MI6 took 'short cuts' over intelligence against Iraq

The first cracks within the British intelligence community over the Iraq war have emerged with claims that MI6 passed inadequately checked information to Downing Street to bolster allegations on weapons of mass destruction.

Officers at MI5 and military intelligence maintain that MI6 was so eager to please the Government over Iraq, and to preserve its jealously guarded access to No 10, that "short cuts" were taken.

MI6 officers, it is claimed, often approached Downing Street directly, without passing on information through the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). Although MI6 was entitled to do so, it meant that the information did not go through the JIC's "filtering" process.

MI6 officers, who handle external intelligence, were also used to brief cabinet members before the attack on Iraq, in an effort to convince sceptical ministers of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime.

In the run-up to the war, MI6 had been more alarmist on Iraq's supposed WMD than its sister services. Most of the information, its operatives now admit, came from Iraqi dissidents and Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.

According to senior Whitehall sources, much of the intelligence on Iraq's WMD, which No 10 said "passed daily across Tony Blair's desk", came from "raw" MI6 intelligence. Other "information" received by No 10, security sources believe, came from Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, and Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy, without JIC involvement. Mr Wolfowitz set up the Office of Special Plans to harden resolve against Iraq.

There is said to be grave disquiet within the British security services on how their findings were "hardened up" by Downing Street. They want clear guidelines and greater control on how information is used in Tony Blair's new Iraq dossier.

Security personnel want John Scarlett, chairman of the JIC, to ensure that future reports are not manipulated by Downing Street officials, and outside material is not passed off as intelligence.

A Whitehall source said: "The consternation is much more in the SIS [MI6] than the Security Service [MI5] and Defence Intelligence. The way SIS was forever running off to Downing Street, there was always the feeling that some day things will go wrong, and that is what has happened.

"When it came to producing the Iraq dossiers, the Security Service and Defence Intelligence had comparatively smaller roles. They were mainly the work of the SIS ... The SIS is very keen on its access to politicians, and especially No 10. They were forever rushing off things to Downing Street."