Browse content similar to 14/12/2011. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Tonight, who knew what and when, in the phone hacking scandal. | :00:10. | :00:15. | |
Could James Murdoch really have been unaware? Why did the Guardian | :00:15. | :00:21. | |
claim the News of the World deleted voice messages when they had no | :00:21. | :00:23. | |
evidence. The author of the Guardian investigation faces a | :00:23. | :00:27. | |
former News of the World executive and the television presenter, Anne | :00:27. | :00:32. | |
Diamond, tell us what it is like to be pursued by the tabloids. Will | :00:32. | :00:36. | |
the coalition split over Europe and the economy stalling, you think | :00:36. | :00:40. | |
these might be good times to be an opposition leader, so how can the | :00:40. | :00:44. | |
Prime Minister get away with shots like this. We all know he has | :00:44. | :00:49. | |
achieved one thing e has completely united his party. Every single one | :00:49. | :00:55. | |
of them has asked Santa for one thing, a new leader for Christmas. | :00:55. | :01:00. | |
Is the tide going out on Ed Milliband? Nearly nine years after | :01:00. | :01:04. | |
the invasion of Iraq, President Obama calls a symbolic end to | :01:04. | :01:08. | |
American combat forces there. How big a power is the United States in | :01:08. | :01:17. | |
the 21st century world? Lord Leveson, the man charged with | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
the public washing of much of the newspaper industry's dirty laundry, | :01:21. | :01:26. | |
asked the police today, to find out once and for all f they can, how | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
voice mails on Milly Dowler's phone came to be wiped. It was the | :01:29. | :01:33. | |
Guardian newspaper's claim, stated as fact, that they had been erased | :01:33. | :01:35. | |
by the News of the World, which triggered the shutdown of what was | :01:36. | :01:39. | |
once the biggest-selling paper in the English speaking world. But the | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
story wasn't true, or the hacking was true, the deleting was just | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
theory. The last editor of the News of the World was up at the Leveson | :01:47. | :01:50. | |
Inquiry to take his punishment today. We report now on where we | :01:50. | :01:58. | |
are. The most far-reaching inquiry into | :01:58. | :02:04. | |
the ethics of the press, led by the most senior judge in the land. | :02:04. | :02:09. | |
Featuring witnesses drawn from the world of celebrity. From the News | :02:09. | :02:16. | |
of the World itself. A newspaper brought down by the work of one | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
Manchester solicitor, who revealed how a murdered schoolgirl's phone | :02:19. | :02:23. | |
had been hacked. When the Guardian newspaper | :02:23. | :02:27. | |
revealed in July that News of the World had hacked Milly Dowler's | :02:27. | :02:30. | |
phone and voice mail messages had been deleted. The wave of public | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
revulsion was such that the paper was forced to close. The Guardian | :02:34. | :02:36. | |
had suggested a News of the World had deleted messages to create room | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
for new ones, which would then form the basis for stories for News of | :02:41. | :02:44. | |
the World. But that allegation is now at the centre of a huge media | :02:44. | :02:52. | |
row. The fact that News of the World | :02:52. | :02:55. | |
hacked Milly Dowler's phone is not in dispute. Newsnight has fresh | :02:55. | :02:59. | |
evidence of this. In April 2002, News of the World was in contact | :02:59. | :03:02. | |
with Surrey Police, leading the investigation into her | :03:03. | :03:07. | |
disappearance. The paper thought a voice mail message left be by a | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
recruitment agency meant she was alive and had run away from home. | :03:11. | :03:15. | |
On the 20th of April, a senior News of the World executive wrote to | :03:15. | :03:25. | |
:03:25. | :03:34. | ||
They had Milly Dowler's PIN code, and were listening to her phone | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
messages during a live police investigation. How tragic that | :03:38. | :03:44. | |
someone, who has not courted the news, but in the news because they | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
happened to be a murdered schoolgirl, the News of the World | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
were hacking a murdered schoolgirl's phone. What about the | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
allegation that the paper had deleted messages. Immediately after | :03:54. | :04:01. | |
her disappearance on the 21st of March, 2002, Milly Dowler's parents | :04:01. | :04:07. | |
phoned her but could leave no message because her messages were | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
fun. But three days later Sally Dowlre got through. I phoned her | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
and it clicked through so I heard her voice. I thought she's picked | :04:16. | :04:26. | |
up her voice mails, she's alive, it was then, really. All of Milly's | :04:26. | :04:30. | |
messages had been deleted, but in a recent statement to the Leveson | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
Inquiry, the Metropolitan Police said it was most likely they were | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
deleted automatically by her phone company. But the Dowlre's lawyer | :04:37. | :04:43. | |
denies this means the Guardian got it fundamentally wrong. We know the | :04:43. | :04:48. | |
News of the World had Milly Dowler's phone number. We know he | :04:48. | :04:53. | |
had the pin number and hacked messages. We know hacking messages | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
can delete messages, we don't know if he deleted the particular | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
messages that gave false hope. Metropolitan Police say they | :05:01. | :05:05. | |
probably didn't? That hasn't been proved. Last night as we were | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
filming Mark Lewis, he received a call from the Mail, asking if the | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
Dowler's should pay back money received from News International. | :05:13. | :05:17. | |
The question was sick, it actually was depraved, it was something I | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
told him he ought to be ashamed of himself. This morning, the Mail's | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
approach was raised at the Leveson's inquiry. Lord Justice | :05:26. | :05:30. | |
Leveson indicated that the facts surrounding the deletions must, if | :05:30. | :05:34. | |
possible, be revealed. I do entirely understand the | :05:34. | :05:42. | |
significance of the issue. I recognise that it is likely to be | :05:42. | :05:52. | |
:05:52. | :05:56. | ||
in the public interest that this be Another important outstanding | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
question is what, if anything, did James Murdoch know about the wider | :06:00. | :06:04. | |
culture of phone hacking at News of the World? He's consistently told | :06:04. | :06:09. | |
parliament that his understanding was it was limited to one rogue | :06:09. | :06:13. | |
reporter, the former royal correspondent, Clive Goodman. | :06:13. | :06:18. | |
