John Scarlett

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John Scarlett at a Chatham House event

Sir John McLeod Scarlett KCMG OBE (born August 18, 1948 ) is a former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS / MI6).

biography

After visiting the Epsom College in Surrey 's son studied a doctor's history at Magdalen College of Oxford University and graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts from (BA History).

He then joined the MI6 secret service and worked as an intelligence agent in Nairobi , Paris and most recently in Moscow . There he was also a senior officer of the KGB - Colonel Oleg Antonowitsch Gordijewski , whose escape he organized in 1985. This made Gordijewski the highest-ranking, publicly known defector of the KGB in the West. In 1994, therefore, the expulsion of Scarlett and his family from the Soviet Union .

Between 2001 and 2004 he was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee . He was very present in the media through the court hearing to investigate the circumstances of the death of microbiologist David Kelly, who died in 2003 .

In particular, however, he became known in this capacity through the report on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ( Iraq WMD Dossier ) on the Iraq war . At the request of Prime Minister Tony Blair , he changed the original text version of "The Iraqi military may be able to use chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes" to the version "The Iraqi military can use chemical or biological weapons within Use 45 minutes after a decision to do so. " When later asked by the Hutton Commission to justify this language regime, Scarlett stated: "This was a report from a single source. It was a recognized and reliable reporting source. A senior Iraqi military officer was quoted as being in a Position to know this information. "

In 2004 he became head of the Secret Intelligence Service himself and held this position until 2009. In 2007 he was named Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George and has had the suffix "Sir" since then.

In January 2010 he became a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

In a September 2010 interview , he declined to write memoirs "for fear of losing friends."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ THE GUARDIAN: John Scarlett: Chairman of the joint intelligence committee (JIC), the body responsible for drawing up the dossier (January 29, 2004)
  2. ↑ Homepage of the Royal United Services Institute ( Memento of the original dated November 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rusi.org
  3. ↑ THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Former MI6 chief Sir John Scarlett fears losing friends over memoirs (September 19, 2010)
predecessor Office successor
Richard Dearlove Head of the Secret Intelligence Service
2004–2009 		Robert John Sawers
personal data
SURNAME Scarlett, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scarlett, Sir John McLeod
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British secret agent and former head of MI6
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1948