Let us move back a bit from the dead of Dr David Kelly, and instead look at what led up to this whole thing blowing up:
On 29 May 2003, Andrew Gilligan of the BBC reported on the Today Programme the following in coversation with John Humphrys.
"JH: The government is facing more questions this morning over its claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Our defence correspondent is Andrew Gilligan. This in particular Andy is Tony Blair saying, they'd be ready to go within forty five minutes.
Andrew Gilligan (AG): That's right, that was the central claim in his dossier which he published in September, the main erm, case if you like against er, against Iraq and the main statement of the British government's belief of what it thought Iraq was up to and what we've been told by one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up that dossier was that, actually the government probably erm, knew that that forty five minute figure was wrong, even before it decided to put it in. What this person says, is that a week before the publication date of the dossier, it was actually rather erm, a bland production. It didn't, the, the draft prepared for Mr Blair by the Intelligence Agencies actually didn't say very much more than was public knowledge already and erm, Downing Street, our source says ordered a week before publication, ordered it to be sexed up, to be made more exciting and ordered more facts to be er, to be discovered."
Well what exactly did Tony Blair say that autumn day in 2002 on the day the dossier was published? (24th September 2002)
This for a start:
The intelligence picture that they paint is one accumulated over the last four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative. It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability.
So, it now appears that many people (let's face it, almost everyone except the UK Government), believe that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What has not yet been established is whether there was a systematic failure in the intelligence services in preparing the case for war, or whether downing street put spin (aka sexed-up) the reports they received from the intelligence services. Either of these situations would be far graver than anything the BBC may have done.
Oh and all those tossy holier than thou newspaper journalists. Go jump in a sewer you swine, since when did the truth ever get between you lot and a decent story? For all it's failings, at least the BBC has some journalistic integrity. (and note that although Andrew Gilligan made many reports that day, he never repeated those claims after the first broadcast at 6:15am).
Congratulations to Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies who have done something government ministers would never have done if the tables were reversed. That's right, take responsibility for their actions.
If you're interested you can read more of what Tony Blair said below, there is also included a link to the parliament hansard record of his entire speech.
