Portrait of the Week – 20 September 2003

Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, gave evidence by a voice-link to the second round of hearings of the Hutton inquiry into the events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the expert on Iraqi weapons. He said that the intelligence that weapons of mass destruction might be used within 45 minutes ‘came from an established and reliable source, quoting a senior Iraqi military officer who was certainly in a position to know’. On being asked if it had been given undue emphasis in the government’s dossier, he said: ‘Given the misinterpretation that was placed on the 45-minute intelligence, with the benefit of hindsight you can say that is a valid criticism.’ The inquiry will recall Mr Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Alastair Campbell, the former director of communications and strategy at the Prime Minister’s office, and Mr Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist. A Jamaican man who had served a nine-year sentence for drug-dealing was shot dead, and his seven-year-old daughter, thought to have seen the murderer, was also shot dead in a flat in Kensal Green in north London.