I've written very little about this tangled tale so far. As we now seem to be beginning, at least, to hear a little of what really happened it is now time, perhaps, to offer a few comments.
My impression is growing that there have been a series of errors of judgement made by the Government, the intelligence services and by the BBC. It also seems clear that Dr Kelly may have, perhaps inadvertantly (and HE isn't now available for cross-examination), made unsubstantiatable comment about the basis for some of his comments to Andrew Gilligan, the BBC Today programme's political reporter, who now seems himself to have made subtle but significant mistakes in the way this information was presented.
Naturally though, and as was to have been expected, INSTANALYSIS (aka InstaPundit) presents a very superficial and one-sided analysis, if such a word can be applied to the glib judgements of this man (why is he so highly-regared, even by fellow right-wingers one asks - is it blindness or an unwillingness to subject what he writes to basic scrutiny?) when he classifies yesterday's events as "MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE BBC". He cites in 'evidence' an article written by Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor of the Independent and whilst it is true that yesterday's events were bad for the BBC and Andrew Gilligan, it is not only they but the government and the intelligence services who came out badly in yesterdays events, in my view; just one small example to show what I mean:
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"A week before publication, Downing Street ordered the dossier to be sexed up" Mr Gilligan has again admitted he was wrong to claim that Dr Kelly had said this. But the BBC reporter says he stands by his other claim that Dr Kelly had alleged that the dossier "was transformed in the week before it was published, to make it sexier". We know that the dossier did undergo substantial changes in the week before publication. The 45-minute claim in the main text was changed by John Scarlett, the JIC chairman, from a "may deploy" to the stronger "could deploy" following a suggestion by Alastair Campbell. |
I think we must wait a little longer to be in a position to reach a better judgement of why Dr Kelly chose to take his own life and whether the justification for going to war, as presented by the Government, was vaild. I am in no doubt, however, that it was justified to remove Saddam Hussein from power although perhaps not for entirely the same reasons that were presented to the public by the Government to justify its action. The saga continues ....