On Thursday 12 July, the British Parliament’s intelligence and security committee said in its annual report that the British spies failed to predict the dramatic changes across the Arab world brought about by Islamic Awakening movements.
“When the upheavals took place around the Arab world … our coverage of individual Arab countries had been falling for some time”, The Washington Post quoted John Sawers, head of Britain’s overseas secret intelligence agency MI6, as saying.
Sawers also said that the reason for British spies’ failure “to provide detailed reporting on (the) Tunisia and Egypt crises” was Britain’s lack of assets there.
In its annual report, the committee, which is comprised of a panel of nine lawmakers and acts as Britain’s intelligence watchdog, said the crisis had exposed Britain’s decision to scale back intelligence assets in much of the Middle East.
Moreover, Sawers and the head of Britain’s eavesdropping service Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Iain Lobban, said UK spies’ focus on Iran’s nuclear program was the reason why their coverage of the uprisings across the Arab world had dwindled.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Defence Intelligence, the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) dedicated spying service, said: “We can’t cover everything all the time in the modern world.”
ISH/MA/HE
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