News of the World's former legal manager, Tom Crone, said he showed | :06:18. | :06:23. | |
James Murdoch an e-mail in 2008, that confirmed another journalist | :06:23. | :06:27. | |
was involved. I'm pretty sure I held up the front page of the e- | :06:27. | :06:32. | |
mail. I'm also pretty sure he already knew about it. And News | :06:32. | :06:35. | |
International has just admitted that James Murdoch was sent a | :06:35. | :06:39. | |
different e-mail in 2008, saying the situation was as bad as we | :06:39. | :06:44. | |
feared, and someone suing the company was intent on showing that | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
hacking was rife. Mr Murdoch says he responded in minutes without | :06:48. | :06:58. | |
:06:58. | :06:59. | ||
It was a specific criminal act, the hacking of phones, that sparked the | :06:59. | :07:04. | |
Leveson Inquiry, but it has been the lurid tales of unethical | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
journalistic practice had a has been even more shocking. The use of | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
deception and invasion of privacy, is often justified on grounds of | :07:11. | :07:14. | |
public interest, where there is a bigger truth to be told. But some | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
of the evidence to the Leveson Inquiry has stretched the concept | :07:17. | :07:22. | |
of the public interest, way beyond breaking point. | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
Take Newsnight's story about News of the World putting the family of | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
lawyers investigating them for phone hacking under surveillance. | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
News International now admits that was completely unethical. | :07:34. | :07:39. | |
Take investigations into Charlotte Church's father, headlined | :07:39. | :07:48. | |
"Church's three in a bed cocaine shot" with her picture beside it. | :07:48. | :07:52. | |
Miss Church said her mother tried to kill herself. My parents who had | :07:52. | :07:56. | |
never been in the industry, apart from looking after me, were being | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
exposed and vilified in this fashion. Take the fact they paid | :07:59. | :08:08. | |
for details of her sex life, as a teenager. Why is it OK that an | :08:08. | :08:16. | |
editor or somebody senior in a newspaper could pay an unemployed | :08:16. | :08:23. | |
boy from Cardiff tens of thousands of pounds to reveal intimate sexual | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
details about another 17-year-old girl. This is not public interest | :08:26. | :08:31. | |
journalism as we know it? There was lots of public interest journalism, | :08:31. | :08:36. | |
every story we did had to abide by the PCC code. I was in features for | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
eight years and never had a PCC investigation over it. We looked | :08:39. | :08:44. | |
deeply at every story we did. Yes, there was salacious, celebrity- | :08:44. | :08:49. | |
driven content, but often with a public interest. | :08:49. | :08:54. | |
There were high points, for sure, cricket match-fixing and cash for | :08:55. | :09:00. | |
honours, but the Leveson Inquiry has produced shocking evidence of | :09:00. | :09:06. | |
deeply unethical practices with little or no public interest at all. | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
Anne Diamond and Lord Hunt chair of the Press Complaints Commission | :09:09. | :09:14. | |
will be talking soon. First we speak to the former head of | :09:14. | :09:19. | |
features at News of the World, and Nick Davies who wrote the original | :09:19. | :09:24. | |
Gardiner article about Milly Dowler's phone -- Guardian article | :09:24. | :09:30. | |
about Milly Dowler's phone. Because Mr Davies doesn't want to appear on | :09:30. | :09:37. | |
the same panel and Mr Casby didn't want to join us, he declined the | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
offer of a one-to-one interview. Let's cut to the chase, the central | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
allegation, the most scandalous of the lot, that a murdered girl's | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
voice mails were deleted by the News of the World, which you | :09:49. | :09:53. | |
claimed to be fact, it wasn't a fact? You are getting it all wrong | :09:53. | :09:58. | |
here. The story that we published in July was squarely based on all | :09:58. | :10:02. | |
of the evidence available, and was correct in saying that her voice | :10:02. | :10:07. | |
mail had been deleted, and it remains the case, that News | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
International are not denying that News of the World journalists may | :10:10. | :10:14. | |
have been responsible for those deletions. Let's put it up on the | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
wall. You are missing the point. The audience can judge for | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
themselves. Let's look at the front page. News of the World hacking | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
Milly Dowler's phone during police hunt. Then it is "paper deleted | :10:27. | :10:31. | |
missing schoolgirl's voice mails giving the family false hope", you | :10:31. | :10:35. | |
say the messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days | :10:35. | :10:38. | |
after Milly's disappearance. You don't know that. You are getting | :10:38. | :10:43. | |
the problem slightly wrong, you have misunderstood it. The problem | :10:43. | :10:45. | |
was whether or not they were responsible for deleting the | :10:45. | :10:48. | |
particular messages that caused the friends and family to have false | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
hope. That is now in doubt. If you just follow what is going through | :10:51. | :10:56. | |
here I will explain. Do you know for a fact what you state as a fact | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
in this article? Everybody who was involved in that story accepted it | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
was true. It is very interesting that when that story was | :11:04. | :11:08. | |
published...you are not allowing me to answer. No I'm not, you are not | :11:08. | :11:12. | |
answering. You have asked the wrong question, you see. I'm so sorry. | :11:12. | :11:19. | |
You have misunderstood the problem. I want to answer it. Was it true? | :11:19. | :11:22. | |
That story was, everybody involved with that story believed it was | :11:22. | :11:26. | |
true. The day after I published that story I sat down for two hours | :11:26. | :11:30. | |
with Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the centre of this | :11:31. | :11:35. | |
thing. He issued an apology, he didn't disagrow with a single word, | :11:35. | :11:44. | |
News International didn't deny it. You stated it as a fact rather than | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
a police belief? Everybody involved in that story accepted that story | :11:47. | :11:51. | |
was true, and continued to accept it, until, four months later, new | :11:51. | :11:55. | |
evidence that was not available to everybody's surprise, showed that | :11:55. | :11:59. | |
one element of that story is now in doubt. It has not been proved to be | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
true. It is a key element. Just like Mark Lewis said, it is in | :12:03. | :12:07. | |
