A review of The Government Inspector film (2005) about British Iraq weapons instructor Dr. David Kelly's death in July 2003.
Film writer/director Peter Kosminsky's docudrama begins with scenes to confirm the Blair (and subsequent) governments' claim Kelly's death was suicide, despite there being no historically required coroner's inquest and despite basic, compelling questions remaining which indicate that it wasn't suicide.
That is, it seems to have been a film made to back the highly questionable and questioned official narrative, deflecting attention from questions about his actual death to Kelly's personal life as well as conflicting accounts of Kelly, BBC reporter Gilligan, and Prime Minister Tony Blair's spinmeister Alastair Campbell about the "dodgy dossier" which Blair used to try to persuade both the American and British peoples to support us attacking Iraq ... claiming most sensationally and falsely that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction "in 45-minutes."
The government claimed Kelly both used pills and his garden knife to slash his wrists, but there was an insufficient amount of the drug in his system to kill him, according to the autopsy, and only a small piece of one tablet was in his stomach. Moreover, according to both his U. S. Army inspector colleague Mai Pedersen and his wife, Kelly had an intense aversion to trying to take pills.
As well, doctors claim that cutting the ulnar artery - wrists - is not fatal and there was little blood found on/around his body, in any case.
Guardian, 27Jan04, Letters: "Our doubts about Dr. Kelly's suicide," by David Halpin and Drs. Stephen Frost, Searle Sennett, and Rowena Thursby.
Guardian, 28May18, Book Review, "An inconvenient death - by Miles Goslett"
Daily Mail, 13Nov10, Miles Goslett, "Drug expert claims Dr. David Kelly was murdered, as he could not have taken overdose."
There was no suicide note, and he had seemed upbeat, planning a get-together with a friend.
Guardian, 12Dec04, "Kelly death paramedics query verdict:
The Hutton inquiry found that the scientist caught in the storm over the 'sexed up' Iraq dossier committed suicide. Now, for the first time, the experienced ambulance crew who were among the first on the scene tell of their doubts about the decision. Special report by Antony Barnett."
A suspicious omission from the film is Kelly's last-day e-mail to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter and principal media proponent of the (never found) Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction lie, used as the official motive for attacking/invading Iraq. In his e-mail to her, of all people, he referred to "dark players," and the film depicts Kelly as being idealistic, self-righteously blind if not delusional, and (fatally) naive.
And the film was incriminated by Peter Kosminsky himself, who being criticized for taking the official line attempted to claim that docudrams are not necessarily based on fact ... and neither are documentaries themselves!
Guardian, 17Oct05, "Kosminsky defends docudrama, by Jason Deans.
"Award-winning director Peter Kosminsky has expressed his frustration with critics who question the authenticity of his fact based dramas such as The Government Inspector, saying conventional documentaries are just as subjective.
Mr Kosminsky said people regarded documentaries as objective because they looked real, but his docudramas were just as subjective because they had actors and a script."
There are other questions, but the biggest and most self-incriminating one is why the Blair and subsequent British governments have blocked a geniune, thorough, historically legally required under-oath inquest into his death.
Kelly's death did succeed in diverting public attention away from the consequences and thus crime of the fraudulent runup to the Iraq war, which was then repeated in Iraq and Syria.
The film is well-acted and certainly is absorbing and emotionally compelling - the idyllic/bucolic horse pasture scenes first in the company of his daughter and then finally alone by himself, for example - regardless of its dismissal of facts ... if not its dismissal of a high state crime incidentally murdering once great Britain's justice and democracy.
The Wikipedia entry about David Kelly's death dismisses all the unanswered questions as well.
For many years now I've tried to get the film to view, and just discovered it is now available on YouTube.
Another film about Iraq War fraud is Official Secrets, starring Keira Knightley as pre-war whistle-blower Katharine Gun.
Katherine Gun is reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver's Jilly, the British Djakarta Indonesia embassy clerk who sees a telegram indicating impending civil war and confides that to reporter Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously.
