Apart from the lies, that is

Andrew Gilligan is apparently unrepentant. Although forced to resign from the BBC after the damning findings of the Hutton inquiry, he appears to have learned nothing from the incident, if his letter of resignation is any guide. The money quote:

"If Lord Hutton had fairly considered the evidence he heard, he would have concluded that most of my story was right ... The government did sex up the dossier, transforming possibilities and probabilities into certainties, removing vital caveats."

But that's not what he reported. What he reported was that the government had inserted false information into its summary of what was then believed about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and did so over the protests of senior intelligence officials. If he had merely reported that "the dossier reflects the views of most senior intelligence officers, but not of some others," he would have told the truth, but he would not have had a story. For the truth is that most, if not all, intelligence is the subject of some doubt and debate within the intelligence agencies. That's what makes it intelligence � ie informed speculation on highly secretive matters, teased out of whatever scraps of information the spooks were able to collect � as opposed to facts everybody already knows.