Dr David Kelly, the British scientist and biological weapons expert, died by his own hand in a dark desperation one can only imagine.
He chose to end his physical existence, at least in part, because his professional life was over and, at least for some weeks, days or hours, was unable to see a future which offered anything other than more of the same or worse.
Kelly joins the American, British, Iraqis and others who have become casualties of the war in Iraq (the war that, in TT's view, has not ended and may have just begun).
TT readers who have been hibernating or on a round the world baloon trip should
CLICK ON TO THE GUARDIAN AND GET A FULL REPORT ON THE CAST OF CHARACTERSin this tragic, and still unfolding story.
David Kelly's death has been termed by more than a few as "Death by Spin". TT doesn't need Lord Hutton's report to know that Kelly was a victim of the highest stake and most ferocious of spins, as well as his own naivete in believing that any word repeated would be repeated accurately and his anonymity preserved. There is more than enough blame, fault and responsibility to go around and more than enough places to place it. Naivete is the least of the failings in this saga.
David Kelly was, by all accounts, a man of great personal and professional integrity and, of all the cast of characters, was probably the only one who wasn't "spinning". We aren't sure he would have known how to spin even if he had wanted to and he surely was ill equipped to counter spin or manage it.
But, David Kelly is not the first "death" by spin, nor is he likely to be the last.
"Spin" is putting your case forward in the best and most persuasive manner possible. "Spinning" involves the selection, emphasis and interpretation (translation:enhancement) of "facts" to produce a final "product".It is the art of turning an anthill into the Mattehorn and turning the 1000 pound elephant into a housepet. Spin is also about "trashing" the other side's position or facts - directly, indirectly and/or through arm's length third parties (plausible deniability). This is the dark underbelly of "spin".
Whether we like it or not, "spin" is now an integral part of our lives.Various interest groups "spin" when they lobby for or against policy and/or regulatory initiatives. Corporations "spin" their positions on issues, their stock and their products. Movie stars, sports icons and celebrities have battalions of "spinners" whose sole function in life is to manage their clients every breath to "spin" the image they have created and seek to maintain. They puff up, obfuscate or trash as circumstances require .
Politicians, and their minions, are professional "spinners".
Lawyers "spin" in court. Defence and prosecution, with access to essentially the same information, assemble and dissemble facts in totally different ways to "sell" their version of the "truth". In a court of law, however, there are rules as to what constitutes a fact, what facts can be used and how. Of course, we all know that in America, those rules breakdown at the courtroom door.
Big court cases in America have become as much about the "spin" outside the courtroom as they are about what happens inside. Think Scott Peterson and that is a long, long way from even getting to the trial.
Beyond the court's jurisdiction, there are no "spin" rules except those guided by the integrity, honesty and morality of the individuals involved. And therein lies the problem. Everybody wants to win the "spin" battle. The higher the stakes the fiercer the battle. Lines get bent and blurred, usually in small incremental doses. They are easier to swallow. Spinners are ratcheting up and escalating without necessarily being fully cognizant of how far lines have been crossed. The "spin" becomes a ping pong game in a vacuum of small sin piled on small sin.
Sports icon, Kobe Bryant, who was recently accused and charged with sexual assault (what most of us lay persons call rape) has already unleashed an awesome spin machine: the 'I'm an adulterer, not a rapist' press conference timed to coincide with the prosecutor's announcement of the charges against him, the attractive and forgiving wife at his side, the scores of friends and colleagues who are popping up everywhere to attest to his sterling character etc etc. But, already the dark underbelly has surfaced -stories about the accuser's emotional stability,a reported drug overdose, auditions for American Idol and desire for stardom etc etc etc. There is big big money at stake for Bryant. It will get uglier before it gets better and whatever the truth is, this woman has already lost much on many levels. Her life has forever changed.
Lord Hutton has been charged with investigating the circumstances of Kelly's death but the essential question (on both sides of the Atlantic) is not David Kelly's death, harsh as that sounds: the key question is whether the threat from Saddam was of a magnitude and urgency that necessitated a virtually unilateral and immediate invasion of Iraq.
TT has always thought the answer was and is no . So, we decare our bias.
With a less than supportive British public and intense pressure from the ADD afflicted Americans for any morsel that could shore up the case to the world, the pressure to produce Matterhorns has to have been enormous(the American public were more ready to accept their CEO's assessment that the threat was real, acute and imminent - even if short on evidence of either threat or urgency).
People got sloppy (a very gentle interpretation) and a plagerized (and old) PhD student's thesis turns up in Iraq dossier #1. It is subequently cited and lauded by Colin Powell at the United Nations with a global audience.
It takes little imagination to imagine the infamous "45 minute" speech being tweeked and massaged by a myriad of bodies. How the 45 minutes got into the speech, we will not speculate but it is hard to imagine how senior political operatives would not have had involvement in securing its inclusion and probably not been too fussy about its provenance!!! Forty five minutes meets the threat and urgency requirement rather tidily.
The BBC decided to start making news rather than reporting it. The journalist, who is supposed to sift through the spins for us, seems to have started the controversy with his own spinning. Does anyone really think David Kelly would use an expression like "sexed-up"? It was the words "sexed up" and the accusation that Blair's Uber- Spinmeister had inserted the 45 minute item, which catapulted the story to the headlines and crisis mode. BBC top management elected to go to war based on a single source story and went into an egregious spinning frenzy, the actual motives for which defy rational thought.
TT has our theories about how the David Kelly horror happened but we will keep it to ourselves, for now.
The"45 minutes" was dodgy and lots of people knew it.
David Kelly knew it.
The Americans certainly knew it .Why else include the British pedigree in the State of the Union address ? The British reference was clearly inserted precisely because people knew it was dodgy. TT recognizes a spin word and phrase when we see it. It screeched spin at the time and nothing has transpired to change our view. Spin in all its glory. (We can imagine the conversation:Its great stuff, just what we need. No, its very dubious . Well, what if we say it comes from the Brits. Looks like we are giving them credit for sharp work but we cover ourselves if there is any fallout. OK).
Lord Hutton will make his determination with regard to David Kelly's death but his will not be the last casualty in the Iraq War Spinning Wheel - nor should it be.