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`MI6 reports no more than gossip'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON OCT. 3. Questions about the credibility of British intelligence on Iraq were raised today after a former diplomat disclosed how MI6 agents routinely embellished their reports to make them sound more credible.

The disclosure by Sir Peter Heap, who was British Ambassador in Brazil in the nineties and also served in Sri Lanka during his 36 years in diplomatic service, came as critics pressed for an independent judicial inquiry into the intelligence `fiasco'.

Sir Peter said it was "no small error'' for the intelligence community to claim "solid evidence'' of WMDs while it was becoming increasingly clear that they did "not exist and probably have not existed for some considerable time''.He said that "on one occasion'' he discovered that a secret "CX report'' (a report describing raw intelligence) sent by an MI6 officer to his bosses in London, attributing it to a "well-placed source'', had been lifted from a local newspaper article.

"The two were practically identical in wording and content. The MI6 officer was called in and at first denied the link, until eventually he admitted that his position was untenable.''

Writing in The Guardian, Sir Peter said it was `common' for British intelligence officials stationed abroad to dress up "gossip and tittle-tattle'' as intelligence coming from authoritative `sources'.

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