(c) www.lobster-magazine.co.uk (Issue 42)     Winter 2001/2   Last | Contents | Next   Issue 42

SIS: Dearlove, Spedding and PR

Corinne Souza

In October the US Government hired advertising doyenne Charlotte Beers as Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. (1) She intended 'commissioning research into the Arab mentality', confirming what we already knew: the American Government has so little respect for its many Arab/Muslim citizens, it has had to commission research into who they are. Had the American government even a modicum of respect for some of its own electorate/taxpayers, apart from being good manners (something Arabs/Muslims have in abundance), the Muslims who died on 11 September, the majority of whom were Americans, would not have been the very last group to be remembered, but one of the first - not least because they were the largest religious group to lose their lives.

To put it cynically, the PR benefits of making Muslims number one for a change, would have reaped its own reward; especially on Al Jazeera TV which America has been courting like mad (see below). The American Government could have made up for its appalling gaff a few weeks later at the Yankee Stadium Memorial. This was 'sold' (televised) throughout the world, especially in the Islamic one, as 'ecumenical'. Which is why the first half dozen or so religious representatives to lead the prayers were Jewish.

Another part of the PR campaign involved American representatives (and I include Prime Minister Blair) queuing up to go on Al-Jazeera TV. As a result, one highly educated transatlantic young Palestinian said to me in October: 'We consider Al Jazeera at best nobbled, at worse, suspect.'

Ms Beers has a lot of work to do.

Charm offensive

In Britain the charm offensive was led by Prime Minister Blair, who, rumour has it, before 11 September was reading the Koran in bed every evening.This offensive may have done irreparable damage to some Muslim modernisers here, as well as across the Islamic world, who, in their quest to encourage the development of civil societies, want faith to be a private matter. Additionally, it may have endangered other indigenous faiths in some target countries, including large numbers of Christians, whom the otherwise ridiculous Vatican has striven to protect. The nakedly self-interested and vulgar manner in which the US and British administrations belatedly reached out to Muslims, is accelerating problems in the West with locally born communities, as well as the implosion of the entire Middle East.

Not that the American or British Governments care, fundamentalists excepted. The only interest in the Middle East they had was the oil, and the focus of that interest, along with the interest in gas has moved to places like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. (2)

In view of the Crown's acknowledged need to attract good quality Muslim candidates and linguists as SIS staff or agents, the shallowness of the pro-Muslim agenda is germane. Such sophisticates, which the Muslim community has a-plenty, have long been needed to access highly-educated world-wide alliances and infiltrate networks bound together by clan ties. To do this, it could be mandatory for them to betray some friends and/or family members. In addition, their spouse, or child, could be forced to drop a particular relative or playmate if such relationship compromised the agent, let alone endangered whole family groups. Given the potential grief and sacrifice, it is unlikely that top quality agents - spies - will accept Crown employment unless they believe in the Crown's objectives. If these are shallow, they will see through them quickly. This will mean that the only agents willing to join the payroll will be the corrupt (which means more of the same) or those from the status quo (ditto).

The SIS PR campaign

Alongside Tony Blair's endeavours, has been SIS's PR campaign. Take, for example, October's Memorial Service to former SIS Chief Sir David Spedding. As proof of SIS presentation skills, the Wellington Barracks event was spun for all it was worth. However, the Daily Telegraph Court Circular (17 October) stuck to protocol. As a result, when it is essential for SIS to present itself as relevant and part of the modern world, it instead managed to reinforce the message that SIS is owned exclusively by its senior officials and the Crown, rather than the people. Its showcase homage to a dead Chief was all that is exclusive, 'royal', 'white' (one foreign king excepted; his mother is English), top-down and dated. The Daily Telegraph relevant chief mourners, (big type), represented by their flunkies, were the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, Edward and Sophie. Thirty-three lines later, (small type) came, 'among others present', the relatives. Next, a host of civil servants which looked like the cast of 'Yes, Minister'. (3)

The Daily Telegraph notice would not have mattered if, a few days previous, presumably on the say-so of an SIS Head of Development and Outreach, the public had not been treated to a feast of leaked stories about how the modern SIS was broadening its horizons and, er, looking to employ people from Bradford. Because white boys are out; women and ethnics are in. (It sounds like the 'new' Tory Party, which, until it went pear-shaped, was SIS's political wing.) (4)

To return to that Memorial Service: SIS used it as an opportunity to make a statement and played it for all it was worth.The problem is that it made the wrong one. Presumably nobody told SIS that linear communication does not work, and an environment where 'one news suits all' has not been viable for years.