doubt. You don't report it as a belief, you report it as a fact? | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
And everybody accepted that it was true. The police accepted it in | :12:10. | :12:16. | |
London and in Surrey, Mulcaire, the private investigator, News | :12:16. | :12:21. | |
International. It had the same level of certainty. It clearly | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
wasn't a fact, you have just conceded it wasn't a fact, you said | :12:25. | :12:28. | |
people thought it was true? They accepted it was true, nobody | :12:28. | :12:34. | |
dissented from it. New evidence, not available at that time. In | :12:34. | :12:38. | |
retrospect it is now in doubt. They are not saying it isn't true. You | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
are still getting it wrong. They are saying it is conceivable but | :12:41. | :12:48. | |
unlikely that the News of the World was responsible for that particular | :12:48. | :12:54. | |
deletion. It was an allegation he repeated 34 times as well. This | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
wasn't any old story, this was the story that was the most important | :12:58. | :13:02. | |
story in the Guardian's history. It was vital every single element of | :13:02. | :13:06. | |
it should be right. Let's get things in proportion, your | :13:06. | :13:12. | |
newspaper had hacked a murdered girl's telephone? I'm not here, I | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
don't believe the News of the World has been exonerated. What we did | :13:15. | :13:20. | |
was indefensible, not just to Milly, but all the victims of hacking, I'm | :13:20. | :13:24. | |
not here to justify that, I'm here to attack the shoddy journalism of | :13:24. | :13:30. | |
the Gardiner and Nick. He said it was -- of the Guardian and nick. He | :13:30. | :13:37. | |
said it was believed by everyone to be true, there was a statement by | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
News International at the end saying we are looking into it. They | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
were a rabbit caught in headlights, they had been caught out misleading | :13:43. | :13:49. | |
people with the one rogue reporter theory, we weren't going to make | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
that mistake again. They weren't confirming anything to anyone. | :13:53. | :13:57. | |
you think they should have been closed down? I'm not here to defend | :13:57. | :14:02. | |
the News of the World, I'm here to atact Nick's journalism, it is not | :14:02. | :14:06. | |
just down to this story. Just a week later after this sensational | :14:06. | :14:12. | |
claim, he claims, in a front page story again, that the Sun hacked | :14:12. | :14:18. | |
into Gordon Brown's medical records to reveal his son's cystic fibrosis. | :14:18. | :14:21. | |
The Gardiner did apologise for that story. That could have had the same | :14:21. | :14:27. | |
effect on the Sun that Milly had on the News of the World. This man | :14:27. | :14:31. | |
accused widespread criminality at your newspaper, he should be | :14:31. | :14:39. | |
applauded for that? There is parts of the Guardian investigation that | :14:39. | :14:43. | |
is great, but the other media, which has treated what the Guardian | :14:43. | :14:49. | |
has said as fact, for the last five months, it is only now that that | :14:49. | :14:54. | |
the Guardian's journalism is coming under scrutiny. A lot was fact? | :14:54. | :14:58. | |
lot was fact, but there was significant smears and untruths. | :14:58. | :15:02. | |
have published more than a hundred stories revealing immoral, criminal | :15:02. | :15:06. | |
behaviour by the newspaper where you worked for 15 years. Just look, | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
for example, at the Gordon Brown story which you have just raised. | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
Gordon Brown's wife Sarah gave birth to a child, the doctors said | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
this child appears to have a very serious illness wrecks need more | :15:17. | :15:21. | |
tests. During that period when they were waiting to confirm it, the | :15:21. | :15:24. | |
Sun's discovered the confidential information about this sick boy. | :15:24. | :15:29. | |
Any decent newspaper would say we can't publish this, that newspaper | :15:29. | :15:32. | |
chose to. That put enormous stress on those parents. I have | :15:32. | :15:35. | |
interviewed Gordon Brown on the record. He says when the Sun | :15:35. | :15:41. | |
decided to publish that information, he and Sarah Brown were in tears. | :15:41. | :15:45. | |
Subsequently we published a story about it, we didn't say the Sun | :15:45. | :15:52. | |
obtained that Bihacing, you have just made that up. Let me finish. | :15:52. | :15:54. | |
The Sun gained access to confidential medical information, | :15:54. | :15:59. | |
at one point in the story I used a different term of words, I said | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
"gained access to confidential medical records", I couldn't prove | :16:02. | :16:07. | |
they got to the file. This is the difference. The Guardian corrected | :16:07. | :16:11. | |
and apologised that. When did the Sun apologiseor doing that cruel | :16:11. | :16:17. | |
and inhumane thing to those parents whose sick child will grow up and | :16:17. | :16:22. | |
discover all these horrible stories about his past. I'm not here to | :16:22. | :16:26. | |
defend the ethics of the Sun and the News of the World, I'm here to | :16:26. | :16:31. | |
take the shoddy journalism of the Guardian. You have misrepresented | :16:31. | :16:35. | |
what we said in the Gordon Brown story, it is a matter of wording. | :16:35. | :16:40. | |
On the Gordon Brown story. don't you apologiseor it. You have | :16:40. | :16:44. | |
never apologised for the terrible things. Words matter. We have | :16:44. | :16:50. | |
apologised for it on this show, and every senior executive has | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
apologised, Rupert Murdoch said it was the most humble day of his life. | :16:54. | :17:01. | |
Where is your humility in this. have huge humility, I'm not saying | :17:01. | :17:05. | |
we are exonerated in any way. are in a heap of trouble, for years | :17:05. | :17:11. | |
you have taken Murdoch's money and invaded and ruined people's lives, | :17:11. | :17:14. | |
and engaged in criminal activity. You have had private investigators | :17:14. | :17:18. | |
who have broken the law, haven't you, would you like a list of the | :17:18. | :17:22. | |
people. Let's go through the lists of the hundreds of Observer | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
journalists that made requests. hired a private investigator who | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
was doing illegal things to get information, isn't that true. Why | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
won't you admit the truth, isn't it time for some humility. Didn't you | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
hire a private investigator. the Observer journalist doss it, | :17:39. | :17:44. | |
and the current Guardian journalists. You accuse me of | :17:44. | :17:48. | |
shoddy journalism, and your name is all over of a private investigator | :17:48. | :17:52. | |
convicted of using illegal means, information about Anne Robinson, | :17:52. | :18:00. | |
about John Penros and Anna Friel. Let's name some of the Garden | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
