New deputy chief for MI6

A new deputy chief spymaster has been appointed at MI6.

The decision to appoint a number two to Sir Richard Dearlove is being seen in Whitehall as a bid to steady the organisation after controversy over the Iraq dossier and the row over the quality of intelligence leading up to the war.

The new director of operations was appointed a month ago but in keeping with the practice of the services, he will not be named.

Sir Richard, who has been in the job for four years, had not previously appointed a deputy.

A contemporary of Tony Blair at Oxford, he is a career intelligence officer with extensive experience of operational work in Asia.

More recently, he has focused on monitoring chemical and biological weapons build-up, including in Iraq.

Officially, the move to appoint a formal deputy is said to be unconnected to the Iraq dossier issue but one source said: "It has have meant not only that intelligencegathering methods have come under scrutiny, but also that the public believes its sources of intelligence are questionable.

Of the two most controversial issues in the September dossier - the 45-minute claim and the African uranium connection - the former came in at the very last minute from an Iraqi military source, while the other was largely based on shared intelligence from a third country which senior sources deny is France, as had been widely rumoured.

MI6 remains adamant that every detail of the dossier was accurate and based on solid information, even though the CIA has publicly cast doubt on the uranium charge and apologised for allowing President Bush to repeat it in January's State of the Union address.

According to one figure: "The point is that the dossier was not sexed up - it was sexed down.

"It is true that the 45-minute detail was added late but that was because the source was unable to get in contact before then."

The only outside inquiry into whether the intelligence was accurate and properly presented is being carried out by the intelligence and security committee, which is expected to report to the Prime Minister in mid-September.

The secretive committee is chaired by former Labour chief whip Ann Taylor and has interviewed all the major figures including Tony Blair. A clean bill of health would never convince critics of MI6 because the committee has a Labour majority.

But Ms Taylor is well aware that the committee will be accused of a cover-up if it fails to find a single fault in the handling of the affair.