If SIS really wishes to establish relevance and modern rapport with the public, it could, with the exception of the Head of State, scrap the Royals. (Lobbying tip: those at the bottom of the heap can gain by attracting royal patronage. Those at the top, require people patronage). In place of the Royals could come those who protect the public, the beneficiaries of SIS specialist areas. That is to say, public health officials (germ warfare), forensic accountants (money laundering), doctors, nurses and police officers (drugs running), and various United Nations officials (weapons of mass destruction). Next could come the representatives, including the religious and corporate ones, of the various communities in this country and the Commonwealth, who are the beneficiaries of political intelligence, including protection from terrorism.

If SIS got the external messages wrong, it did not do too well with the internal ones either. For example, had it wanted to reinforce the message of inclusivity, it could have reported that those present also represented 'many agents and their families, as well as staff and colleagues from several continents'. Instead it used the hackneyed '..... and many other friends and colleagues'. Why does it make a difference? Well, to begin with, unless things have changed or my memory is faulty, 'friends' in SIS-speak, do not include:

1. the agents upon whose heroism SIS, and the public, depend;

2. those who are not Staff (officers), irrespective of their skills or courage - that is where 'colleagues' come in;

3. those specifically from overseas; and

4. the families, especially the wives and widows, of those agents who served SIS during Spedding's career, who carry the burden of risk or sacrifice.

Nothing can greater emphasise an organisation's faults, even for a grand finale, than not updating its language. Language is important, because it can encourage unnecessary and/or hierarchical separatism. This polarises and ultimately leads to separate factions or movements developing within; turf wars with overlapping organisations without; as well as profound criticism from various informed publics who are neither SIS 'friend' nor 'colleague' but employer; (i.e. SIS is the public's employee). Thispolarisationcreates schism between what goes on overseas (which is to say, locally), and SIS's public face at national level; inhibits both organic growth essential for the future, with the central office merely offering support and encouragement, and parallel maturity and consolidation. During the Memorial Service, Sir Richard Dearlove said:

'For the past decade, the service has been working to equip itself to meet the problems of today's world, among them international terrorism'.

Which is why, presumably, its officers are all white, male and cannot speak foreign languages, when the world is half female, predominantly non-white and does speak 'foreign' languages. During five of these years, Sir David Spedding was Chief.

Sir Richard also said:

'........ We are better prepared to deal with the present crisis because of his work'.

I assume that he was referring to the Global Issues Controllerate that Spedding set up, which, I understand, is able to provide assistance to the Americans because of its Afghan specialists who have been monitoring the heroin trade. If, however, 'we are better prepared', why did the Sun's authorised version of events on 17 October 2001, tell us that:

'......retired experts are swarming back as volunteers, especially those with Afghan experience'

because of the

'loss of up to a quarter of the service's officers, in the last five years, due to spending cuts'?

In making the point that SIS needs more money - a joke: SIS is a phenomenally wealthy organisation, in real estate terms alone, across the globe - we are simultaneously being told that Chief Spedding wielded the knife. Was the Sun inadvertently telling us he did so in the wrong place? After all, five years ago, CIA-funded and trained Osama Bin Laden was well in the frame, as was the heroin trade, as were all sorts of real politick outcomes, including heroin, for the various 'stans' - Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. We are therefore entitled to ask whether:

1. there has been any independent evaluation of who was sacked; and

2. is there now a vacuum at, say, 'colonel' level?

   I do not believe that SIS has any Afghan specialists. There are two reasons for this. Those specialising in the 'stans' did not get promotion - those who got promotion were those specialising in the Middle East, USSR, China and more recently the EU - and therefore no-one chose them. That is why the FCO can produce specialists in the area. Secondly the 'stans', by which I mean principally Pakistan, used to come under MI5 (sometimes army officers seconded from the MOD) and the colonial office, which is again why SIS neglected things.

   Afghanistan was of interest because of India/Iran/Soviet Union and all those SIS specialists certainly had a knowledge of Afghanistan; but Afghanistan was not the centre of the focus. Under Spedding, as I understand it, the interest in Afghanistan was, belatedly, stopping the heroin. This does not mean political specialists.

