Defence cuts 'risk another Iraq'

After the Iraq war, Lord Butler said the DIS was "crucial"

The government is cutting its Defence Intelligence Staff, despite warnings it could lead to serious mistakes, BBC's Newsnight has learned.

Former defence chief John Morrison says the move makes a repeat of the errors which produced flawed intelligence ahead of the Iraq war more likely.

In 2004, an inquiry called for the DIS be strengthened to prevent further failings, but now 122 jobs are to go.

The current head of DIS insisted it was still of "critical importance".

Defence Intelligence currently has 590 people working in central London. They come from a variety of civilian and military backgrounds and are the government's largest organisation for analysing information - much of it secret - about the wider world.

They are the main source of expertise within the intelligence community on subjects such as the science and technology of weapons systems and arms proliferation.

They also provide direct support to UK operations overseas, including those in Afghanistan and Iraq.

'Crucial' role

In 2004, Lord Butler's inquiry into the intelligence that led Britain into the Iraq war called the DIS "crucial".

The fewer people you have, the less defence in depth John MorrisonFormer Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence Mark Urban's blog: Have we failed to learn lessons from Iraq?

It said that, in the run-up to the war, the DIS was the only part of government that seriously questioned the way the case was being argued.

The Butler report said the department needed to be integrated "more closely" with the rest of the intelligence community in order to serve "wider national priorities".

And if that required more money from central funds, it said, "we would support that".

At the time, ministers said they accepted those recommendations, but critics say they now appear to be ignoring them.

John Morrison, former Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence and adviser to Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, told Newsnight that the cuts were "extraordinary".

He said they made a repetition of the mistakes in Iraq intelligence "much more likely".

"The fewer people you have, the less defence in depth, and particularly, if you've got a crisis coming up, you need people to manage that crisis," he said.

"You need that cushion for a crisis otherwise you just run ragged in a few days."

Brian Jones, a senior defence intelligence analyst and key witness at the Hutton inquiry into the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly, said the cuts showed that lessons had not been learned from the Iraq saga.

'Customer-facing'

The Ministry of Defence wants to eliminate 122 posts in the DIS, more than one fifth of its strength.

Under the Streamline programme, another 73 posts will be moved out of London.

In documents seen by Newsnight, the MoD says its aim is to create "a flatter, more customer-facing head office structure with more focussed prioritisation of resources".

In a statement, Air Marshal Stu Peach, Chief of Defence Intelligence, said: "The Defence Intelligence Staff remains of critical importance to defence and security and is recognised across Whitehall as a key asset.

"The area is funded for what it is being asked to do from the central defence budget and will continue to support the armed forces and contribute strongly to the intelligence community's work across government."

Prospect, the trade union representing many civilian intelligence analysts, said the MoD was hoping to shrink the staff so it could close the DIS headquarters on Whitehall altogether.