journalists. I want to broaden this and move it on. Anne Diamond you | :18:04. | :18:08. | |
have personal experience of being on the receiving end of this sort | :18:08. | :18:12. | |
of attention from the tabloid press. You had a personal tragedy with | :18:12. | :18:18. | |
your child. Tell us what happened? I must say I just find it | :18:18. | :18:21. | |
unbelievable that anyone from the News of the World can sit there and | :18:21. | :18:24. | |
be outraipbled that somebody might have got a fact wrong, that | :18:24. | :18:28. | |
somebody might have misrepresented them in some way, that someone | :18:28. | :18:32. | |
might not have apologised fully. That is incredible to hear. Now you | :18:32. | :18:37. | |
now what it feels like. My particular story then, according to | :18:37. | :18:41. | |
Rupert Murdoch's butler, I was targeted by News International in a | :18:41. | :18:45. | |
very early stage, because I took Rupert Murdoch to task for the | :18:45. | :18:50. | |
behaviour for some of his newspapers. It came to a head when | :18:50. | :18:56. | |
1991 my little boy died. We knew, my husband and I knew that we knew | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
the level of press interest there would be. Mindful of the fact that | :19:01. | :19:06. | |
Eric Clapton son's had died a year before, and the funeral had become | :19:06. | :19:12. | |
a press circus. Newspaper photographers and reporters were | :19:12. | :19:17. | |
falling over other people's gravestones and trampling flowers | :19:17. | :19:23. | |
to get a picture of Eric and his girlfriend at the funeral. We wrote | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
to every Fleet Street editor and said please stay away, this is an | :19:27. | :19:31. | |
incredibly private moment. A photographer did turn up. Within a | :19:31. | :19:37. | |
couple of hours of the funeral, my husband was rung by the editor of | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
the Sun, and they said we have a photograph, it is incredibly strong | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
we want to use it. My husband begged them not to use it. They ran | :19:44. | :19:50. | |
it all over the front page the next day. What has gone wrong in the | :19:50. | :19:53. | |
culture of the media in this country? It is partially | :19:53. | :19:58. | |
commercially run riot, to sell papers, it is partly this deeply | :19:59. | :20:01. | |
self-perceived culture in the paper that everything we do is right, we | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
are above the law. It doesn't matter if the High Courts say it is | :20:05. | :20:12. | |
a grotesque invasion of Max Mosley's privacy. They have set the | :20:12. | :20:16. | |
agenda for themselves for so many years, we live in a press world now | :20:16. | :20:21. | |
where the climate, the values have been distorted by the worst | :20:21. | :20:27. | |
journalists there. I'm a journalist myself, I'm a print journalist by | :20:27. | :20:29. | |
training, I'm ashamed of the some of the things they have done. They | :20:29. | :20:33. | |
have been allowed so long it has set the climate. How can you live | :20:34. | :20:38. | |
in it? I won't justify what happened to Anne. I'm as moved and | :20:38. | :20:42. | |
upset by what she's saying as anyone else. It happened 20 years | :20:42. | :20:47. | |
ago. This is one thing t happened over a long period. I am not alone. | :20:47. | :20:52. | |
You are the features editor of the News of the World, how does it | :20:52. | :20:56. | |
feel? There is lots of fantastic public interest journalism we did. | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
Nobody disputes that? Things went wrong. I'm not here to justify what | :21:00. | :21:06. | |
happened to Anne 20 years ago at the hands of the Sun under a | :21:06. | :21:09. | |
completely previous regime. And the News of the World, not just the Sun | :21:09. | :21:13. | |
or the News of the World. It was a culture you guys were allowed to | :21:13. | :21:19. | |
set. What was it went wrong? People made mistakes, there is no doubt | :21:19. | :21:28. | |
about it. This was industrial scale phone hacking? I'm not here to | :21:28. | :21:30. | |
justify that, I don't think the News of the World has been | :21:30. | :21:34. | |
exonerated. I think, you can justify the closure of the paper, | :21:34. | :21:38. | |
even. I'm not here to do that. I was here to talk about the Guardian | :21:38. | :21:42. | |
getting things wrong and the Guardian misrepresenting. Now you | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
know how it feels. Just a little tiny glimmer, that is all you are | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
getting of what you have put other people through for many, many years, | :21:49. | :21:52. | |
now you know how it feels. It feels a sense of moral outrage. That is | :21:52. | :21:56. | |
what I see from you today. And that's what so many people have | :21:56. | :22:01. | |
felt for so long. You are still playing the same tabloid distortion | :22:01. | :22:07. | |
game. We publish more than 100 stories, confirmed in evidence by | :22:07. | :22:10. | |
police and inquiries and in civil actions and you pick on two error, | :22:10. | :22:14. | |
one of them very significant in the Milly Dowler story, one of them | :22:14. | :22:17. | |
really minor in the Gordon Brown story, and you distort the truth | :22:17. | :22:22. | |
and try to pretend that means we are guilty of shoddy journalism. | :22:22. | :22:27. | |
least you are accepting the errors. The distortion is wrong. Take a | :22:27. | :22:32. | |
leaf out of Rupert Murdoch's book and get humble, or go quiet, people | :22:32. | :22:35. | |
don't believe you any more. We will not be bullied by people like you | :22:35. | :22:40. | |
any more, we have had enough of you. You have just taken over as head of | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
the Press Complaints Commission, it is a hopeless task, isn't it? | :22:43. | :22:49. | |
of all, you have to recognise that the press is not being regulated. | :22:49. | :22:53. | |
The body I have inherited, the Press Complaints Commission has no | :22:53. | :22:58. | |
regulatory powers at all. I come in as a lawyer, specialising in | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
regulation, everyone I say this to agrees. So we don't have a system | :23:02. | :23:06. | |
at the moment. I have resolved that we will now have a system and it is | :23:06. | :23:12. | |
up to me to put it forward. How are you going to do it? First | :23:12. | :23:17. | |
of all, listening to the tragic stories, coming out of not just | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
Lord Justice Leveson. You haven't got teeth? Listening to the tragic | :23:21. | :23:25. | |
stories, like the ones we have just heard, and acknowledging, as I | :23:25. | :23:28. | |
think, all of us would, that we are proud of the freedom of the press | :23:28. | :23:34. | |
in this country. We are proud of investigative journalism, Anne | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
knows that a number of stories came in behind causes that she was | :23:38. | :23:41. | |
pushing. So we have to preserve that. But we have to have some | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
regulation, we have to have some standards. That is going to be my | :23:45. | :23:50. | |
job, to find a way of persuading people, not just in parliament, not | :23:50. | :23:56. | |
just in the press but the public, that we can have a system of self- | :23:56. | :24:01. | |
