Pressure grows on Scarlett

Spy chief John Scarlett was under growing pressure today to stand down as the next head of MI6 after being accused of misleading the Hutton Inquiry about the quality of Iraq intelligence.

The Joint Intelligence Committee chairman was in the dock for failing to admit vital warnings about Iraqi weapons were based on bogus information.

Iain Duncan Smith became the most senior politician yet to call for Mr Scarlett to withdraw from taking up his new post in charge of the Secret Intelligence Service.

The former Tory leader, a main cheerleader for war with Iraq, said MI6 would be " discredited" if the JIC chairman took over.

His intervention is highly significant because Mr Duncan Smith received extensive intelligence briefings before the invasion in his role as leader of the Opposition and may feel he was misled. Mr Scarlett gave evidence to Lord Hutton's probe into the death of scientist David Kelly along with outgoing MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove.

Both men defended the quality of intelligence as set out in the September 2002 dossier on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction programmes.

But the Butler report this week revealed that one month before the pair gave evidence last August, MI6 formally withdrew two key claims about Iraq continuing to produce biological agent because the sources had been discredited after the war. Giving evidence to Lord Hutton, Mr Scarlett was asked if the dossier reflected "as fully and accurately as possible" the intelligence picture on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. He replied: "Yes."

Asked if that was still his view, he insisted: "That remains my conclusion as to the intelligence picture on the basis of intelligence we had at the time."

Neither he nor Sir Richard told the inquiry about the discredited information. Former government weapons expert Dr Brian Jones, who has accused the Government of " overegging" intelligence in the dossier, called on Downing Street to say whether the Prime Minister was told by the Joint Intelligence Committee about the holes in the dossier.

Dr Jones said: "This is very significant. Either the Prime Minister knew, when he gave his evidence to the Hutton Inquiry, that the information from this source has been withdrawn in July 2003, in which case the question must be asked, why didn't he mention it? Or, he was not told.

"In that case, surely he must ask why he wasn't told and whose decision it was not to tell him?"

Until now only a handful of Labour Left-wingers were openly attacking Mr Scarlett. But today a report in the Daily Telegraph said Sir Richard was privately opposed to his appointment as MI6 successor. Lord Butler backed his appointment but, in a barbed comment, said the next JIC chairman should be a more experienced official who could stand up to ministers.