pommie liars squirm - how sweet it is, page-2

Security services hit back in row over 'sexed up' dossier on Saddam's war machine
By Kim Sengupta
04 June 2003


The intelligence services are demanding clear guidelines and greater control on how information it supplies to the Government is used in Tony Blair's promised new Iraq dossier.

Senior security service sources have disclosed unprecedented disquiet on how their findings were "hardened up" by Downing Street to support claims that Saddam Hussein posed immediate danger with his alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Security officers want John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, to ensure future reports by the services are not "sub-edited" by Downing Street officials, and outside material is not passed off as intelligence.

There is concern that No 10 demanded and received "raw intelligence", unchecked by the security services. The normal practice is for this to be filtered by the JIC.

Some of the "information" received by Downing Street, the security services believe, came from Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, without the JIC being involved.

The security services feel some ministers are appearing to blame the spies for exaggerating the alleged Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear arsenal, paving the way for war. But the security officials say No 10 continuously pressured them to show the immediacy of the Iraqi threat, and the JIC was under pressure from Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's communications director, and other senior officials, to "toughen" its conclusions.