British state turf wars

["Michael Keaney" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Penners

That this report should have been leaked at all suggests a preliminary,
softening-up phase in which a pending reorganisation, featuring the
usual assortment of winners and losers, is gently revealed. The issues
tackled by Spedding are hardly new. From the early days of the Northern
Ireland "Troubles", for example, the more conciliatory approach of MI6
was sabotaged by MI5 which deliberately interfered in the talks held
between the Heath govt. and the IRA  in 1972. The co-optation of the
British army's information services during that period resulted in
Operation Clockwork Orange, whereby MI5 forged bank documents and other
incriminatory materials in an effort to smear mainly Labour Party
politicians (e.g. Deputy Leader Ted Short) and even Heath himself. As
the "Brits" series of Peter Taylor recently revealed on BBC television,
it was largely down to MI6 initiatives that the IRA and the British
state ever got talking at all. MI5's involvement in Northern Ireland has
been, as far as anyone can tell, obstructive and destructive. The work
of Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay has also highlighted how appalled
were many military officers at the attitudes and actions of those
despatched by the security services to sort out "Britain's own Cuba".

The unravelling of the British state's sanctions against Iraq in 1992,
with HM Customs' interception of banned equipment being shipped to Iraq
resulting in the prosecution of the directors of Matrix Churchill, only
for these to be revealed as MI6 agents, showed then, all too
graphically, the lack of coordination at the centre of the British
state's efforts at control. This was not helped when the Conservative
government minister Alan Clark freely admitted at the trial and
subsequent inquiry that as far as he was concerned, he didn't care how
many foreigners died as a result of British arms exports, it was simply
good that British produce was being sold. This, from the trade minister
responsible for ensuring compliance with the sanctions.

It seems odd that the Home Office should have asked the chief of MI6 to
carry out a review. While nominally top of the intelligence pecking
order, MI6 reports to the Foreign Office, while MI5 is the Home Office's
bailiwick. Given the history of MI5, it is quite probable that the
inability of successive heads of that organisation to even know what was
going on among "rogue" elements of the service (and bear in mind what it
would take to be a "rogue" in an organisation headed up by the likes of
Martin Furnival Jones, Michael Hanley and Stella Rimington) that,
finally, MI6 is asserting its seniority. MI5's role in the "fight
against organised crime" appears to be sidelined by the recommendation
that the NCIS should take a lead role here. Perhaps this will allow MI5
to re-focus on its old preoccupation with political subversion.
[Interestingly, and in conjunction with the high profile being accorded
the far right in British politics, the front page of Sunday's Observer
helpfully reminded everyone of the events taking place in Britain last
year at this time, as the poujadist revolt of the Thatcherite losers was
about to unfold. A big headline proclaiming driver rage at the "war on
the car" flagged a non-story about increasing dissatisfaction and
frustration with transport infrastructure and fuel prices.]

It was Jack Straw and Charles Clarke who would have, at least in name,
commissioned this report. Perhaps we can better understand why Straw
could so insouciantly claim to bear MI5 no grudge, if he was setting out
to clip its wings in an alliance with other branches of the secret
state, most prominent among these being MI6, which now reports directly
to him as Foreign Secretary.

Whether all this will improve the operational efficiency of the
lumbering apparatus that is the British secret state is not something
that can be forecast with much optimism, regardless of your point of
view.

Turf wars that stop gangs being brought to justice

 By Jason Bennetto, Crime Correspondent

 28 August 2001

 Despite all the modern talk of
 "joined-up policing" and "shared
 intelligence", old- fashioned rivalry
 among certain parts of Britain's
 intelligence agencies and police
 forces appears to be alive and
 kicking

 A confidential report by the late Sir David Spedding, the former
 head of MI6, has found that suspicion and distrust among the
 various agencies has led to instances in which potentially vital
 information has not been shared. Sir David's report says this
 threatens to damage the country's fight against organised
 crime.

 Everyone is now agreed that the way to crack serious and
 organised crime  from cross-Channel alcohol smugglers to
 Turkish heroin importers  is to gain information about their
 movements and manpower. Intelligence is seen as the key to
 bringing down Britain's crime bosses.

 But with three secret services, Customs and Excise, the
 National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence
 Service and 51 British police forces, there is a lot of information
 to go around.

 Precisely because of fears that there were holes in the
 intelligence-gathering process or that information was not being
 disseminated effectively, the Home Office asked Sir David to
 carry out the review last year.

 While Sir David, who was Chief of MI6 from 1994-99, found
 much to commend, and praised the managers of the various
 law enforcement agencies, he also found evidence that not
 everyone has grasped the new philosophy of open access and
 shared intelligence.

 It seems that the wounds from previous turf wars still run deep
 among some operational teams.

 The secret services  MI5, the Security Service, MI6, the
 Secret Intelligence Service, and GCHQ, the Government's
 spying centres in Cheltenham, Cornwall and Scarborough
 have been a source of mutual suspicion ever since they
 supplemented the dwindling work against republican terrorist
 and Cold War foes by muscling their way into the fight against
 organised crime.

 However, after some initial ill-will against the "spooks", police
 forces, NCIS, Customs and NCS have come to greatly value
 their expertise. Their role in helping the police tackle organised
 criminals that have a national or international threat still takes
 up a comparatively small amount of their workload, but they are
 becoming increasingly involved in operations against drug
 trafficking and people smuggling.

 The Spedding report, which all agencies signed up to at the
 beginning of this year, did highlight some members of Customs
 and Excise as holding old-style attitudes. Customs, with a
 £1bn budget that includes about 350 intelligence and 1,500
 operational officers, has recently been through a
 reorganisation, but has maintained a reputation for jealously
 guarding its patch from "outsiders".

 The National Crime Squad  £123m budget for 1,300 detectives
 and 400 support staff  an élite police team that focuses on and
 combats serious and organised criminals, admits there has
 been reluctance in the past for everyone to share information,
 but believes great improvements are being made. A
 spokesman said it had seen a four-fold increase in joint
 operations in the past year and was working more closely with
 other agencies than before.

 The biggest beneficiary of the Spedding report appears to be
 the National Criminal Intelligence Service, whose main task
 has been to provide law enforcement agencies with intelligence
 on Britain's top 200 criminals.

 With about 1,000 staff and a budget of £58m, Sir David's report
 recommends that it take over the lead role in drawing up
 strategic intelligence analyses of almost every type of
 organised crime.

 The organisation says it has now accepted all the
 recommendations and set up a new department of strategic
 intelligence. NCIS is expected to increase the number of
 intelligence reports it compiles on subjects such as synthetic
 drugs and counterfeit money from about four a year to one a
 month, and to put more resources into its annual "threat
 assessment".

 A spokesman for NCIS said the exchange of information had
 greatly improved. He commented: "I think that's a matter of
 growing confidence in organisations with different cultures and
 different modus operandi and the greater realisation that we all
 have a part to play."

Full article at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=90953

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx