September 16, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 18, 1424

LONDON, Sept 15: Britain’s secretive intelligence chief conceded on Monday that criticism of the dossier setting out Prime Minister Tony Blair’s case for invading Iraq was valid because its most sensational warning was “misinterpreted”.

Breaking with precedent, MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove testified via audio-link to the judicial inquiry into the suicide of weapons expert David Kelly, which has raised questions about Mr Blair’s reasons for the invasion and sent his trust ratings plunging.

Mr Dearlove said he stood by the intelligence in the Sept 2002 dossier, but added that a contentious assertion that Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons at 45 minutes’ notice was only meant to refer to short-range arms.

“Given the misinterpretation placed on the 45-minutes intelligence, with the benefit of hindsight you could say that was valid criticism,” said Mr Dearlove, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), better known as MI6.

“The original (intelligence) report referred...to battlefield weapons. What subsequently happened in the reporting was it was taken that the 45 minutes applied to weapons of a longer range,” he said.

The 45-minute claim was the most dramatic element of the dossier that Mr Blair used to counter widespread public opposition to joining the US invasion of Iraq.

Tony Blair’s team denies it “sexed up” the dossier on the threat posed by Iraq. But five months after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, no banned weapons have been found in Iraq.

Richard Dearlove, whose disembodied voice echoed round the courtroom during his 40-minute testimony, insisted the 45-minutes’ claim was “a well-sourced piece of intelligence”.

HOON: British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon has been called back to give evidence under cross-examination at the Kelly inquiry, the counsel to the inquiry said on Monday.

Mr Hoon will give testimony for a second time next Monday as part of the second phase of the inquiry and will be followed into the witness box by Prime Minister Tony Blair’s former communications director, Alastair Campbell.—Reuters/AFP