John Scarlett

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Sir

John Scarlett

KCMG OBE
Sir John Scarlett - Chatham House 2011.jpg
Scarlett speaking at a Chatham House event in 2011
Born
John McLeod Scarlett

(1948-08-18) 18 August 1948 (age 74)
Southwark, London, England
Alma mater Magdalen College, Oxford
Occupation Intelligence officer
Espionage activity
AllegianceUnited Kingdom Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
Service branch Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6)
Service years1970–2001; 2004–2009
Rank Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service
John Scarlett's voice
from the BBC programme MI6 A Century in the Shadows, 2009 [1]

Sir John McLeod Scarlett KCMG OBE (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. [2] Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).

Contents

Biography

Scarlett was born in Southwark. [3] Fluent in French and Russian, Scarlett was educated at Epsom College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where in 1970 he received a first class degree in history. [4]

In 1968, Scarlett was at Grosvenor Square during a protest against the Vietnam War in front of the United States Embassy and wrote to The Times at the time, criticising the police action. [5]

Shortly afterward, in 1971, he was recruited by MI6 and served in Moscow, Nairobi (1973–1976), and Paris. In 1994, after a tit-for-tat row between the British and Russian authorities, Scarlett was expelled from Moscow where he had been MI6's station chief. [6] He later became Director of Security and Public Affairs. [7]

Joint Intelligence Committee

Scarlett took on the role of head of the JIC one week before the September 11 attacks. [8]

The normally secretive intelligence services were thrust into the public gaze in the Summer of 2003 after the death of the eminent government weapons expert, Dr David Kelly. Kelly had been found dead in the Oxfordshire countryside near his home, after being exposed as the source of allegations that the government had "sexed-up" intelligence regarding existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The "classic case" was the claim that Iraq could launch Weapons of Mass Destruction "within 45 minutes of an order to do so"—Dr Kelly had privately dismissed this as "risible". [9]

Scarlett gave evidence at the Hutton Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death. [10] It became clear that Scarlett had worked closely with Alastair Campbell, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, on the controversial September Dossier, with Campbell making drafting suggestions which the inquiry found may have "subconsciously influenced" Scarlett and the JIC. This influence may have had deleterious effects on the quality of the assessments presented in the dossier. For instance, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament made several criticisms in their report "Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction: Intelligence and Assessments":

"As the 45 minutes claim was new to its readers, the context of the intelligence and any assessment needed to be explained. The fact that it was assessed to refer to battlefield chemical and biological munitions and their movement on the battlefield, not to any other form of chemical or biological attack, should have been highlighted in the dossier. The omission of the context and assessment allowed speculation as to its exact meaning. This was unhelpful to an understanding of this issue." [11]

Scarlett became the head of SIS on 6 May 2004, before publication of the findings of the Butler Review. [12] Although the review highlighted many failings in the intelligence behind the Iraq war and the workings of the Joint Intelligence Committee, it specifically stated that Scarlett should not resign as head of the Committee and SIS. [13]

On 8 December 2009, Scarlett gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry. He denied he was under any pressure to "firm up" the September Dossier, and claimed there was "no conscious intention" to mislead about Iraq's weapons but it would have been "better" to have clarified battlefield munitions not missiles were meant. [14]

On 26 June 2011, The Guardian reported on a memo from Scarlett to Blair's foreign affairs adviser, released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which referred to "the benefit of obscuring the fact that in terms of WMD Iraq is not that exceptional". The memo has been described as one of the most significant documents on the September dossier yet published as it is considered a proposal to mislead the public. [15]

Post retirement

On 28 January 2011, Scarlett was appointed to the board of Times Newspapers Ltd, part of News International, which publishes The Times and The Sunday Times . [16] [17] [18] He has previously been a governor of Epsom College, [19] and is the former Chairman of the Bletchley Park Trust. [20]

Honours and controversy

Scarlett was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1987 Birthday Honours and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 2001 New Year Honours. [21] [22]

He was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 2007 New Year Honours. [23] Scarlett, while Chairman of the JIC, was the principal author of the assessments on which the September Dossier was based, a document partly by which Tony Blair justified to Parliament the invasion of Iraq and which was later found to be "flawed" by the Butler Review. [24]

In the 2022 ITVX miniseries Litvinenko , Scarlett was portrayed by Simon Paisley Day. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joint Intelligence Committee (United Kingdom)</span> British interagency intelligence organisation

The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) is an interagency deliberative body of the United Kingdom responsible for intelligence assessment, coordination, and oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service, Security Service, GCHQ, and Defence Intelligence. The JIC is supported by the Joint Intelligence Organisation under the Cabinet Office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iraq and weapons of mass destruction</span> Research and development of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons during the 1980s campaign against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. In the 1980s, Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Gulf War (1990–1991), the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Kelly (weapons expert)</span> Welsh biological warfare expert (1944–2003)

David Christopher Kelly was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare (BW). A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down, Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspected civilian biotechnology facilities in Russia in the early 1990s and concluded they were running a covert and illegal BW programme. He was appointed to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1991 as one of its chief weapons inspectors in Iraq and led ten of the organisation's missions between May 1991 and December 1998. He also worked with UNSCOM's successor, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and led several of their missions into Iraq. During his time with UNMOVIC he was key in uncovering the anthrax production programme at the Salman Pak facility, and a BW programme run at Al Hakum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iraq Dossier</span> 2003 briefing document for UK prime minister Tony Blair

Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation was a 2003 briefing document for the British prime minister Tony Blair's Labour Party government. It was issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, and concerned Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Along with the earlier September Dossier, these documents were ultimately used by the British government to justify its involvement in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

<i>September Dossier</i> British government document about Iraq

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, also known as the September Dossier, was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002. Parliament was recalled on the same day to discuss the contents of the document. The paper was part of an ongoing investigation by the government into weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq six months later. It contained a number of allegations according to which Iraq also possessed WMD, including chemical weapons and biological weapons. The dossier even alleged that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons programme. Without exception, all of the allegations included within the September Dossier have been since proven to be false, as shown by the Iraq Survey Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Defence Intelligence</span> Intelligence agency of the United Kingdom

Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies in that it is an integral part of a government department – the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – rather than a stand-alone organisation. The organisation employs a mixture of civilian and military staff and is funded within the UK's defence budget. The organisation was formerly known as the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), but changed its name in 2009.

Operation Rockingham was the codeword for UK involvement in inspections in Iraq following the war over Kuwait in 1990–91. Early in 1991 the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) was established to oversee the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Use of the codeword was referred to in the annual British defence policy white paper "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1991" where at page 28 it states "The United Kingdom is playing a full part in the work of the Special Commission; our involvement is known as Operation ROCKINGHAM." The activities carried out by the UK as part of Rockingham were detailed in the following white paper.

The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which existed from September 2002 to June 2003, was a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, as charged by then–United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to supply senior George W. Bush administration officials with raw intelligence pertaining to Iraq. A similar unit, called the Iranian Directorate, was created several years later, in 2006, to deal with intelligence on Iran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iraq Intelligence Commission</span> United States government body

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Sir Richard Billing Dearlove is a retired British intelligence officer who was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a role known informally as "C", from 1999 until 6 May 2004. He was head of MI6 during the invasion of Iraq. He was criticised by the Iraq Inquiry for providing unverified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niger uranium forgeries</span> Forged documents in the Iraq disarmament crisis

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downing Street memo</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq</span>

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References

  1. ↑ "John Scarlett". MI6 A Century in the Shadows. 3 August 2009. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. ↑ "Profile: John Scarlett". BBC News. 30 December 2006. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  3. ↑ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  4. ↑ Rose, David (9 May 2004). "A singular spy". The Observer . Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  5. ↑ "MI6 chief Scarlett...the anti-Vietnam War rebel of Grosvenor Square 40 years ago". Evening Standard . 13 January 2008. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  6. ↑ "MI-6 versus KGB-FSB: The Battle in Moscow". Axis News . 30 January 2006. Archived from the original on 29 December 2008. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  7. ↑ Aldrich, Richard (2005). "Whitehall and the Iraq War: the UK's four Intelligence Enquiries" (PDF). Irish Studies in International Affairs. 16: 11. doi:10.3318/ISIA.2005.16.1.73. S2CID   154350287.
  8. ↑ Evans, Michael (23 August 2003). "Intelligence chief will emerge from a lifetime in the shadows" . The Times . Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  9. ↑ "Kelly 'taken aback' by Gilligan grilling". BBC News. 4 September 2003. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  10. ↑ Evans, Michael (7 May 2004). "Rise to the top of the spy who came in from the Cold War". The Times. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  11. ↑ "Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction – Intelligence and Assessments" (PDF). Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. 1 September 2003. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
  12. ↑ "Iraq inquiry backs new MI6 chief". CNN. 14 July 2004. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  13. ↑ Jeffery, Simon (14 July 2004). "'Open to doubt and seriously flawed'". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  14. ↑ "Ex-spy chief says Iraqi WMD claims not manipulated". BBC News. 8 December 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  15. ↑ Ames, Chris (26 June 2011). "Memo reveals intelligence chief's bid to fuel fears of Iraqi WMDs" . Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  16. ↑ Spanier, Gideon (17 August 2011). "In the air: Murdoch's daughter joins Times board". Evening Standard.
  17. ↑ Greenslade, Roy (2 March 2011). "Another Murdoch joins The Times board – with a retired spy". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  18. ↑ Terazono, Emiko (3 March 2011). "Family affair". Financial Times . Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  19. ↑ "Governing Body". Archived from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 5 January 2012.
  20. ↑ "Sir John Scarlett KCMG OBE, Chairman". Bletchley Park Trust. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  21. ↑ "No. 50948". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 June 1987. p. 15.
  22. ↑ "No. 56070". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 2000. p. 3.
  23. ↑ "No. 58196". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 30 December 2006. p. 3.
  24. ↑ Elliott, Francis (31 December 2006). "'Dodgy dossier' knighthood attacked" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 15 June 2008.
  25. ↑ "Meet the cast of Litvinenko". Radio Times . 19 June 2023. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
Government offices
Preceded by Chairman of the
Joint Intelligence Committee
2001–2004		Succeeded by
Sir Richard Mottram
Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience
Preceded by Chief of the SIS
2004–2009		Succeeded by
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