   I hope that Sir David did not sack all these 'stan' specialists because he thought that he could leave political, economic, commercial and military intelligence, including modern terrorism, to creaking ancien regime think tanks like Chatham House. Instead, I assume he did so because:

   1. the Foreign Office told him to scarper as they had their own specialists (including linguist/former British Ambassador to Tashkent Paul Bergne, now Prime Minister Blair's 'de facto Ambassador to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan'); (5)

   2. the Ministry of Overseas Development told him the same;

   3. the Security Service thought his service's knowledge to be limited, as did various national/transnational police forces; and

   4. Spedding was following a principally corporate agenda. (⁶ )

   A corporate agenda

   Which is to say that Spedding had a host of ex-SIS officers working, for example, in the oil industry, who were, so he thought, keeping an eye on things and making all the necessary connections with some utterly revolting governments. But business tends to have no respect for the national interest, let alone for vulnerable communities outside it. It therefore misses the importance of non-corporate issues, such as the long term implications of little boys, separated from their mothers, attending fundamentalist madrassas (schools). In addition, it does not develop or promote links with those overseas who are not (yet) status quo.

   Sir Richard Dearlove continued:

   'David inherited a service already much changed by the post-Cold War era.......'

   This is another hackneyed phrase. It is usually used to explain why competency collapsed due to post Cold War complacency which, apparently, blunted the cutting edge of British spy work. This is another nonsense since it implies that British Cold War espionage was excellent, when this was not always the case.

   Back to Sir Richard:

   '....... he (Spedding) recognised it was important to reinforce SIS's reputation for professionalism and protect its enduring mystique......'.

   This 'enduring mystique', presumably, does not refer to the day Sir David invited the media to applaud his derisive invitation to lunch an actress who played in a James Bond movie.

   '.......The Service's singular skill as a collector of human intelligence was carefully nurtured (by Spedding) and remains today its preeminent characteristic......'

   If this is the case, Sir David must have changed. In the late 1970s it was a source of amusement to my father when his then case officer sheepishly reported in my presence that one of my father's overseas suggestions had been vetoed by the 'man on the spot' because he had concluded that a particular nightclub, which had been part of my father's submission, was 'a place of ill-repute'. That was not only rather the point, but the night-club concerned was no more, or less, 'a place of ill repute' than the grandest anywhere. At the time I did not know that the 'man on the spot' was David Spedding, although my father did. (They had first met in Beirut when Spedding was a rookie.)

   There would have been several reasons why Spedding exercised his veto. The ones I know about, confirmed by the case officer, do him no credit. Moreover he was wrong and seriously misjudged an important matter.

   In societies where power rests with age, young men do not always have the judgement to understand the subtleties of political information and/or contacts, from which circle, in any event, they are often excluded. Especially if they are British diplomats. That is where agents come in. Or ought to.

   '...... It is the use of this skill (human intelligence) that is the unique contribution SIS makes to meeting the new century's particular challenges to our national security........'

   Sir Richard is talking about the agents, many of them patriots, that SIS no longer has.

   Incidentally, the use of the words 'human intelligence' deliberately depersonalises. This is an old trick that allows any 'human intelligence' accolade to go to SIS (staff), rather than to the agents who risked their lives to acquire it. It means that, in a key note speech marketing SIS to a new generation, including agents, Sir Richard did not even have the sense to jettison offensive jargon, let alone know how to deliver a multifocus address. A management that cannot even get a speech right, at a time of national crisis, not only lets down (some) superbly qualified SIS staff and agents, but the country as well.

   Depersonalisation also has other 'merits'. It means, for example, that there is:

   1. no scrutiny of criminal harassment of agents, or other similar activities;

   2. no focus on pastoral care; or

   3. no independent inspection of measures taken to protect agent safety.

   The lack of priority given to agent safety was and may still be acute. At the tail end of my father's career, when a particular proposal was made, he declined, partially on the grounds of his age, but principally because he no longer trusted SIS to take even 'reasonable care' of him. He took countless risks on behalf of the country, and would have continued to do so, had he felt that his personal safety, whether or not he lost his life, meant anything to his employers. It did not.

   Depersonalised jargon

   For Sir Richard to talk about 'human intelligence' is to use the depersonalised jargon of a modern business executive. This is a nonsense since espionage revolves around the nurturing of private relationships. By that, I do not mean 'networking'. That is what business executives do: they are interested in the job a person has; they do not notice the person until they have ascertained the usefulness of the job.

   Espionage, however, is not like that. It is a people business. The men my father recruited, on behalf of the Crown, some of whom were paid, were recruited because of their jobs, but also because of their potential - the jobs they could hold in three, seven or ten years time. For Sir Richard to dehumanise this potential, at a time of acute agent shortage, proves that his organisation has lost the plot even more than I believed it had.

