UK diplomat regrest any offence...

She doesn't take back what she wrote...she's just upset that everybody else is upset...

Britain's ambassador to Lebanon has said she regretted "any offence" caused by a controversial blog post in which she praised late Shiite cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.

"I am sorry that an attempt to acknowledge the spiritual significance ... and the views that he held in the latter part of his life has served only to further entrench divisions in this complex part of the world," Frances Guy wrote on her official Foreign Office blog.

"I regret any offence caused," Guy said in the blog entry, dated July 9 and entitled "The Problem with Diplomatic Blogging."

The British government said Friday it had taken down Guy's original blog posting in which she hailed Fadlallah as "a true man of religion," saying her views clashed with official policy.

"When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person," Guy wrote after Fadlallah's death last Sunday.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the ambassador had expressed a personal view that did not fully reflect government policy.

She should be recalled immediately...