So I goes all round the internet (well, nearly) and I finds that the bestest response to Lord Butler comes from an Iraqi.

It's heartening, in a way, that Mohammed and co. put such a lot of store by what some British toff says, and of course every story like this one makes the BBC look good since they seem to be the source of choice for most of the Middle East (there's a darker side to that, too). roger simon says 'Some day I'd like to go to Iraq and meet these guys.'- me too.

I had a thought or two about Butler as well.

You'll doubtless have noted the diminution of hysterical press coverage and infer rightly from that that the journos have begun to read Lord Butler's report. If Butler's enquiry were a game of chess it would be a winning stalemate for Blair. Why so generous? Perhaps Butler felt Blair had had the courage (and it took courage to take on the BBC et al) to confront the poor strategy of the past and didn't need reminding of the real errors therein.

The reason for the low-level intelligence Butler so mildy chastises was that we were relying until 1998 on UNscom and from 2002 on UNmovic, and by 2002 we were, predictably, panicking as a black informationless hole opened up in between those years- in a spin-controlled sort of way. We had discovered we couldn't on the one hand support an above-board inspections process and on the other try to infiltrate the Iraqi regime at high levels (The CIA tried and spectacularly failed to engineer a coup d'etat- and seemingly the Brits were more dovish and hopeful Saddam would disappear in a puff of smoke, and that nanny would kiss it better and...). This meant we were in the dark about the many levels of secrecy at which the regime operated.

This is not what Butler says- which is the element of whitewash in his report. He never examines the longer-term political strategy concerning Iraq, terrorism and WMD throughout the lazy 'Tory sleaze-things can only get better' nineties which had brought us to the point of well-founded suspicion, but next to no certainty.

Anyway, if our media team has been skittled out by Butler and the political pressure-cooker, the Weekly Standard team have been going into bat- and by my reckoning have piled up tons of runs. Not bad for a country for whom it's never been cricket.

ps. I will talk about other stuff- soon. I go wherever seems right at the time and at the moment that's just here.