Portrait of the Week – 7 June 2003

Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, faced an investigation by the all-party Commons foreign affairs select committee into claims that he had misled the nation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He said this week: ‘Those people who are sitting there and saying, “It’s all going to be proved to be a big fib got out by the security services, there will be no weapons of mass destruction,” just wait and have a little patience.’ He added, ‘We are going to assemble that evidence and present it properly.’ A dossier published last September had said, ‘Intelligence indicates the Iraqi military is able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes.’ Mr Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, said at the end of last week, ‘We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. It’s now 45 days since the war has finished and we still have not found anything.’