The Iraq Dossier
The battles behind closed doors in Downing Street and Whitehall, as Tony Blair's advisers raised the threat of weapons of mass destruction to persuade the country to invade Iraq.
The dossier "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction", lead to the headline "just 45 minutes from attack", persuaded MPs to vote for an invasion of Iraq, and hardened public opinion against Saddam Hussein. Fall out from accusations by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ that the claims had been "sexed up" led to the death of Dr David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry.
This drama goes behind the scenes of MI6, the Ministry of Defence and Downing Street to dramatise one of the most controversial episodes in British politics.
The author, David Morley, has created the script from the mountain of emails, memos, and first hand testimony submitted to the various inquiries into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as from first-hand interviews with Dr Brian Jones, who died in 2012 and was the MoD's leading expert on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, concerned that exaggeration should not creep into the dossier.
Other key players include Richard Dearlove, head of MI6; John Scarlett, Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee and Tony Blair's adviser, Alastair Campbell.
Producer: Richard Clemmow
A Perfectly Normal production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4.
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Next
Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Dr Brian Jones | Richard E Grant |
John Scarlett | Anton Lesser |
Richard Dearlove | Peter Firth |
Mark Allen | Stephen Critchlow |
Henry Brown | Jon Glover |
Jones's Boss | Tom Goodman-Hill |
Broadcast
- Sat 2 Mar 2013 14:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
Drama of the Week Podcast
Download a new drama from Radio 4 or Radio 3 every week.