Guardian's Paula Toynbee's comments about Hutton Inquiry in the UK

[AP]

I heard this on the BBC World Service and thought it was kind of interesting.

Toynbee commented on the testimony of Kelly's wife, sister and daughter. They all thought there was no doubt that Kelly took his own life. He had used his wife's prescription painkillers (for her arthritis) and he cut himself with a scout's knife which he had had since he was a child. The day he killed himself, his wife said that he couldn't put two sentences together.

His wife said that he was most distraught about being portrayed in the media as a lower-level diplomat who had no input in the overall drafting of the dossier (which implies that he wouldn't have known who made decisions about how it was edited). This is important to note: Kelly was upset about his, even though it was true. That is a fascinating commentary on the British obsession with status.

His daughter said that Kelly couldn't believe that Gilligan had used his information to make such confident assertions about what happened. Gilligan took Kelly's suppositions and turned them into facts. (His daughter actually said that Kelly seemed confused about what he could have said.)

Toynbee said that Kelly was also upset because the MoD made promises to him that that his identity would be kept secret. Toynbee noted that this is interesting however, because it is strange (and I'm paraphrasing Toynbee) that a man who would leak to the press wild suppositions about a whole range of things about which he didn't have first hand knowledge shouldn't exactly feel like he's entitled to any sort of confidentiality in relation to those statements.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

1. Kelly wasn't a "lower-level diplomat" he was...

the man on the ground that told the "diplomats" what was going on, and they ignored him. The evidence was NEVER as firm as the "diplomats" made it out to be, and then when he leaked this FACT, they insinuated that he didn't know what he was talking about.

It was his professional pride that was insulted - Blair, Campbell and the rest never had a clue about what was going on in Iraq that wasn't told to them by people like Kelly - people who risked their lives on the ground - and when their slimy political machinations were exposed they dared to call Kelly a fantasist.

If Blair had been faced with an Iraqi with an AK-47 he would have pissed humself, but Kelly stood up to this kind of intimidation to get the facts, and now Blair and his band of merry men think they know better?

Blair is a piece of shit for lying to the British public, but he could be forgiven for that. However, what he did to Kelly is unforgivable. He hung this man out to dry - a man who risked his life for his country - to protect his own hide.

Fuck Blair! Consign him to the back benches and let him serve out his term with the shame of having once been a man of integrity that sold his soul to the devil.

[AP]

2. I'm just repeating Paula Toynbee's comments.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

3. And I was commenting on them...

Do you have a comment on them or was this just an informational post?