regulation of the press. Do you believe in self-regulation? No, I | :24:01. | :24:04. | |
don't. All the years I have spent, when I went into broadcast | :24:04. | :24:08. | |
journalism in the end. I used to think why is there one set of rules | :24:08. | :24:12. | |
for the press and another set of rules entirely for broadcast | :24:12. | :24:17. | |
journalists. Broadcast journalists are still able to do fantastic | :24:17. | :24:19. | |
investigative journalism, wonderful campaigning, the standard of | :24:19. | :24:25. | |
journalism is still very high in the BBC and elsewhere. Are you in | :24:25. | :24:29. | |
favour of a Ofcom for newspapers? think so, for the press. The power | :24:29. | :24:33. | |
to fine the stories? The popular press have nothing to fear from | :24:33. | :24:37. | |
this. They need to embrace it. We could all pull up the standards of | :24:37. | :24:41. | |
the popular press in this country. Not through statute, I don't like | :24:41. | :24:45. | |
the idea of putting the press in the hands of the politicians. | :24:45. | :24:49. | |
have had 20-odd years of self- regulation, and it hasn't worked. | :24:49. | :24:53. | |
We had the press council before that, that didn't work either. | :24:53. | :24:56. | |
don't think we have ever had proper regulatory control, even from | :24:56. | :25:01. | |
within the press, or even from independent sources. Do you worry | :25:01. | :25:05. | |
about what some of the consequences may be. The consequences for | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
investigative journalism for a free press? There has been some nasty | :25:09. | :25:12. | |
backlash and bad ideas put about. There has been a crackdown within | :25:12. | :25:16. | |
police forces to try to stop any kind of unauthorised contact | :25:16. | :25:18. | |
between police officers and journalists. That is a very, very | :25:18. | :25:21. | |
bad move. I don't want to live in a world where the only information we | :25:21. | :25:25. | |
can get out of a police force or Government department is what is | :25:25. | :25:28. | |
authorised by the boss. That is the kind of information tyranny that | :25:28. | :25:32. | |
you create. Unauthorised contact is central to the free press. So there | :25:32. | :25:37. | |
are nasty bits of backlash going on. That is not to deny the problem. I | :25:37. | :25:40. | |
have stopped believing in the self- regulation of the press. | :25:40. | :25:43. | |
Principally because of the grotesque failure of the PCC over | :25:43. | :25:47. | |
the phone hacking scandal. Twice they produced report, my editor | :25:47. | :25:55. | |
described them as "worse than useless" that was kind. There was a | :25:55. | :25:59. | |
structural failure in there. This is not a bunch of starchy nannies | :25:59. | :26:03. | |
sitting around in Holland Park eating digestive biscuits and | :26:03. | :26:08. | |
hoping they are obeying the rules, this is a deeply competitive | :26:08. | :26:10. | |
industry, routinely breaking the law and stabbing each other's backs | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
in order to sell newspapers. You are not interested in being | :26:14. | :26:20. | |
regulated are you. Let's pause for a moment, you condemn the PCC, many | :26:20. | :26:25. | |
people have, and have said it many times. I look at the PCC and say to | :26:25. | :26:28. | |
myself what regulatory powers does it have. What powers of | :26:28. | :26:34. | |
investigation? The answer is none. In a way the PCC is being judged by | :26:34. | :26:40. | |
powers that it never had. I have got to work out how we can have | :26:40. | :26:45. | |
shows powers, within an independent, self-regulatory system, that is | :26:45. | :26:50. | |
what I have set my task to do. investigation and enforcement, | :26:50. | :26:54. | |
there are two different problems to get to the truth and enforce. | :26:54. | :26:58. | |
reconvene this later. It is a truth universally | :26:58. | :27:02. | |
acknowledged that the weekly Punch and Judy show in Westminster has | :27:02. | :27:07. | |
taken a lot more seriously by the political masters than normal human | :27:07. | :27:09. | |
beings. How they perform at Prime Minister's Questions, and it was | :27:09. | :27:12. | |
the last of the year today, can determine whether a party leader | :27:12. | :27:16. | |
lives or dies. Today, given what he obviously thought was a golden | :27:16. | :27:19. | |
opportunity, Ed Milliband was left looking like a man who chooses his | :27:19. | :27:24. | |
best suit and tie for a job interview, and then enters the room | :27:24. | :27:31. | |
realising he has forgotten to put his trousers on. | :27:31. | :27:35. | |
Hi everybody. Hi daddy. Apparently when Ed Milliband goes to the | :27:35. | :27:41. | |
United States, he gets mistaken for this chap, star of the hit HBO | :27:41. | :27:46. | |
comedy, Everbody Loves Raymond. And, well, you can kind of see why. | :27:46. | :27:52. | |
was your day? There was, though, no mistakes Mr Miliband for a comedian | :27:52. | :27:55. | |
today. His attempted gag ended up coming right back at him. | :27:55. | :28:01. | |
Let me say, it is good to see the Deputy Prime Minister back among us. | :28:01. | :28:04. | |
The Labour leader might have thought he had some promising | :28:04. | :28:08. | |
material to work with, after the row between the PM and his deputy | :28:08. | :28:16. | |
over the EU veto. Calm down, calm down. This is what he said, this is | :28:16. | :28:21. | |
what he said in his new year's message for 2011, I will place a | :28:21. | :28:24. | |
copy in the library of the House, Mr Speaker, just so everyone can | :28:24. | :28:29. | |
see it. This is what he said, "coalition politics is not always | :28:29. | :28:35. | |
straight forward, but I believe we are bringing in a whole new style | :28:35. | :28:45. | |
:28:45. | :28:47. | ||
of Government ". Mr Speaker there is more, there is more. "a more | :28:47. | :28:51. | |
collegiate approach", Mr Speaker, I'm bound to ask, what has gone | :28:51. | :28:57. | |
wrong. I will answer. I will answer. Look, | :28:57. | :29:02. | |
look, no-one in this House is going to be surprised that Conservatives | :29:02. | :29:07. | |
and Liberal Democrats don't always agree about Europe. But let me | :29:07. | :29:12. | |
reassure him, he shouldn't believe everything he reads in the papers. | :29:12. | :29:17. | |
No, it is not that bad, I mean it is not like we're brothers or | :29:17. | :29:27. | |
:29:27. | :29:38. | ||
anything! More. More. He certainly walked into that one. | :29:38. | :29:44. | |
Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, ...The Labour leader did the best to | :29:44. | :29:48. | |
recover, but you could see the pain all over the faces on the Labour | :29:48. | :29:52. | |
benches. Of course anyone can have a bad | :29:52. | :29:56. | |
PMQs, but the worry concerning Labour MPs as they head towards the | :29:56. | :30:00. | |
Christmas holiday is this. With the economy flatlining, the | :30:00. | :30:03. | |
Government's deficit reduction programme not working, and public | :30:03. | :30:08. | |
splits in the coalition that you could comfortably drive a bus | :30:08. | :30:13. | |
through, why on earth aren't we doing a whole lot better. Dan | :30:13. | :30:17. | |
Hodges used to be an adviser to the Labour Party. Today's PMQ was bad | :30:17. | :30:21. | |
for Ed Milliband, but the key turning point was the Autumn | :30:21. | :30:23. | |
Statement. Labour MPs were hoping and praying that would be the | :30:23. | :30:27. | |
