International security
Former MI6 chief ‘slapped down’ for Iraq gaffe

Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, was given a “slapping down” more than a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq after sending an explosive memo that downplayed questions about the legality of toppling Saddam Hussein.

Declassified documents published alongside Sir John Chilcot’s damning report into the decision to go to war and its aftermath reveal how a dispatch in February 2002 from Sawers, then ambassador to Egypt, caused alarm in Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).