's not my job to say if a war is justified or unjustified. I certainly think Saddam is one of the nastiest dictators of the late twentieth century, and I'm glad he's gone. It's hard to find anybody in Iraq who isn't glad he's gone.' It is also hard to find anybody - inside or outside the BBC - who would disagree with these sentiments, but why then have we had the Hutton inquiry? 'Hutton is looking at what went wrong. A man is dead, so clearly something went badly wrong. I think the BBC's 2 per cent of error crept in because Gilligan indicated that Kelly was involved in intelligence, which wasn't right. He [Gilligan] did it to muddy the waters about his sourcing, but it laid us open to all sorts of accusations. I don't think Gilligan deliberately revealed his sourcing, but he did speak to an awful lot of other journalists,' he says, before quickly adding, 'but look, it's terribly difficult to sit in judgment on somebody who's spoken at 6 o'clock in the morning.' The repercussions for the BBC and for its news reporting methods are just beginning to be clear, says Simpson. 'It is a good and sharp reminder to us all at the BBC. We have to go back to basics and ask what our function is. I think you have to say that our job is to provide people with a wide range of balanced and sensible information in order to help them make up their own minds. 'And yes, of course the Today programme should be breaking stories and doing investigative work. We should never be just reporting Reuters or PA,' he adds with finality. There will always be problems, he says, with unscripted interviews with correspondents. 'It's an art, and I know how hard it is to do it when you're tired or uncertain of the questions, but I don't think there's any mileage in having a licensing system whereby some can do it and some can't. We have to go through a process of self-re-examination.' Likewise, he believes there is nothing to be gained from banning senior BBC journalists from writing for newspapers. As for the longer-term effects, Simpson is more uncertain, but hopes the Government will put the Kelly affair to one side. 'I'm sure Tony Blair understands that - it would be so cheap for the Government to wait and then hit back with something like the licence fee, but it would be to the long-term detriment of the BBC. 'The BBC needs the licence fee at a level where it can maintain its existing activities, or we'll face the downward path that that has happened in Canada, Australia and South Africa. There, the licence fee for the state broadcaster was pegged below the level they needed, and it immediately undermined the way they operated. They are still good services, but broadcasting in the UK is in a different league.' He believes ultimately that the BBC will have to stand up for itself, and is heartened by its resolution during the Kelly affair. 'The BBC has always been under attack by government. You first saw it with Harold Wilson, then with Margaret Thatcher. I had first-hand experience during Bloody Sunday in 1972. 'My report from Derry immediately attracted criticism from some Tory backbenchers, and I was called in by my boss and shown a grovelling letter of apology to them. I remember how my voice was cracking with emotion when I told him that if he sent that letter, I couldn't work there any more. It was never sent, in that form anyway.' What happened when Simpson confronted his American 'attackers' The incident that left John Simpson with a damaged ear and shrapnel in his leg also killed his interpreter, Kamaran Abdurrazaq Mohammed, and 15 other people, but he doubts it will ever be publicly investigated. 'Seven out of 10 of the journalists killed in Iraq were killed by Americans, but there will be no official probe. 'It's the same with the innocent civilians killed. Nobody in America wants the fuss.' Simpson was with an American convoy in northern Iraq when a US ground observer called in aircraft support against some Iraqi tanks in the vicinity, but the pilot hit the wrong vehicles with a guided bomb. The moment was captured on some of the most dramatic footage to come out of the Iraq war, and shown last week on Panorama. 'When I asked for an explanation from the Americans, they were as decent and sympathetic as you could imagine. I cannot tell you which building I went to but I suppose I can tell you it was in Washington. 'Before I went in, I asked the cameraman to set up outside, so he could catch me full of anger after I came out. I expected not to get a decent hearing, and wanted to give it full force. But they did it superbly. They weren't acned youths with crewcuts, but decent people who answered my questions honestly. They came clean, at least in private,' he says. 'It is a very badly flawed system of control. I wouldn't sue the US forces - it's not my style - and anyway it's impossible. But if there was some hot-shot New York lawyer who could sue them, he'd rip them to shreds. If the families of the dead civilians ever get the right to sue, they could do the same.' |