moment where the public rumbled what they see as the George Osborne | :30:27. | :30:33. | |
failed economic strategy, and start to embrace Labour's, the reverse is | :30:33. | :30:38. | |
the case. The Tories are increased their lead in terms of economic | :30:38. | :30:41. | |
competence, and eradicated Labour's opinion poll lead. That is the | :30:42. | :30:45. | |
thing that is really now terrifying Labour MPs. What they are saying, | :30:45. | :30:48. | |
is we can't beat the Tories and get a significant lead over the Tories | :30:48. | :30:53. | |
now, with this cascade of bad news, how are we going to do it in two or | :30:53. | :30:58. | |
three years time when the economy, even sluggishly starting to improve. | :30:58. | :31:03. | |
Indeed the polls at the moment are no joke for Ray's British lookalike, | :31:03. | :31:08. | |
everybody, it seems, does not love Ed. When compared with other | :31:08. | :31:12. | |
leaders of the opposition, Ed Milliband's net approval rating is | :31:12. | :31:18. | |
worse than David Cameron or Tony Blair's were at at this point. Only | :31:18. | :31:21. | |
Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard, and William Hague did worse, and | :31:21. | :31:26. | |
they never made it to Number Ten. When you look at how his polling | :31:26. | :31:32. | |
splits up, it is clear what happens. A large number of the "don't knows" | :31:33. | :31:38. | |
at the start of the Miliband leadership has disappeared, but | :31:38. | :31:42. | |
they have decided they don't like him. What sort of qualities do the | :31:42. | :31:46. | |
public see as Ed Milliband possessing or not possessing? | :31:46. | :31:50. | |
one area where he still scores reasonably well is being regarded | :31:50. | :31:55. | |
in touch with ordinary people, not too bad on honesty. Where his | :31:55. | :31:59. | |
ratings really fall down are things like being strong, decisive, good | :31:59. | :32:04. | |
in a crisis, a the natural qualities of a leader. Those | :32:04. | :32:08. | |
figures are really very low. It is very hard to win an election in | :32:08. | :32:13. | |
opposition with a leader with those kinds of scores. | :32:14. | :32:19. | |
That is what I was going to say. too. I'm sorry. Maybe the Labour | :32:19. | :32:24. | |
leader should take some solace from regime mond, he may get in a few | :32:24. | :32:30. | |
scrapes but he -- Raymond, but he may get into a couple of scrapes | :32:30. | :32:35. | |
but he usual comes good in the end. Hilary Benn is with us. Do you | :32:35. | :32:40. | |
think he's doing a good job? I do. Why isn't he more popular? Look we | :32:40. | :32:45. | |
had our second worst election defeat in 2010. If you reflect on | :32:46. | :32:51. | |
what's happened since then, we have 65,000 more members, 850 more | :32:51. | :32:54. | |
councillors. We have won four by- elections, but it is a long haul. | :32:54. | :32:57. | |
Why not polling better than the Conservatives, unemployment is | :32:57. | :33:01. | |
rising, the economic strategy is not working, the Prime Minister has | :33:01. | :33:04. | |
delivered something the Deputy Prime Minister has said is bad for | :33:04. | :33:07. | |
Britain? Most of the years you know we have been ahead in the polls. | :33:08. | :33:11. | |
You are not now? No, and there may be a short-term effect from what | :33:11. | :33:14. | |
happened last week. In the end it is the character of leaders that | :33:14. | :33:20. | |
will win out. And David Cameron's problem is that he his economic | :33:21. | :33:24. | |
policy is not working, as is now evident, and the British public are | :33:24. | :33:28. | |
beginning to see that, but it will take time for the full failure of | :33:28. | :33:33. | |
that to become clear. Let's discuss David Cameron's problems with unof | :33:33. | :33:36. | |
his friends, you are Ed Milliband's friend and I want to talk about his | :33:36. | :33:39. | |
problems with you. How is it that a third of Labour voters are | :33:39. | :33:43. | |
dissatisfied with his performance? Look, the country is going through | :33:43. | :33:48. | |
a tough time. We lost an election. What happened in the past is bound | :33:48. | :33:54. | |
to be reflected in part, in how people perceive Labour now. But, | :33:54. | :33:59. | |
really important questions are, who is thinking about the future of the | :33:59. | :34:06. | |
country. So you assert...I'm Reflecting on the riveting item on | :34:06. | :34:09. | |
the programme there. Who demonstrated courage in the course | :34:09. | :34:12. | |
of the year in taking on News International, breaking with the | :34:12. | :34:15. | |
politic consensus there for a very long time, it was Ed Milliband, and | :34:15. | :34:19. | |
David Cameron was left following in his wake. You must acknowledge that. | :34:19. | :34:23. | |
In the interests of clarity, can you tell us what your position is | :34:23. | :34:27. | |
then on David Cameron's wielding of the veto in Brussels the other | :34:27. | :34:31. | |
night? Well it wasn't a veto was it. I will tell you what our position | :34:31. | :34:35. | |
is, a veto is intended to stop something happening. You would have | :34:35. | :34:40. | |
signed the pact would you? there wasn't a treaty. Is there a | :34:40. | :34:43. | |
treaty, I don't know if Newsnight has hold of a copy of the treaty. | :34:43. | :34:46. | |
The right thing for the Prime Minister to have done would be to | :34:46. | :34:49. | |
stay in the room, make sure British interests are protected and the | :34:49. | :34:53. | |
truth is, he has walked away. These negotiations will continue and | :34:53. | :34:56. | |
Britain will not be there. We have handed over, actually, power to the | :34:56. | :35:00. | |
French and Germans, that is a reflection of his weak negotiating | :35:00. | :35:06. | |
position and the fact he's derfied of his backbenchers. If -- | :35:06. | :35:11. | |
Terrified of his backbenchers. your leader was Prime Minister, | :35:11. | :35:15. | |
what would we have agreed to? would have put in the work before | :35:15. | :35:18. | |
the negotiations, there is no good in turning up as the Prime Minister | :35:18. | :35:21. | |
and throwing down some demands and saying if you don't agree I'm off. | :35:21. | :35:24. | |
We should be there trying to protect British interests. Would | :35:24. | :35:28. | |
you have agreed to the treaty changes or not? There isn't a | :35:28. | :35:33. | |
treaty in place, there isn't even a draft treaty, is there. If Britain | :35:33. | :35:37. | |
had agreed it, there would have been a draft treaty? There is not a | :35:38. | :35:41. | |
draft treaty. Clearly there isn't now? Now they will have to | :35:41. | :35:45. | |
negotiate it. This will happen over the next few months. That is a | :35:45. | :35:49. | |
position Ed Milliband would have put us in? We need to be there to | :35:49. | :35:54. | |
protect British interests, no party leader will agree to anything not | :35:54. | :35:57. | |
in the British interests. By absenting himself he has put | :35:57. | :36:01. | |
Britain in a difficult and dangerous position. Your's is a | :36:01. | :36:06. | |
kind of in and out position, the hokey cokey approach? It is not, it | :36:06. | :36:09. | |
is about defending the national interest, but making sure we are | :36:09. | :36:13. | |
there at the table. You cannot do that if you are not part of the | :36:13. | :36:17. | |
negotiation. Isn't the truth that the only thing we know about Ed | :36:17. | :36:20. | |
Milliband is his struggle with his brother, that is why David | :36:20. | :36:26. | |
