MAJOR ISSUES BULLETIN
 
     
     
 

 

Former Chief of Defence Intelligence supports Whistleblowers.

 

Part 1

 

In the Daily Mail, Tuesday, the 27th July 2004 an article by Air Marshall Sir John Walker supported the action of Mr Morrison who was a former senior colleague on the defence Intelligence and Security Committee.

 

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When he quotes:

 

‘If a Government of a great democracy such as ours fails to tell the truth, it must expect loyal public servants to break ranks and reveal what’s really going on’

‘Those of us who have worked in the intelligence services usually maintain a discreet silence whenever our specialist subject is under discussion.

 

We are, quite rightly, bound by the Official Secrets Act, as well as by our personal sense of duty and discretion.

 

But every so often an issue arises so that should be debated publicly.  The case of John Morrison is I believe, such an issue.

 

Mr Morrison, who was a senior colleague of mine on the Defence Intelligence staff (and was later its well-regarded deputy chief) has been effectively sacked from his present job as a consultant with Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.

 

His crime was that he had dared to reveal in a recent interview for BBC’s Panorama, the depth of scepticism in intelligence circles about the Prime Minister Tony Blair’s claim in the September 2002 dossier that Iraq posed a ‘serious and current threat’ to this country.

 

Provocatively perhaps, he talked of the ‘collective raspberry going up around Whitehall’ when the dossier was published, and accused the Government of ‘scrapping the bottom of the barrel’ in an attempt to justify the war.

 

While his choice of words was questionable, the thought behind them was quite probably right.  And within a week of the broadcast, Mr Morrison was out of a job.

Respected

 

Announcing that his contract would end in October, the Cabinet Office spinners dismissively said that he was ‘currently employed as a contractor… a part-time investigator.’

 

It made him seem like the man whose job it was to fix the lights.

 

It was yet another hatchet job on a respected figure; a highly experienced man, whom I had known well and counted as a trusted colleague- a man whose professionalism, honour and integrity I had come to admire.

 

Just as I admired the work and character of Dr Brian Jones, another distinguished Iraq expert, now retired, who had worked closely with me at Defence Intelligence and who had also spoken out on Panorama.

 

I admired their willingness to raise vital questions about the reasons given for Britain going to war in Iraq.  Questions, which I, and many others, thought, should have been raised long since.

 

To have seen their reputations tarnished by the Whitehall spin machine in such a way is disgraceful.  And let us not forget Dr David Kelly – a brilliant scientist and defence analyst who knew Iraq well.