• Government announces intelligence services reforms after Iraq WMD fiasco
• Agents and analysts to get 'whistleblower' rules to raise intelligence doubts
• Confidential ministerial guidebook cautions on treatment of intelligen
ce
Key quote"A picture that is drawn solely from secret intelligence will almost certainly be a more uncertain picture than one which incorporates other sources of information" -
Ministerial and civil service guidebookStory in full BRITAIN should never again go to war solely on the reports of the secret services, the government admitted yesterday in a comprehensive intelligence shake-up.
New rules to ensure ministers always treat the reports of MI6 and other agencies with caution are at the centre of the reforms brought about by the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction fiasco.
New jobs and structures for the spies themselves are also intended to embed scepticism about the reliability and value of intelligence reports in the heart of Whitehall.
The changes
announced by the Foreign Office amount to a tacit admission that Tony Blair and other ministers did not do enough to question the reports that led the Prime Minister to state "beyond doubt" that Iraq had WMDs.
As well as new orders to ministers to put less trust in intelligence reports, there will be more assessment staff charged with examining and challenging the validity of data, providing a second opinion on potentially influential information.
The
Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which co-ordinates the reports of intelligence agencies, produced the Prime Minister’s infamous dossier stating Saddam Hussein had amassed a WMD arsenal. Now the JIC’s rules for double-checking and testing its own conclusions have been "tightened up".
Intelligence agents and analysts are also to get new "whistleblower" rules allowing them to raise doubts about their superiors’ conclusions. The Hutton Inquiry in 2003 revealed that members of the Defence Intelligence Staff had grave doubts about some MI6 reports about Iraq’s chemical weapons capability, but their concerns were not taken up.
The most significant aspect of yesterday’s reforms is a new confidential guidebook issued to the politicians and civil servants who receive the reports of the intelligence services. It gives a stern warning that readers cannot treat the services’ reports as definitive: "Intelligence seldom acquires the full story."
"A picture that is drawn solely from secret intelligence will almost certainly be a more uncertain picture than one which incorporates other sources of information," the guide warns.
Yesterday’s changes were triggered by Lord Butler’s investigation into pre-war intelligence. As well as finding fundamental errors in the intelligence agencies’ assessment of their Iraqi sources, Lord Butler also savaged Mr Blair’s style of government in which pre-war meetings were informal gatherings without minutes being taken.
Downing Street last night said that has now changed: "We will do it as suggested by Lord Butler."
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: "We have to rely on the competence of the people involved and the integrity of the system. These reforms will only be of any value if they enhance both of these."
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S DOUBTSTHE legality of invading Iraq was under scrutiny again last night, with claims Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, changed his mind days before the war began.
A resignation letter from the former Foreign Office legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who quit on 18 March, 2003, revealed that on 7 March, 2003, Lord Goldsmith had told the Foreign Office of doubts over the war’s legality.
"The view expressed in that letter has of course changed again into what is now the official line," Ms Wilmshurst wrote.
The full article contains 630 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
