Portrait of the Week – 9 August 2003

Lord Hutton began his inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence expert on Iraqi weapons, by disclosing part of a letter by the scientist to his superior, in which he said that, judging from the report by the BBC’s Andrew Gilligan about the government’s September dossier on Iraq, ‘I can only conclude one of three things: Gilligan has considerably embellished my meeting with him; he has met with other individuals who were intimately associated with the dossier; or he assembled comments from both multiple direct and indirect sources for his articles.’ Lord Hutton said he meant to call both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence to give evidence; the inquiry adjourned until after Dr Kelly’s funeral. One of the Prime Minister’s official spokesmen, Mr Tom Kelly, told a newspaper that Dr Kelly might have been a ‘Walter Mitty’ character; Mr Kelly later apologised.