1. Richard Dearlove was head of MI6 during the invasion of Iraq.
22 Facts About Richard Dearlove
1. 2.
Richard Dearlove was criticised by the Iraq Inquiry for providing unverified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
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Richard Dearlove is currently Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of London.
4.
Richard Dearlove was previously Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2015.
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Richard Dearlove received his early formal education at Monkton Combe School near Bath, Somerset, and the Kent School in Kent, Connecticut.
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Richard Dearlove graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge, with a Master of Arts degree in history.
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Richard Dearlove joined MI6 in 1966 and was posted to Nairobi in 1968.
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Richard Dearlove was appointed chief of MI6 in 1999, by Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, following David Spedding's August 1999 retirement from the position.
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Richard Dearlove facilitated publication of the Mitrokhin Archive, under Project Jessant.
10.
In July 2002, Richard Dearlove privately told ministers that in the US "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".
11.
The official Chilcot Report published in 2016 criticised Richard Dearlove for presenting so-called "hot" intelligence about alleged weapons of mass destruction provided by an Iraqi with "phenomenal access" to high levels in the Iraqi government directly to Prime Minister, Tony Blair, without first confirming its accuracy.
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Richard Dearlove was elected Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 1 August 2004.
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Richard Dearlove accepted an invitation to become the Chairman of Trustees of the Cambridge Union Society in 2006.
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Richard Dearlove is to this day the President of Pembroke College Boat Club.
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In February 2008, Richard Dearlove gave evidence at the inquest of Princess Diana's death, responding to Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed who said that MI6 had murdered Diana.
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Richard Dearlove is a signatory of the Henry Jackson Society principles.
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In 2012, Richard Dearlove took a sabbatical from Cambridge University to write an account of events leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq from his perspective at MI6, including coverage of the production of the so-called "dodgy dossier".
18.
On 16 May 2016, Richard Dearlove gave a public lecture televised by the BBC on contemporary mass foreign migration and its effects upon the European continent.
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Richard Dearlove stated further that foreign mass migration's geopolitical impact upon Europe, if it was not prevented, was set to reshape its political landscape as those of its citizens who feel their interests are threatened asserted their influence.
20.
On 29 November 2018 Richard Dearlove co-signed an open letter, published in a British national newspaper, condemning Prime Minister Theresa May's negotiated Brexit withdrawal agreement after the 2016 Referendum on the issue, as the matter was passing through the House of Commons to be voted upon.
21.
On 16 May 2019 Richard Dearlove characterised Huawei's role in the British 5G network as "an unnecessary risk" as it could give the Chinese government a "potentially advantageous exploitative position".
22.
On 3 June 2020 Richard Dearlove stated in a podcast interview that the Coronavirus disease 2019 began 'as an accident' either in the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab or in the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control.