Posted on 07/15/2004 6:50:31 PM PDT by blam
Spymaster pressed to stand down
By Rachel Sylvester, George Jones and Michael Smith
(Filed: 16/07/2004)
John Scarlett, the intelligence chief accused of becoming too close to Downing Street in the approach to the Iraq war, was under pressure last night to withdraw as the next head of MI6.
The Telegraph has learned that Sir Richard Dearlove, the outgoing chief of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, opposed him as his successor. He backed Nigel Inkster, his vice-chief, instead.
John Scarlett: 'too much of public figure'
"Dearlove was not happy with Scarlett's appointment," a Cabinet minister said.
Senior Tories said that going ahead with the appointment would undermine confidence in MI6 when its reputation had been badly damaged by the now discredited intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Sir Richard, who retires this month, told Cabinet ministers it would be wrong for Mr Scarlett to be made the next "C" after the row over his role in the writing of the September 2002 dossier on WMD.
He is said to be worried about the closeness between the former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee - the co-ordinating body that advises the Government on intelligence - and No 10.
He is also concerned that Mr Scarlett has become too much of a public figure to run a secret organisation.
Unlike the head of MI5, the domestic security agency, the chief of MI6 has never been pictured publicly before. But Mr Scarlett was photographed and filmed extensively when he gave evidence to the Hutton inquiry last summer.
Tony Blair overruled Sir Richard's objections and confirmed the appointment, which was recommended by a panel of permanent secretaries, led by Sir David Omand, the security and intelligence co-ordinator and permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office.
The only previous occasion on which a government rejected the advice of a head of MI6 was in the 1960s when George Brown, then foreign secretary, appointed Sir John Rennie, a diplomat, with a brief to reform MI6.
The continuing controversy over Mr Scarlett and the dossier was an embarrassment for the Government as voting took place in by-elections in Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South.
Labour was defending two safe seats and the elections were the first verdict of the voters on the Butler report.
The revelation that Sir Richard opposed the appointment will increase pressure on Mr Scarlett, a spy with more than 30 years' experience, who is already under fire following publication of the Butler report. There were calls from Labour as well as Tory MPs for his promotion to be blocked.
Although Lord Butler appealed for Mr Scarlett to be allowed to take up his new role, he was highly critical of the dossier for which he, as head of the JIC, was responsible.
Lord Butler was struck by the "thinness of the intelligence" and concluded that the JIC should not have included in the dossier the warning that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction could be deployed within 45 minutes without explaining that it was vague and ambiguous.
Mr Scarlett's successor as the head of the committee should be more senior and "demonstrably beyond influence", the report said.
Mr Scarlett, who has had postings in East Africa, Moscow and Paris, is widely regarded as a brilliant intelligence operative.
The criticism that he became too close to No 10 arose after Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's former communications chief, described him as a "mate".
Lord Hutton found that he could have been "subconsciously influenced" by political pressure while drawing up the dossier.
During the Hutton inquiry, Mr Scarlett took full responsibility for the dossier by insisting that he, rather than No 10, had "ownership" of it.
He angered some intelligence officials by allowing a document containing secrets to be published at all. Leftwing Labour MPs led by Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) and Alison Mahon (Halifax) have tabled a Commons motion "deploring" the promotion of Mr Scarlett. Nine MPs have signed it so far.
Iain Duncan Smith, who strongly supported the Iraq war when he led the Conservative Party, said that Mr Scarlett should not become the new head of MI6. His intervention is significant because he received security briefings as the war loomed.
He said the flaws in the dossier identified in Lord Butler's report made Mr Scarlett's appointment untenable.
The Joint Intelligence Committee was meant to be independent and at "arm's length" from the politicians, he said. But Mr Scarlett, as the head of the committee, had "taken ownership" of the dossier and therefore must take responsibility for the fact that the intelligence service's qualifications had "knowingly" been left out of it.
That was a serious mistake. If he became head of MI6, the organisation would be "discredited" and people would be less likely to believe its intelligence reports because of his reputation.
No 10 said that Mr Blair retained full confidence in Mr Scarlett. Mr Blair's official spokesman said an independent panel had recommended to Mr Blair that he was the best person for the job.
Intelligence officials said that, whatever Sir Richard's personal feelings were about his successor, Mr Scarlett had been appointed by due process.
He is preparing to take over on Aug 1 and has said he will examine the service's structure and introduce a better system of validating sources.
/sarcasm
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