LONDON, July 16 (AFP) - A top British intelligence official who compiled a controversial dossier on Iraq`s weaponry faced internal opposition when he was later made head of the country`s overseas spy agency, a report said Friday.
John Scarlett was now under pressure to resign as head of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Scarlett was the target of considerable implicit criticism in a report on British pre-war intelligence about Iraq`s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) published on Wednesday.
An inquiry team headed by Lord Butler found that much of the weapons information, notably that in a September 2002 dossier put together by the Joint Intelligence Service, then led by Scarlett, was unreliable.
The report said that any failures were institutional rather then personal and explicitly stated that Scarlett should not stand down.
However the Daily Telegraph reported that Scarlett was now thought to be under pressure to resign.
Additionally, the paper said, when Scarlett was made MI6 head earlier this year, the appointment was opposed by his predecessor in the post, Richard Dearlove.
Dearlove believed that it was wrong to put Scarlett into so sensitive a job amid the WMD controversy, and also that his work on the dossier had made him too closely linked to the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"Dearlove was not happy with Scarlett`s appointment," a government minister was quoted as telling the paper anonymously.
When Scarlett was appointed, critics labelled the new job a reward for backing Blair over the WMD issue and said he was too high-profile a figure for a post where former incumbents were traditionally known only as "C".