Friday, June 11, 2004
Dossier a mistake - Rimington
Source: Elizabeth Grice, The Telegraph - 06/12/04
The whole idea of releasing an intelligence dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was misguided and has damaged public confidence in the secret service, the former head of MI5 said yesterday.
"I feel the dossier was a mistake," said Dame Stella Rimington. "Formally putting intelligence into the public domain was not, in my view, a sensible thing to do.
"The whole point about intelligence is that it changes. What you think is the case today may be different tomorrow because of new information. The trouble is, if you put something out as a dossier, it is frozen in time."
She added: "That whole episode has probably damaged the reputation of the intelligence service, at least momentarily, in the eyes of the public, which is a great pity."
[..]
Asked whether, as director general, she would have resisted Tony Blair's request for a dossier, Dame Stella said: "I can't say, as I don't know the circumstances . . . but I expect I would have thought: no good will come of this."
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