As far as I can tell, the only thing that Gilligan can plausibly be accused of getting wrong is inferring from his interview with Dr. Kelly that the government knew it was lying, when in fact it seems they wanted desperately to believe their own intelligence reports. They certainly "sexed up" the report, there is much evidence of that. And after the press got hold of it, no one in the government ever clarified that the conclusions the press and public were reaching were far beyond the evidence. They wanted people to believe the threat on the flimsiest of evidence, which turns out to be hopelessly wrong.

It was a reasonable inference that Blair and Campbell were lying as usual, since they desperately wanted the British public to support the war. The interview with Kelly suggested that manipulation had been going on. The inference of lying (as far as the available evidence goes) turns out to be wrong. An accusation of stupidity and foolishness would, it turns out, have been more accurate.

yours,

Peter T.