Torture, Blair’s malign legacy and why we cannot trust MI6

MORE than ten years have passed since Tony Blair stepped down as prime minister but his malign influence persists.

Among the great institutions of state that he cynically prostituted for squalid partisan advantage were the Civil Service, the monarchy, the Secret Services, the judiciary, Parliament and sections of the Press.

Even now, the neutrality of these institutions has not been fully restored.

This week’s shameful story about the Blair government’s complicity in the kidnap and torture of an anti-Gaddafi Libyan dissident and his pregnant wife were shocking in the way we were told how Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6, was suborned by Labour ministers.

What we already know is that although British agents did not actually carry out torture themselves, they aided and abetted it.

They provided intelligence, sent questions to the torturers and were heavily involved in the so- called ‘ extraordinary rendition programme’ (that sickening euphemism for the kidnap and torture of terror suspects and others) overseen by the CIA in the years after 9/11.

Although the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, approved the sharing of British intelligence that led to the Libyan couple being captured and tortured, it was Blair’s role that was most morally reprehensible.

He allied himself with President George Bush and the CIA’s systematic involvement in torture.

Rarely, I believe, had a British prime minister behaved with such amorality.

It should never be forgotten that on the eve of the first Iraq war against Saddam Hussein, the magnificent and principled Margaret Thatcher refused to allow British officials to obtain information through use of unethical methods.

Instead, she made it clear that information extracted under torture must never be used.

The morally bankrupt Blair had no such scruples.

In the wake of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11, his government came under pressure from Bush to help America’ s extraordinary rendition programme.

It’s important to stress that such tactics against enemies is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, in 1960, the Israelis captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and took him to stand trial in Jerusalem. This was a morally justifiable act to which few objected. But rendition gained a new meaning under Bush — involving the kidnap and torture of terror suspects. Bush had dragooned a sycophantic Blair into helping him in his war against terror. Indeed, whenever Bush said ‘ jump’, his British buddy would simply reply: ‘How high?’

NOW there may be no evidence that Blair had any knowledge of the specific case highlighted this week, involving Libyan Abdul Hakim Belhaj and his wife Fatima. But as PM, he was in charge of the general policy.

But there are oceans of evidence that under Blair, MI6 went from being one of the most respected institutions in Britain to one of its most disreputable bodies.

Crucially, Blair changed the nature of MI6’s work — ordering it to drop its traditional obligation to advise governments on foreign matters and warn them of the possible unintended consequences of proposed courses of foreign action. Indeed, this had been a system which had worked perfectly for years — for example, in the Sixties, it was undoubtedly the advice of MI6 spymasters that helped Harold Wilson decide that Britain should not help the U.S. in the calamitous Vietnam War.

Having abandoned its cautionary role, MI6 was roped into Blair’s shabby and false propaganda campaign to persuade MPs to vote in favour of Britain going to war with Iraq. To quote from a notorious Whitehall memo at the time: ‘The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.’

As a result, in the run-up to the Iraq war, Blair compromised the neutrality of two senior civil servants who, to their eternal shame, acceded to his will.

John Scarlett, then chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, was leant on to produce a dossier making a fabricated case for war. And MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, despite having no hard evidence from Iraq about any ‘weapons of mass destruction’, acted as Blair’s go-between with Washington, thus aiding and abetting Blair’s march to war.

Separately, truly culpable was Sir Mark Allen, who was head of MI6 counter-terrorism at the time of the kidnapping of Libyan Abdul Hakim Belhaj and is said to have claimed credit for this ‘ coup’, handing him over to Gaddafi’s torturers.

It is not right that he should retain his knighthood and still be an honorary fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford.

He has also been an adviser to oil giant BP and a speaker at The Royal United Services Institute, one of the world’s most respected think-tanks.

These bodies’ associations with Allen, I believe, mean they have condoned torture.

As for MI6 itself, is it any wonder that its reputation for integrity is deeply scarred.

I fear that this loss of faith in our security service — one of the most important bulwarks of this country’s safety — has led some to question any judgment it now makes, even if they are accurate.

For example, one reason the Government’s statements about the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury are not universally believed is because MI6’s authority was so badly tarnished by its craven behaviour during the Blair years.

Likewise, British government statements blaming Syria’s President Assad for chemical weapons attacks on his own people do not carry the credibility they ought to.

Sadly, MI6 also failed in its duty during David Cameron’s premiership — when it should have warned of the potentially catastrophic consequences of his meddling in Libya when Britain intervened to topple Gaddafi in 2011.

SIGNIFICANTLY, it had also earlier failed to warn ministers about the dangers — and futility — of our soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.

In stark contrast, the reputation of the domestic intelligence service, MI5, has remained impeccable.

Unlike Blair stooges Dearlove and Scarlett, MI5 head Eliza Manningham-Buller refused to give into Downing Street pressure ahead of the Iraq war.

She warned Blair that invading Iraq would increase the risk of terror attacks on Britain’s streets.

In recent years, MI5 has undoubtedly foiled many terror plots and saved countless lives.

In my criticism of MI6, I blame its bosses, not the majority of intelligence officers who are brave and patriotic men or women — with many unsung achievements to their credit.

But by becoming part of the propaganda arm of the Blair war machine, MI6 chiefs have betrayed the interests of this country.

Perhaps I am a romantic, seduced by the achievements of fictional spy George Smiley, but I want to be proud of an MI6 that upholds the traditional British values of decency, honour and fairness.

Indeed, Smiley’s creator John Le Carre once noted: ‘The only real measure of a nation’s political health is the state of its intelligence services.’

If that is the case, then Britain is currently in a very bad way.