{"id":128,"date":"2006-04-12T15:23:30","date_gmt":"2006-04-12T11:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=128"},"modified":"2006-04-12T15:30:41","modified_gmt":"2006-04-12T11:30:41","slug":"after-the-event-predictions-from-the-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/128\/","title":{"rendered":"“After-the-Event Predictions” from the BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

How predictions for Iraq came true<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

is the headline for John Simpson’s column<\/a>\u00a0on the BBC website.<\/p>\n

It was a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq, three years ago. I was interviewing the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, in the ballroom of a big hotel in Cairo.<\/p>\n

Shrewd, amusing, bulky in his superb white robes, he described to me all the disasters he was certain would follow the invasion.<\/p>\n

The US and British troops would be bogged down in Iraq for years. There would be civil war between Sunnis and Shias. The real beneficiary would be the government in Iran.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah?\u00a0 Is this part of\u00a0the interview actually published anywhere, or we just going to have to take your word for it John?\u00a0 Trouble is, I think you’re talking shite.\u00a0 Take your next sentence for example:<\/p>\n

Over the last three years, from a ringside seat here in Baghdad, I have watched his predictions come true, stage by stage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah?\u00a0 Knew it all along, eh?\u00a0 Then how come in March last year you wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Iraq is not splitting up, and does not seem to be heading that way. When a government is finally agreed, it should cement the union further.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, from a ringside seat in Baghdad you watch the predictions of the Saudi Foreign Minister come true, but chose to report the opposite?\u00a0 Or is the prediction itself a figment of your imagination?<\/p>\n

Thanks to Google, we can find plenty of\u00a0articles<\/a> on this interview, but alas no transcript.\u00a0 But interestingly, not one of the\u00a0articles actually reports Saud al-Faisal\u00a0predicting a\u00a0civil war in Iraq, nor him saying anything\u00a0about Iran.\u00a0 The BBC’s own<\/a> initial\u00a0report reveals the Saudis to be more concerned about their own safety than anything else:<\/p>\n

“If change of regime comes with the destruction of Iraq, then you are solving one problem and creating five more problems.<\/p>\n

That is the consideration that we have to make, because we are living in the region. We will suffer the consequences of any military action.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sure, he mentions the possibility of Iraq destructing into five (five?) separate entities.\u00a0 But it is worth pointing out that this is nowhere near happening, and the statement itself is somewhat different from Saud al-Faisal\u00a0telling John Simpson that “there would be civil war between Sunnis and Shias”<\/em>.\u00a0 Tellingly, there is also no mention of Iran.<\/p>\n

Given Simpson’s fawning over Saud al-Faisal\u00a0(“shrewd, amusing, bulky in his superb white robes”<\/em> – FFS!) I’m not content to give Simpson the benefit of the doubt here.\u00a0 It looks to me as though Saud al-Faisal made no such explicit prediction, and Simpson is simply making it up in order to sensationalise a column which contains little by way of news or analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How predictions for Iraq came true is the headline for John Simpson’s column\u00a0on the BBC website. It was a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq, three years ago. I was interviewing the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}