Film writer/director Peter Kosminsky's docudrama begins with scenes to confirm the Blair (and subsequent) governments' claim Kelly's death was suicide, despite there being no historically required coroner's inquest and despite basic, compelling questions remaining which indicate that it wasn't suicide.
That is, it seems to have been a film made to back the highly questionable and questioned official narrative, deflecting attention from questions about his actual death to Kelly's personal life as well as conflicting accounts of Kelly, BBC reporter Gilligan, and Prime Minister Tony Blair's spinmeister Alastair Campbell about the "dodgy dossier" which Blair used to try to persuade both the American and British peoples to support us attacking Iraq ... claiming most sensationally and falsely that Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction "in 45-minutes."
The government claimed Kelly both used pills and his garden knife to slash his wrists, but there was an insufficient amount of the drug in his system to kill him, according to the autopsy, and only a small piece of one tablet was in his stomach. Moreover, according to both his U. S. Army inspector colleague Mai Pedersen and his wife, Kelly had an intense aversion to trying to take pills.
As well, doctors claim that cutting the ulnar artery - wrists - is not fatal and there was little blood found on/around his body, in any case.
Guardian, 27Jan04, Letters: "Our doubts about Dr. Kelly's suicide," by David Halpin and Drs. Stephen Frost, Searle Sennett, and Rowena Thursby.
Guardian, 28May18, Book Review, "An inconvenient death - by Miles Goslett"
Daily Mail, 13Nov10, Miles Goslett, "Drug expert claims Dr. David Kelly was murdered, as he could not have taken overdose."
There was no suicide note, and he had seemed upbeat, planning a get-together with a friend.
Guardian, 12Dec04, "Kelly death paramedics query verdict:
The Hutton inquiry found that the scientist caught in the storm over the 'sexed up' Iraq dossier committed suicide. Now, for the first time, the experienced ambulance crew who were among the first on the scene tell of their doubts about the decision. Special report by Antony Barnett."
A suspicious omission from the film is Kelly's last-day e-mail to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter and principal media proponent of the (never found) Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction lie, used as the official motive for attacking/invading Iraq. In his e-mail to her, of all people, he referred to "dark players," and the film depicts Kelly as being idealistic, self-righteously blind if not delusional, and (fatally) naive.
And the film was incriminated by Peter Kosminsky himself, who being criticized for taking the official line attempted to claim that docudrams are not necessarily based on fact ... and neither are documentaries themselves!
Guardian, 17Oct05, "Kosminsky defends docudrama, by Jason Deans.
"Award-winning director Peter Kosminsky has expressed his frustration with critics who question the authenticity of his fact based dramas such as The Government Inspector, saying conventional documentaries are just as subjective.
Mr Kosminsky said people regarded documentaries as objective because they looked real, but his docudramas were just as subjective because they had actors and a script."
There are other questions, but the biggest and most self-incriminating one is why the Blair and subsequent British governments have blocked a geniune, thorough, historically legally required under-oath inquest into his death.
Kelly's death did succeed in diverting public attention away from the consequences and thus crime of the fraudulent runup to the Iraq war, which was then repeated in Iraq and Syria.
The film is well-acted and certainly is absorbing and emotionally compelling - the idyllic/bucolic horse pasture scenes first in the company of his daughter and then finally alone by himself, for example - regardless of its dismissal of facts ... if not its dismissal of a high state crime incidentally murdering once great Britain's justice and democracy.
The Wikipedia entry about David Kelly's death dismisses all the unanswered questions as well.
For many years now I've tried to get the film to view, and just discovered it is now available on YouTube.
Another film about Iraq War fraud is Official Secrets, starring Keira Knightley as pre-war whistle-blower Katharine Gun.
Katherine Gun is reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver's Jilly, the British Djakarta Indonesia embassy clerk who sees a telegram indicating impending civil war and confides that to reporter Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously.