Just how stupid is British intelligence?
Sam Kiley says that our security is at risk because top spooks are bowing to political pressure It had been a good week for 'Duncan'. Working deep inside a desert fastness among ferocious men clattering with weapons, whose quick tempers
are matched only by their violent contempt for foreigners, he had gone undercover and organised a couple of high-level `kills' and the capture of at least one major al-Qa'eda threat to Britain and her interests.
His fluent Arabic, his physical strength and endurance, had put him on the front line of the clash of civilisations which Osama bin Laden is so keen to foment. He is exactly the sort of man we want fighting al-Qa'eda. But at about the time Alastair Campbell was chairing meetings with the heads of Britain's intelligence agencies, who were helping him spin the tapestry of half-truths we now know as the September dossier to make the case for war against Saddam, `Duncan' was pulled out of the desert.
He had been tracking and fighting a real threat. Now he was reassigned to Iraq — a country which his own agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), did not think amounted to any kind of a danger to Britain or her allies, Until Blair decided to go to war some time in early 2002, MI6's focus on Iraq was narrowed to keeping an eye on the regime's intellectual capital. Saddam's scientists posed little threat inside Iraq, where his weapons programmes were believed (rightly as it turns out) to be in a mess — but if they were scattered by war they could surely end up in al-Qa'eda's hands.
The political decision to focus resources on Iraq, in the view of many agents in the field, immediately undermined essential intelligence-gathering and outright combat in the war on terror. The order came from No. 10 to 'C', the head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, through the joint intelligence committee chaired by John Scarlett — himself a distinguished former MI6 spook.
Since MI6 in the 1980s failed to warn politicians of the Argentine moves against the Falklands and the ensuing war, I have somewhat unkindly enjoyed goading spooks with the proposition that in their world British intelligence is an oxymoron. Scarlett's willingness to bend over forwards to accommodate Campbell and others in No. 10 proved my point. He was foolish to allow gossamer threads of intelligence to be used as a pretext for invasion. `For the sake of the agencies he oversaw, he should have resigned rather than allow politicians to influence the contents of an intelligence dossier,' a former JIC chairman said. 'It is the job of the JIC chairman and the heads of agencies to tell the PM the harsh truths, not what he wants to hear.' But Scarlett didn't resign. He's now Tony Blair's pet spook and is leading a field of two in the running to take over MI6 from Dearlove. The new 'C' at the agency's headquarters on Vauxhall Bridge will be appointed sometime in the next month. There is a collapse of morale in our intelligence services at exactly the time we need them most; and if Scarlett gets the job it is difficult to see how the secret services will recover.
Dr Brian Jones, a weapons expert at the Defence Intelligence Service, told recently in the Independent of how he and his colleagues wrote careful memos questioning Scarlett's assessments of the danger posed by Iraq and the infamous 45-minute claim while the September dossier was being put together. 'I foresaw that . .. it was quite possible that no WMD would be found. If this happened scapegoats would be sought, so I decided we should record our concerns about the dossier in order to protect our reputation.'
Dr Jones was spot on. The government has narrowly defined Lord Butler's inquiry into intelligence which led up to war to specifically exclude investigation into how intelligence was used by the politicians. In other words. Butler will answer the entirely bogus question now being posed by Tony Blair: `Why did the spies get it so wrong?' The implication was that if the spooks hadn't beaten down the door at No. 10 warning of a `serious and current threat' (Blair's words), then the PM would not have taken us to war.
Blair is trying to make scapegoats of the very people who are putting their necks on the line in the war against al-Qa'eda. This has not gone unnoticed. 'Morale is low,' one agent recently told me. 'We're spread across the world like Flora and there's a real problem with recruitment and retention of the best people. Agents like to feel they are serving a higher cause, pure intelligence-gathering, not getting involved in the grubby politics of domestic Britain. Why should we keep at it if the politicians dump on us for their mistakes?'
The domestic security service (MI5) is so short of top-flight people that it is advertising on the web for linguists speaking 'Arabic (all dialects, including North African), Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Punjabi and Russian (with a second language). Ad hoc/freelance Kurdish, Bengali, Fujianese and Tamil'. The starting salary is £20,100; you could earn that flipping burgers.
The Great Game is being played over oil in Central Asia, West Africa, the Arabian Gulf and Iran. Terror cells have infected the entire planet, North Korea has nukes, and international organised crime is becoming a strategic threat to our way of life. We need to recruit the bravest and the best to play on the most dangerous pitches of international intrigue if we are to win.
Now that 'Duncanhas been caught up in the maelstrom of Iraq, he hasn't had time to regret his decision to become a spy. But his friends tell me that he's been looking around at the booming private sector. There's a lot of work for people like 'Duncan' these days. He could quadruple his salary overnight if he worked for an oil company, a City firm or a security outfit.
Recruitment has become such a problem for MI6 that it now advertises on the Civil Service's fast-stream website: 'The role of an SIS Fast Streamer is primarily to mount and run intelligence operations to promote and protect British interests and security overseas'. Sounds like fun. 'Successful candidates are likely to have a strong academic record coupled with evidence of interest in foreign people and cultures, positions of influence in extra-curricular activities and a commitment to public service.'
Potential recruits keen to serve rather than slave in a money shop might even be attracted if the advertisement told the truth and said. 'Must be prepared to live for months on end in filthy hovels enduring the fear of compromise and execution; must be prepared to take part in combat.'
But if Scarlett, who has become a Downing Street insider, takes over MI6, the job description for agents would have to read, 'Must be prepared to be stabbed in the back by your own boss.' Only an oxymoron would apply.
Previous page
