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”.
One of the Hutton Inquiry’s little surprises concerns the relationship between the Labour government and the top ranks of the British intelligence community. They are in love.
Downing Street’s Director of Communications, Alastair Campbell, regards John Scarlett, once our top spy in Moscow and now chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as “a mate”. Tony Blair is immensely grateful for the help the intelligence services gave in the preparation of the dossier on the threat posed by Iraq. At the urging of an unnamed spymaster, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) empties its files trying to find a few nuggets to help make the dossier even stronger.
We forget too easily that governments wage war to win and do not greatly worry how they do it. Their ideal would be: “Tell the people nothing until a war is over and then tell them who won.” In the meantime they are prepared to lie, suppress, manipulate, distort and spin to try to keep the media – and thus the public – on side. But every now and then they get caught out. Four months ago the Prime Minister told us that the Taliban had collapsed and the war in Afghanistan was as good as over. Then on Monday the Blair government announced that a force of 1,700 British commandos was being sent to Afghanistan to fight a resurgent al Qaeda. No wonder Blair scuttled out of the Commons moments before Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon made the announcement.
