One true spy story tells us more about the murky world of modern espionage than all the novels of Ian Fleming, John le Carre and Len Deighton. Here is such a story. A few years ago, the Chinese government grew tired of buying its artillery pieces from Britain - we make the best - and offered a large lump sum and royalties if we would teach them how to manufacture the guns themselves.
The deal was done and the British experts went out to a weapons factory in northern China to teach their Chinese counterparts the necessary skills. One of the experts was a metallurgist. On his first leave back in Britain he was approached by an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).
From the National Security Agency’s imposing headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, ringed by a double-chain fence topped by barbed wire with strands of electrified wire between them, America “bugs” the world.
Nothing politically or militarily significant, whether mentioned in a telephone call, in a conversation in the office of the secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, or in a company fax or e-mail, escapes its attention.
Its computers - measured in acres occupied by them rather than simple figures - “vacuum the entire electromagnetic spectrum”, homing in on “key words” which may suggest something of interest to NSA customers is being conveyed.
The Hutton inquiry has confirmed what we all should have guessed– Britain ’s secret intelligence services are untouchable. It does not matter how badly wrong they were on Iraq and how often they have got things wrong in the past. They will continue to go from strength to strength because, as Lord Hutton realised, they are in bed with the government and a major power in the land.
Lord Hutton’s narrow terms of reference did not allow him to examine the intelligence services’ role in making the case for war and the accuracy of the dodgy dossier. This was, he said, “beyond my remit”.