   In its tribute, The Times said that Sir David Spedding:

   'had foreseen a new direction in world affairs after the end of the Cold War, and had employed his extensive knowledge of the Arab world to good effect'.

   On previous occasions, Sir David is described as an 'Arabist'.

   That, presumably, is why:

   1. Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are heroes throughout the Arab world;

   2. the Middle East and Central Asia are in such good shape that there are no political movements to oppose the fundamentalists;

   3. the map of the Middle East has not been redrawn to include the sovereign states of Palestine and Kurdistan;

   4. there are no contingency plans for when the Middle East and/or other areas collapse, as they surely will.

   Sir David was not an Arabist. He was a specialist in Middle Eastern terrorism, who spoke Arabic. That is not the same thing - whether or not a foolish young king, Abdullah of Jordan, attended his funeral at a time when the king's principally Palestinian country were unimpressed by HMG.

   A special operations throwback

   It came as no surprise that the plot to murder Libya's President - a typical 'special operations' throwback, brought to public notice by former MI5 Officer David Shayler, for which he has paid a despicable price - happened on Spedding's watch. The personal views of the Chief count for a great deal in an organisation like SIS because of the high degree of administrative discretion (about as good a euphemism as you will get) built into the system. Because of Spedding's background in terrorism, he would not necessarily have had the discipline to reject actions overseas that could not pass muster had his organisation been accountable. (It would be interesting to know the thoughts of David Bickford, former SIS legal advisor, on this one.)

   The Times continued:

   'Sir David had acquired a formidable knowledge of the Arab world, which ensured him a vital behind-the-scenes role in the intelligence response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait......'

   Let us look at this 'response'. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph on 16 September 2001, Colonel John Hughes-Wilson, stated:

   '......I worked in British military intelligence before, and during the Gulf War. We failed to predict the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. After the war..... inevitably someone found a piece of paper which showed that we were warned. It was obvious that Saddam Hussein was coming......... Of course, at the time, it wasn't. To be searching for the single truth in a blizzard of falsehood is the inevitable position for anyone involved in intelligence-gathering.....'

   If the Colonel is referring to the 'piece of paper' I think he is, he means the letter written by me to SIS after the event, (7) to ascertain what had gone wrong with a plan carefully prepared by my late father, when he was terminally ill. (8)

   He had been a dual career civilian businessman/spy, who served SIS for nearly twenty years. At one time, he was SIS's leading authority on Iraq. Perhaps Colonel Hughes-Wilson could also inform Telegraph readers of my request, following my father's death, to liaise with a retired senior military civil servant, known to me, who would have known how to progress political intelligence to the highest and appropriate level. SIS refused on the grounds that he had been 'in another organisation'. (9) Colonel Hughes-Wilson could then go on to mention that, instead, I was forced to deal with SIS No Names, who, I have since learned, were under David Spedding's immediate command. These officers, among other things, disconnected the crucial dedicated telephone line.

   Only when Colonel Hughes-Wilson has explained all this, does he have the right to use the phrase 'the single truth in a blizzard of falsehood'. (10)

   Former (?) SIS officer Alan Judd/Petty, also writing in the Daily Telegraph, 14 June 2001, said David Spedding:

   '......made his name in the successful running of a section set up to counter Middle Eastern terrorism.'

   This, I assume, means that Sir David at one time headed up a joint MI5/MI6 counter-terrorism group known as G7 which 'was disbanded when MI5 felt there was too much emphasis on political intelligence rather than counter-terrorism intelligence.' (11) That is to say it was so bad that Dame Stella Rimington closed it down the same year Spedding became SIS Chief.

   My father was involved in that original office until the late 1970s. It was dire then, and I can only imagine it was a lot worse fifteen years later. Any successes it had were down to men like my father, who did their best, despite the lawlessness, racism and utter laziness of all participating civil servants, from the very senior to the most junior. It is fashionable for our intelligence services to talk about 'teamwork'. That section did not know the meaning of the word, unless it meant universal agreement by civil servants to bunk off. This is why when they retire, they are as fresh as daisies, and can go in for energetic second careers, particularly in the various 'consultancies, where they are instantly recognisable as a cabal of urbane, noxious troubadours strutting their stuff - walking SIS billboards.

   Judd/Petty also reminded us of:

   '........ his [Spedding's] outstanding performance as SIS's controller for the Middle East during the Gulf War......'.