Cameron's joke worked so well? microclimate of Westminster people | :36:26. | :36:29. | |
can laugh at Prime Minister's Questions. It is the only thing | :36:29. | :36:34. | |
they know about him? David Cameron remind me of other Conservative | :36:34. | :36:41. | |
leaders, he has bad judgment and good jokes. Ed Milliband is the | :36:41. | :36:44. | |
only one thinking about the future of the country, what we will do | :36:44. | :36:48. | |
once the deficit is dealt with. He understands the change that brought | :36:48. | :36:51. | |
about the economic crisis we face, that is what the speech to | :36:51. | :36:55. | |
conference was about this year. A lot of people are saying he's on to | :36:55. | :36:58. | |
something. You will stick to him through thick and thin? I certainly | :36:58. | :37:02. | |
will, I backed him from the start. He showed courage and determination, | :37:02. | :37:06. | |
he doesn't flinch when the going is tough, he's the right person to | :37:06. | :37:10. | |
lead us into the next election and he will. | :37:10. | :37:13. | |
President Obama thanked American troops for their service in Iraq | :37:13. | :37:18. | |
today. A symbolic end to the deployment of combat forces there. | :37:18. | :37:23. | |
This dumb war, as Obama called it, has cost America the lives of 4,500 | :37:23. | :37:28. | |
of its citizens, to say nothing of over a trillion dollars in cash and | :37:28. | :37:35. | |
the lives of uncounted Iraq year, all to destroy the regime of a man | :37:35. | :37:38. | |
who turned out not to have weapons of mass destruction and not to be | :37:39. | :37:46. | |
backing Al-Qaeda. Where does this campaign leave American power. | :37:46. | :37:51. | |
It has been an odyssey of pain, division, and as far as the US | :37:51. | :37:56. | |
troops were concerned, unbending commitment. But America's war in | :37:56. | :38:02. | |
Iraq is over. And the President who opposed it today tried to find the | :38:02. | :38:06. | |
right words for those who is predecessor had sent into harm's | :38:06. | :38:13. | |
way. It is harder to end a war than begin one. Indeed, everything that | :38:13. | :38:17. | |
American troops have done in Iraq. All the fighting, and all the dying, | :38:17. | :38:22. | |
the bleeding, and the building and the training and the partnering, | :38:22. | :38:28. | |
all of it has led to this moment of success. | :38:28. | :38:33. | |
Until even a few weeks ago it was assumed that a few thousand US | :38:33. | :38:37. | |
troops would remain to assist the Iraqis with special counciller | :38:37. | :38:41. | |
terrorist operations. As it became apparent that -- counter terrorist | :38:41. | :38:45. | |
operations. As it became apparent that negotiations to secure this | :38:45. | :38:49. | |
had failed, there was fury on the right, that is those who believed | :38:49. | :38:54. | |
it was worth fighting accused the administration of squandering its | :38:54. | :38:58. | |
sacrifices. The truth is, this administration was committed to the | :38:58. | :39:03. | |
complete withdrawal of US troops in Iraq and they made it happen. | :39:03. | :39:06. | |
Senator McCain that is simply not true. I guess you can believe that, | :39:06. | :39:11. | |
and I respect your beliefs. respect your opinion, but the | :39:11. | :39:15. | |
outcome has been exactly as predicted. That is not how it | :39:15. | :39:21. | |
happened. It is how it happened. This is about negotiating with the | :39:21. | :39:26. | |
sovereign country. An independent country, this was about their needs. | :39:26. | :39:29. | |
The view that the biggest beneficiary from the past nine | :39:29. | :39:35. | |
years has been Iran has currency on the other side of the political | :39:35. | :39:38. | |
argument too. They believe that President Bush's invasion destroyed | :39:38. | :39:42. | |
the peace of Iraq, and has allowed the country's neighbour to benefit | :39:42. | :39:47. | |
in all sorts of ways. There was a long standing expectation, going | :39:47. | :39:57. | |
:39:57. | :39:59. | ||
back at least to the 1980s, that a relatively powerful Iraq posed a | :39:59. | :40:06. | |
necessary bulwark to prevent Iranian expansionism into the Arab | :40:06. | :40:11. | |
world. Well that bulwark has now been seriously weakened as a | :40:11. | :40:16. | |
consequence of the US intervention. Of course, the enormous cost of | :40:16. | :40:23. | |
Iraq has had a deterrent effect on future intervention abroad. Almost | :40:23. | :40:28. | |
4,500 US soldiers killed, more than 32,000 wounded, and some of these | :40:28. | :40:33. | |
figures are controversial, something approaching 150,000 | :40:33. | :40:40. | |
Iraqis, who have died in the violence, and a bill of more than | :40:40. | :40:45. | |
$1 trillion. The US made disastrous mistakes at the start, but they did | :40:46. | :40:50. | |
learn quickly. With new tactics and a troop securing, at least they | :40:50. | :40:58. | |
were able to pre-- surge, at least they were able to prevent civil war. | :40:58. | :41:02. | |
The US forces to maintain a sense of discipline and cohesion, over | :41:02. | :41:08. | |
the course of these many years of combat, really is remarkable. | :41:08. | :41:14. | |
On the other hand, if we evaluate the performance of senior military | :41:14. | :41:19. | |
leaders, the people at three and four-star ranks, those who have | :41:19. | :41:22. | |
managed the war in Iraq, and are managing the war in Afghanistan | :41:22. | :41:30. | |
there, it seems to me, that there is considerable work to be done. | :41:30. | :41:33. | |
Falluja, where the Americans used their greatest force, there was | :41:33. | :41:38. | |
relief today that it was all over. Most Iraqis supported American | :41:38. | :41:41. | |
withdrawal, and will be glad for an end to what they regarded as | :41:42. | :41:44. | |
occupation. But, a few hundred US advisers | :41:45. | :41:48. | |
remain in a training role, and the two countries are vowing to | :41:48. | :41:53. | |
continue strategic co-operation. If you look at the demand for | :41:54. | :41:57. | |
energy in the future, and Iraq's capacity to meet some of that | :41:57. | :42:02. | |
demand, as significant as that is, frankly, not to mention the fact | :42:02. | :42:06. | |
that we are sitting on the western flank of a potentially nuclear | :42:06. | :42:10. | |
armed Iran. When you stop and think about it from a strategic | :42:10. | :42:14. | |
standpoint, it is maizeing how important this stick country is in | :42:14. | :42:18. | |
this -- amazing how important this particular country is in this | :42:18. | :42:23. | |
particular region. What remains at the end of this fight, a fractious | :42:23. | :42:28. | |
Iraq, in a dangerous region, and the United States chastened by the | :42:28. | :42:33. | |
sacrifice and force of unintended consequences, trying to forget the | :42:33. | :42:38. | |
enormous cost of what it did. To discuss the state of the | :42:38. | :42:40. | |
American foreign policy, from Stanford University, we are joined | :42:40. | :42:49. | |
by the former Bush policy adviser, and from New York, we are joined by | :42:49. | :42:56. | |
Ian Bremmre, er, President of the - - Bremer. Do you think the United | :42:56. | :42:59. | |
States, which leaves Iraq, is the United States, in any sense, in | :42:59. | :43:03. | |
terms of power, that went into Iraq? Oh sure, I think it is the | :43:03. | :43:09. | |
same in lots of senses. But I agree with the point of your question | :43:09. | :43:14. | |
which is that the costs of the Iraq war for the United States have been | :43:14. | :43:19. | |
