Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
On 24 September 2002 the British government issued a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction which said that Saddam Hussein's military planning allowed for some weapons to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. On 29 May 2003 a BBC reporter said he had been told by 'one of the senior officials in charge of drawing up the September dossier that the government probably knew the 45-minute figure was wrong even before it decided to put it in' and that 'Downing Street ... ordered it to be sexed-up to be made more exciting'. On 17 July 2003 a British expert in chemical and biological warfare, employed by the government to advise it on weapons in such warfare, did not return to his Oxfordshire home. Lord Hutton was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly. By the end of the first week of the inquiry it was becoming clear that Lord Hutton's findings and conclusions might well be of wide-ranging significance.