The Hutton inquiry

Lord Hutton's report (full text here) is extraordinary in several respects. He has resisted the temptation to play to the press gallery's preconceptions, or popular cynicism. He has not come down with a false even-handedness, just to throw everyone a bone. Neither has he expanded his remit beyond the question he was asked, to include the weapons of mass destruction issue or the government's handling of the war. Rather, he has answered the question he was asked, and answered it in the most forthright, commonsensical way: namely, that no one "killed" David Kelly: David Kelly killed David Kelly. Which was obvious enough from the start. If there is anything the inquiry established, it is that there was no need for an inquiry. Certainly, the BBC screwed up, notably its reporter Andrew Gilligan: Kelly never said what they said he said, nor was he the "highly placed intelligence official responsible for drafting the dossier" they claimed he was, since he wasn't highly-placed, wasn't an intelligence official, and wasn't responsible for drafting the dossier. So he was wronged, and so was the government the BBC accused of faking the data with which it took the country into war. No doubt, also, the government was too clever by half in allowing his name to be released by the ludicrous "twenty questions" routine. Not that there was anything wrong in identifying the BBC's purported source. It just should have been forthright about it. For Kelly was hardly the victim of the piece. Even if he hadn't said what Gilligan said he said, Kelly had broken strict MoD rules merely by talking to him without authorization. Nor was the Gilligan interview the first such occasion, having previously been interviewed by Susan Watts, Gilligan's BBC colleague. And, what is more, he'd lied about it, to a Parliamentary committee (a lie which was exposed by the intervention of Gilligan, who was coaching the Liberal Democrats on the committee on what questions to ask.) Granted, he was probably mortified at being caught in a lie, discomfited by having to appear before the committee, distraught at being chased by the press, concerned for his career prospects, insulted at being described as a "mid-level" bureaucrat -- all those things. But people do not ordinarily kill themselves in such circumstances, not unless they are already in deep psychological trouble. The notion that has underscored media coverage of the affair from the start, the very premise of the inquiry, that Kelly was "driven" to suicide by a heartless government/reckless BBC, has at last been exposed for what it is: sentimental bunk.