Intelligence chief 'winced' over 45-minute claim

John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, "winced" when asked about the credibility of the Government's key 45- minute claim about the Iraqi threat, a document submitted to the Hutton Inquiry reveals.

A confidential e-mail from Nik Gowing, a BBC World presenter, to Richard Sambrook, the corporation's director of news, states that Mr Scarlett suggested that MI6 "was troubled" by some of the claims in the September dossier.

The e-mail, which has been posted on the Hutton inquiry website, has had the name of Mr Gowing's contact deleted. But it is understood that he was Mr Scarlett.

The two men met on 11 January at a conference on terrorism. Mr Gowing describes how the civil servant in charge of the Government's weapons dossier was "clearly troubled about the issue of the credibility of intelligence relating to Iraq".

Mr Scarlett encouraged Mr Gowing "in to an empty drawing room" at the conference. The BBC presenter said that when he asked about the 45-minute claim, "[deleted name] winced noticeably again and did not chose [sic] to give the clear positive response I had invited [deleted] to give. [deleted] then said several times that the intelligence was there." Mr Gowing adds that he "had the impression that MI6 was troubled by some (but not all) of the published claims from the Government about WMD".

Mr Scarlett has until now been thought to have given his full backing to the Government's stance on the issue.

Last night, David Davis, the shadow Deputy Prime Minister, said: "There's something seriously wrong when even the most senior civil servants have to twist their actions to fit with government spin. If this is correct, it is a stark demonstration [of] the demise of the British system of government."

The e-mail to Mr Sambrook was just the latest in a slew of documents on the Hutton website that have offered an invaluable glimpse of the inner workings of Whitehall.

There is also a note of the meeting between Dr David Kelly and his bosses at the MoD which revealed so-called "tricky issues" on Iraq. Among the issues was Niger, the 45- minute claim and the Andrew Gilligan allegations.

A briefing for MoD press officers also appears on the website. It shows that journalists were misled in one key area. The "Q & A" states that the scientist was not a member of the Iraq Survey Group, but repeated testimony this week showed that he was.