 LONDON: Britain's top spy John Scarlett is planning a major shake-up of his MI6 intelligence agency, The Sunday Times reported. Plans by Scarlett, who took over at the officially titled Secret Intelligence Service in July, reportedly include separating the work of intelligence gathering and intelligence checking, in order to ensure the information is reliable. Integrated MI6 teams formerly carried out both the gathering and checking of intelligence.
| Collection and analysis are two separate skills. There's got to be a certain amount of feedback between the two, but it's like using two separate sets of muscles... |
The reforms were announced to MI6's "general assembly" earlier in December, the newspaper said. It said the changes were aimed at reducing embarrassing faulty intelligence like the "45-minute claim" used by Prime Minister Tony Blair as a key argument for going to war on Iraq. |