so significant that I think it is quite unlikely we will choose to | :43:19. | :43:23. | |
solve problems elsewhere that they have solved by force in Iraq. | :43:23. | :43:29. | |
Do you see it the same way? More or less. I mean the United States has | :43:29. | :43:34. | |
the capacity if it wants to engage in your Iraq, even economically, | :43:34. | :43:37. | |
but there is no way Americans would support it. Libya is a much better | :43:37. | :43:42. | |
example of what the United States is doing militarily nowadays. It | :43:42. | :43:46. | |
was only after the Saudis, the Arab League came at the Americans and | :43:46. | :43:51. | |
said plos get involved, and then the French and then the Brits, and | :43:51. | :43:55. | |
only then did the Americans say yes, but only with all of these | :43:55. | :43:58. | |
conditions. That is much more of the military engagment you will see. | :43:58. | :44:02. | |
Keep in mind Obama still has to leave Afghanistan. He won't be | :44:02. | :44:07. | |
giving the kind of speech in 2014 on Afghanistan, if he's around, | :44:07. | :44:12. | |
that you saw him giving on Iraq today. Here in Europe, Libya is | :44:12. | :44:16. | |
seen as primarily seen as a European-led military mission, | :44:16. | :44:20. | |
which involved very, very troops on the ground. How do you see the | :44:20. | :44:24. | |
United States trying to prosecute its military and political mission | :44:24. | :44:30. | |
abroad in future? Well I think if you look at the way the United | :44:31. | :44:35. | |
States has engaged problems of terrorist threats in Yemen, in the | :44:35. | :44:41. | |
Horn of Africa, and in other places, what the Obama administration's | :44:41. | :44:46. | |
strategy is focusing on is fewer troops on the ground. Lots of | :44:46. | :44:51. | |
intelligence information provieed by people living in the countries, | :44:51. | :44:57. | |
lots of surveillance information provided by the United States over | :44:57. | :45:00. | |
flying those countries, and precision strikes. That is good at | :45:00. | :45:04. | |
killing terrorists, it is not good at changing the way the people who | :45:04. | :45:08. | |
live in this country feel about their vulnerability to us attacking | :45:08. | :45:18. | |
:45:18. | :45:24. | ||
them. It is good for one piece of the country but not good for all. | :45:24. | :45:28. | |
What came away from the film I just heard was the sense that Iran is | :45:28. | :45:34. | |
being emboldened by the fact that the United States has pulled out, | :45:34. | :45:40. | |
Hussein isn't there. Iran's political position isn't an | :45:40. | :45:43. | |
advantageous one, Syria, Bashar al- Assad is literally on his last legs | :45:43. | :45:47. | |
and surrounded regionally and internationally, that will cause | :45:47. | :45:52. | |
problems for Iran and Lebanon as well. The GCC, Saudi Arabia, having | :45:52. | :45:58. | |
a much pronk stronger role on the gulf operation council, co- | :45:58. | :46:03. | |
ordinating countries which have tilted more closely to Iran. Iran | :46:03. | :46:07. | |
has problems internally between the Supreme Leader and the President. | :46:07. | :46:12. | |
There is no question that Iranians want a bigger influence in Iraq. I | :46:12. | :46:16. | |
see the problem with Iraq is major defragmentisingation and | :46:16. | :46:21. | |
decentralisation, with the Kurds and the Sunnis wanting their more | :46:21. | :46:24. | |
autonomous region, and the Shia, that is more of a problem. I don't | :46:24. | :46:28. | |
see Iran becoming a mass of political threat because of Iraq. | :46:28. | :46:33. | |
Isn't it a lot more difficult for the ufpl states to intervene abroad, | :46:33. | :46:36. | |
given the state -- the United States to intervene abroad, given | :46:36. | :46:39. | |
the state of the feeling about the United States in the rest of the | :46:39. | :46:44. | |
world? Yeah, I do think it would be more difficult for the President to | :46:44. | :46:48. | |
encourage public support for major interventions overseas. I think | :46:48. | :46:51. | |
part of the reason that President Obama was so hesitant to go to | :46:51. | :46:55. | |
Congress for authorisation for the use of force in the Libya campaign, | :46:55. | :47:01. | |
for example s that he didn't want to risk public reaction to it. So I | :47:01. | :47:04. | |
do think there is a hesitancy on the part of the American people. I | :47:04. | :47:07. | |
would say that is ameanable to leadership. And when it matters for | :47:07. | :47:11. | |
the United States to use force to protect and advance its interests, | :47:11. | :47:15. | |
it is the President's job to build public support for that. The other | :47:15. | :47:22. | |
thing it is ameanable to, is events. Who would have predicted, I know | :47:22. | :47:27. | |
9/11 was predicted, but George Bush did not set out to have a major | :47:27. | :47:29. | |
interventionist policy overseas during his presidency, 9/11 changed | :47:29. | :47:34. | |
all of that, didn't it? That is certainly true. The 9/11 era is | :47:34. | :47:40. | |
over. We saw that also with Bin Laden. I think that one of the big | :47:40. | :47:44. | |
ships we have seen has been -- shifts we have seen, is the United | :47:44. | :47:50. | |
States now focusing on Asia, not on the Middle East. That is a place | :47:50. | :47:54. | |
given the concerns on China on both sides of the electoral divide. You | :47:54. | :48:00. | |
will see the United States being more actively involved, several | :48:00. | :48:03. | |
administrations has been you cut your teeth on the Middle East live | :48:03. | :48:06. | |
or die. This administration has decided that is not where they are | :48:06. | :48:09. | |
going to be. They will get a lot of international support among Asian | :48:09. | :48:12. | |
allies for that. Thank you very much indeed. | :48:12. | :48:22. | |
:48:22. | :48:33. | ||
That is all from Newsnight tonight. A storm brewing, but the calm | :48:33. | :48:36. | |
before the storm brewing. It could be an icey start but many of us | :48:36. | :48:40. | |
having a reasonable day with some sunshine inbetween the showers. | :48:40. | :48:42. | |
Quite a mixture through the afternoon for example, there will | :48:42. | :48:46. | |
be band of showers pushing out through parts of the Midlands, some | :48:46. | :48:50. | |
of those showers will be wintry, mostly falling as rain to lower | :48:50. | :48:55. | |
levels, on either side sunshine hanging on. Showers hanging on in | :48:55. | :49:00. | |
the London area. Breezy but the winds not excessively strong, wet | :49:00. | :49:04. | |
and windy across the far South-West of England as we end the day, a | :49:04. | :49:08. | |
sign of things to come. That rain pushing up into the far South-West | :49:08. | :49:13. | |
of Wales. Most of Wales having a reasonable interlude, some sunshine | :49:13. | :49:16. | |
through the afternoon. For Northern Ireland too, I think after a | :49:16. | :49:19. | |
showery period things will tend to dry out for a time in the afternoon. | :49:19. | :49:24. | |
Scotland looks like having a cold, cold day, lingering fog patches, | :49:24. | :49:29. | |
and the services could well have been -- surfaces quite slippery. | :49:29. | :49:33. | |
Wet and windy overnight across the southern half of the UK, that is | :49:33. | :49:37. | |
snow across Wales and the Midlands. That is one to watch. The worst of | :49:37. | :49:41. | |
the conditions gradually clearing away on Friday, left behind a cold | :49:41. | :49:46. |