   Outstanding? Who was responsible for the intelligence that put those SAS guys in the Iraqi desert without the correct maps or appropriate clothing? Not Spedding's responsibility? Okay, let us look at the area which was. How about the fact that Spedding:

   '...... instructed his officers, with limited success, to obtain first-hand intelligence on the Iraqi leadership.' (12)

   'Limited success'? Had President Saddam Hussein popped into power the previous week? Spedding's work was so 'outstanding' that he was utterly clueless, despite the fact that SIS (courtesy of men like my father) had been tracking the Iraqi President since the 1968 Iraqi Revolution(s). (13) Worse, over a couple of decades later, at a crucial time, Spedding did not know there was specific information available, along with the agreed, recycled code word.

   He was promoted anyway, becoming SIS Chief in 1994. Once in place, and based on his undoubted terrorism expertise, he tried to reposition his organisation. However, a Chief trained in and by mayhem, as Spedding was, is not best placed to lead at a time when diplomacy and strategic long-term thinking are equally necessary.

   The last of the SIS Samurai

   In many respects, Spedding was the last of the SIS Samurai. When working with diplomatic status overseas, this breed considered themselves senior to the Ambassador, no matter how much they hid this - and sometimes their disdain as well - under the usual niceties. Meanwhile, back in London, they did not realise that Samurai, in a democratic society, are accountable to civilians. Because SIS was and is not so accountable, Spedding's warrior instincts were allowed to prevail, even as he got the top job.

   To impress those who had doubts about SIS's long-term future, and as part of his leadership drive, he tried to rebrand SIS globally (e.g. his Global Issues Controllerate referred to earlier). However, although he was experienced in the business world through his contacts/placements and had absorbed its language, he had no understanding of it and did not realise the shallowness of the exercise of which he was principal architect. I say 'shallowness' because commerce, when it has branding in mind, looks outwards and downwards; whereas David Spedding made the fatal error of only looking outwards.

   It is easy, but no less unforgiveable, to see how this happened. Narcissism was bound to prevail in his swanky new headquarters, Vauxhall Cross. SIS required an HQ worthy of its fantasies, and got it. In addition, all global brands have a spokesperson, and Spedding was it. He relished the job. Now that Chief Dearlove has reversed the policy, SIS looks rudderless, its building no more than a cathedral without a Bishop. Or reliable clergy.

   Under pressure to provide value, Spedding sought partnership with global commerce and their insurers who evaluate risk (and needed a headquarters that would impress them), while offering the taxpayer coverage of global crime (which, he believed, similarly needed an impressive building), and which, in any event, complemented the commercial work.

   As a result, he switched SIS from international relations to crime and commerce - sometimes, I am told, turning a blind eye to some crime if it was in multinational or, for example, CIA interest - without winning the hearts and minds of his own colleagues. This, I understand, not spending cuts, was the basis of the reported 'poor morale' during Spedding's tenure.

   Spedding turned SIS into a selective international security service, forgetting we already had several of these, without respecting what SIS's core product was, or ought to have been: the acquisition (complementary to other Whitehall departments) and analysis of foreign, political, military, economic and commercial intelligence (including so-called rogue states and non-governmental transnational organisations).

   To secure the new focus, Spedding chopped those who did not believe that SIS's raison d'etre was crime prevention and/or protection of the multinationals (some of which are not British), undermining:

   1. those who did not wish to work for a security service, a wholly different, although equally important, profession; and

   2. the case officers of some existing spies and agents.

   These agents, operating, for example, in places like Hong Kong, for a variety of reasons would not have wished to be associated with a 'security service'. They signed up to a Secret Intelligence Service, working for a particular set of ideals which they believed offered something to their countries. Sometimes all that people are looking for is a sense of possibility, even hope. It would have been left to their profoundly dispirited case officers, made to look duplicitous through no fault of their own, to explain Spedding's change of direction.

   In addition to his own colleagues, Spedding also alienated crucial others. For example, his commitment to multinational goals, (14) even if these conflicted or undermined the job non-SIS diplomats were seeking to do overseas, meant that many in the Foreign Office, who were also fighting for territory, had little time for him or his newly-directed staff. As a result, with typical Whitehall skill, the Foreign Office pulled the rug from under him, by ostensibly giving what he wanted i.e. confining SIS's remit to the experience of its Chief (terrorism). SIS was 'reduced' to a crime department, rather than the essential Foreign Office partner it had considered itself to be in a changing world. (15) He conceded his organisation's status, destroying the last remaining vestiges of SIS prestige. And, make no mistake, SIS, at one time, had enormous prestige.

