of the present day YORK, Jan. 29 Ky...

of the present day YORK, Jan. 29 Kyodo

single outed editorial excerpts from the U press:

TESTING sum of two units LEADERS (The New York Times, strange York)

Tony Blair, Vindicated

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has given an impressive demonstration of by what means good governance can also be smart politics. Yesterday, an independent judicial inquiry completely exonerated his administration, refuting charges that it knowingly manipulated intelligence about Iraqi weapons and that it mixed the pressures that l a control scientist, Dr. David Kelly, to kill himself.

The independent inquiry, l by way of a senior judge, Lord Hutton, was commissioned promptly after Mr Kelly's suicide and Mr Blair gave it cloyed cooperation. Its report leaves him substantially vindicated, level though the reporting of British intelligence agencies in succession Iraq now appears to have been disastrously inaccurate. Lord Hutton also erect that the BBC committed grave journalistic and management errors in broadcasting charges last spring that the regulation had deliberately embellished intelligence findings to strengthen its case for war. Dr Kelly was later identified as a source for that report, which has since been discredited.

The Hutton inquiry further establish that the contents of the Iraq dossier that Mr Blair made public in September 2002 were completely consistent with the information available to British intelligence agencies at that time and that no claims then known to be false or unreliable were included. It conclud that the government's part in making Dr. Kelly's name public was, in greatest in quantity respects, reasonable and responsible. After the Hutton report was made public, the BBC apologized for about of its reporting and its chairman, Gavyn Davies, resigned.

The Hutton report was Chapter 2 in united of the most politically perilous weeks of Mr Blair's almost seven years as prime minister. in succession Tuesday, he barely contained a do violence to among Labor members of Parliament through the whole extent of his plan for sharply increasing the share of university charges British students must pay and letting a certain schools charge more than others. Mr Blair scheduled that promised one day ahead of the Hutton report in the trust of swaying the maximum number of Labor rebels to his side. That ploy prov felicitous showing once again that Mr Blair is the most numerous tactically deft leader the Labor Party has evermore had. He has won brace successive general-election landslides and prevailed in each major parliamentary test. Mr. Blair should not lease this week's victories blind him to the fact that the British public is still uneasy about the rigid occupation of Iraq, troubl through his uncritical support of inept American diplomacy before the war and affaired with the broader intelligence failures that brought a vast overestimation of Iraq's unconventional weapons threat. Establishing that the British conduct did not lie is not the same as showing that it advanceed wisely or even competently in this area. Further investigation is povertyed to answer those questions.

abundant of the Labor Party remains restive above Mr. Blair's relentless assault onward traditional party positions like taxpayer financed educational equality. While he still clearly commands the loyalty of principally Labor parliamentarians, his hold throughout the party's rank and file has been badly strained. Winning back that support will require more than brilliant tactics. More carefully acresed policies will also be needed

George Bush, in Denial

While Tony Blair was cooperating with a British investigation into his handling of the lead-up to the Iraqi invasion, the Bush White House continued to tread close upon its strategy of spin and evade. Because Mr Blair was compell to take the risk that objective investigators would find that he had acted honorably and honestly Britain is now able to rouse on to the next logical degree -- finding out to what end its intelligence was so completely wicked Americans, however, are still stuck in stage the same President Bush needs to induce things forward by starting -- or allowing Congres to start -- an independent investigation that goe beyond the British inquiry and anticipates into all aspects of the apparent intelligence failures forward Iraq.

Mr. Bush, whose aides had been plotting a war against Iraq practically since Inauguration Day, has dodged questions about wherefore the American intelligence about Iraq was just as unfit as Britain's intelligence. Vice President Dick Cheney continues to make outsized claims about Iraq's prewar weapons programs, and the administration's allies continue to grasp at straws. It was painful yesterday morning to watch John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, trying to drag a positive nuggets from David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector. After Dr Kay said he had plant no evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and conclud that none would be ground Mr. Warner pounced on the idea that Dr Kay said he had accounted for ''only'' 85% of Iraq's military programs. in such a manner that, Mr. Warner said triumphantly, leaves 15% Ye and in a not many months it will be 10% and month after that 5% and the answers will almost certainly be the same: Iraq make desolateed its weapons and weapons programs extended ago under the pressure of the same United Nations inspectors that Mr Bush and his aides vilified in the month leading up to the war. American intelligence was guilty in concluding that weapons existed, and that robust programs to disentangle more were continuing.