Nigel Inkster

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Person.png Nigel Inkster   Powerbase SourcewatchRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(spook)
Nigel Inkster.jpg
At a 2009 Green Conference in Beijing where he appeared keen to promote carbon trading to mitigate the alleged effects of carbon emissions of climate change
Image source
Member ofGlobal Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace
Interests• carbon trading
UK spook into carbon trading "???" contains an extrinsic dash or other characters that are invalid for a date interpretation.

Nigel Inkster is a UK spook.

Career

His IISS biography states:

Nigel Inkster served in the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1975 to 2006. He was posted in Asia, Latin America and Europe and worked extensively on transnational issues. He spent seven years on the Board of SIS, the last two as Assistant Chief and Director for Operations and Intelligence. He is a Chinese speaker and graduated in Oriental Studies from St John’s College Oxford.[1]

Operation Mass Appeal

Ron Suskind cited Inkster as a key source for his book, The Way of the World.[2]

“Suskind said that at the beginning of 2003 MI6 sent one of its top agents, Michael Shipster, to the region. Mr Shipster held secret meetings in Jordan with Tahir Jalil Habbush, the head of Iraqi Intelligence. The meetings were confirmed by Nigel Inkster, former assistant director of MI6. Inkster also confirmed that Habbush told Shipster that there were no illicit weapons in Iraq. Mr Inkster refused to comment last night.”
Nigel Inkster (6 August 2008)  White House "buried British intelligence on Iraq WMDs" [3]

Inkster subsequently told the journalist Richard Norton-Taylor that Suskind's account of his comments was "inaccurate and misleading".

"Mr Suskind appears to have conflated separate conversations; one about the problems of reading Saddam Hussein's intentions, an issue which is dealt with in the Butler report, and one about Habbush. I made it clear to Mr Suskind that I was in no position to comment on the substance or significance of any dealings with the latter since I had not been privy to the detail of what had taken place, something Mr Suskind has chosen not to mention. And, in any event, I had made it clear to Mr Suskind, when first he approached me, that I would not divulge classified information to which I had had access during my time in government.

Mr Suskind's characterisation of our meeting is more the stuff of creative fiction than serious reportage, and seeks to make more of it than the circumstances or the content warranted."[4]

Inkster applied to succeed Richard Dearlove as Chief of MI6. Unlike Mark Allen, who also sought the top job, he nevertheless decided to stay on when John Scarlett was appointed, to "help the agency settle down."[5]

IISS

On 2010 he was Director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which describes itself as "the leading authority on global security".[6]

Opinions

In April 2010, Inkster co-authored a Guardian article with Alexander Nicoll which criticised the "War on Terror" as an "unwinnable 'war' against an undefined enemy".[7] [8]

In April 2012, Inkster was quoted by the Telegraph as saying that "Our investigation has shown us that the so-called "war on drugs" fundamentally undermines international security."[9]

Publications


 

Event Participated in

EventStartEndLocation(s)Description
WEF/Annual Meeting/201422 January 201425 January 2014Switzerland
World Economic Forum
2604 guests in Davos considered "Reshaping The World"
Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.


References

  1. Nigel Inkster CMG, International Institute for Strategic Studies, accessed 6 August 2008.
  2. The Way of the World - Ron Suskind 2009 ISBN 1847391508
  3. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4466512.ece The Times
  4. Angry denials are not enough, by Richard Norton-Taylor, guardian.co.uk, 6 August 2008.
  5. Richard Norton-Taylor, Another top MI6 officer quits, The Guardian 6 December 2004.
  6. Staff expertise: List experts by name, IISS website, acc 27 Apr 2010
  7. Nigel Inkster and Alexander Nicoll, Terrorism: keep calm and carry on, Guardian, 26 April 2010.
  8. Richard Norton-Taylor, Ex-MI6 officer attacks America's torture policy, The Guardian, 27 April 2010.
  9. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9208815/Former-MI6-deputy-joins-calls-to-end-war-on-drugs.html