   Worse, when the struggle for influence was at its most intense because Foreign Office power was being eroded in the short term by a Labour government mesmerised by corporate muscle demanding, among other things, commercial targets for diplomats, Spedding backed what he perceived to be SIS's best interests - multinational patrons, with all the post-retirement SIS alumni on their boards; at the expense of SIS's relationship with the Foreign Office. Worse, he was careless of those who wanted to be faithful to the ethos of public, rather than commercial, service; and, in particular, he had no understanding of younger elements wishing to be party to ethical endeavour overseas. When SIS most needed cerebral leadership, it got an operative, albeit a good one, jumped into high office. His true monument is the Vauxhall Cross HQ of which he was so proud.

   Although a face-saving exercise will be agreed, it is unlikely that the Treasury will fund 'make believe' indefinitely.

   Notes

   1 The Times, 16 October 2001

   2 Former Conservative politician Dr Hartley Booth, now a partner with international lawyers Berwin Leighton, is Chairman of the British-Uzbek Society. This recent initiative was warmly welcomed by the Uzbek President. In addition, in a letter to the author dated 1 October 2001, Hartley Booth wrote: '...the current (British) Foreign Office suggested my chairmanship....' Hartley Booth is also Chairman of the British-Uzbek trade council which he describes as holding 'a position under the present British Government.......'

   I was not aware that in sending Labour MPs to Westminster, I was electing a Government that would give key roles, on Whitehall's say-so, to former Conservative Foreign Office parliamentary private secretaries, retained by Berwin Leighton.

   The Uzbek Government is currently executing Muslims. See Tribune, 19 October 2001.

   3 The last to be named, depending on which newspaper you read, was 'Lt. Colonel Michael Mates MP' (Daily Telegraph), or 'Michael Mates MP, a one-time Northern Ireland Minister' (The Times). (Message: concentrate on Northern Ireland, everybody. Skip the bit about Mates being a friend [Friend?] of Asil Nadir. Skip the problems with Cyprus, and therefore ignore all the whispers coming from the thousands within the Cypriot communities. Skip the bit about all those Westminster politicians who have bought cheap second homes in Cyprus; homes which happen to belong to other people......).

   4 The day cannot be far off when a superbly qualified white male SIS officer, whose promotion has gone to a less qualified woman to meet the new quotas, reports SIS to the various discrimination boards. Incidentally, what SIS actually mean by the word 'ethnics' is non-white ones. That is because SIS have always employed the others. For example, SIS diplomat Alexis Forter, who, prior to becoming Counsellor at the British Embassy in Paris was my father's case officer, was all 'white ethnic' - although he preferred the expression 'White Russian'. He repeated it so often that eventually my father remarked: 'My family would never have mistaken you for an African one.'

   5 The Times, 26 October 2001

   6 See Mark Hollingsworth's 'Spooks plc: MI6 Open for Business', in Punch, 12 September 2001.

   7 The author, formerly a political lobbyist, consistently refused to work for the intelligence services in Parliament. However, at the request of her then terminally ill father, she agreed to assist in one operational matter (see above) arising from his former career. In addition, she handled family pensions matters.

   8 Civil servants retire. Spies do not. Even when they are dead. Nor, unlike Dame Stella Rimington, do they move house. That is because sources/assets/informants do not use the telephone phone - an address is the only constant.

   9 '.........Privately, members of the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee talk of combining MI5 and MI6 to create a single, high-tech agency that pools the talent............. Tony Blair is said to believe this would lead to more efficient detection of the organised terror groups............'. Diplomat Magazine, November/December 2001,

   10 And that is before we note a separate incident to which Richard Norton Taylor refers in his book Truth is a Difficult Concept: Inside the Scott Inquiry: 'SIS had dismissed a warning about the invasion from one of its agents in the Gulf'.

   11 The Times 11 October 2001

   12 Guardian 14 July 2001.

   13 The information vacuum developed throughout the 1980s because in HMG's hurry to sell to Iraq, it mistook commercial (including Ministry of Defence) knowledge/contacts for political intelligence. This, at the very least, undermined HMG's ability to recruit good quality agents seeking to undermine the regime from within. The previous decade was no better since, with the exception of the late Geoffrey Kingsmill CMG (not his real name), who was well-known to my family, the senior SIS case officers were principally Iranian specialists who knew absolutely nothing about Iraq, let alone the language, although they pretended otherwise.

   14 See Mark Hollingsworth, note 7.

   15 Whether it ever was this, is a different matter.