Spy chief refuses to buckle

By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent at the Hutton inquiry

If top spook John Scarlett has been trained in the arts of resisting interrogation by enemy agents he needed it all during his second appearance before the Hutton inquiry.

Mr Scarlett - all steel-rimmed specs and steely stares - faced the sort of questioning by the BBC barrister Andrew Caldecott that could have broken even Michael Caine's Harry Palmer character himself.

Admittedly Mr Caldecott fell short of resorting to white noise, psychotropic drugs or fingernail extraction.

Scarlett: Stood firm in the face of interrogation

And the focus of his attention was not the Ipcress File, as in the Caine film, but the Iraq dossier.

But make no mistake, this was the sort of grilling designed to make a grown man blub.

But not Mr Scarlett. Not only did he resist all attempts to force from him a confession that Alastair Campbell was running him and made him sex up the Iraq dossier. He hit back.

He revealed that his team had already been looking at "strengthening" language in the dossier over Saddam's weapons capabilities before Mr Campbell ever mentioned it.

And despite a labyrinthine cross examination about what amounted to an intelligence judgement rather than an assessment, he refused to buckle.

No messing

Whether anyone was any the wiser afterwards is another question.

Indeed, at one point he even appeared to be enjoying his clash with the QC.

Perhaps he was viewing it as a sort of training exercise that might come in handy if he is ever sent back into the field.

Then he got distinctly miffed at suggestions that he would ever be open to influence from Mr Campbell, let alone any of his minions, and his answers became notably more clipped.

Having presumably regained control of his emotions - all that training clearly works - he went on to coolly, even icily, deal with each suggestion in turn BBC's Nick Assinder

At one point he insisted on elaborating on an answer over why the claimed difference between tactical and strategic weapons of mass destruction was a great deal less important that had been suggested.

This, as it has been said before, is not a man to mess with. But Mr Caldecott kept on messing.

He pointed to a number of late changes to the dossier with the clear implication that Mr Scarlett had been sexing up the dossier - either on his own behalf or somebody else's.

The spook's blink rate increased, he sunk his head closer to his table top and he looked, brows furrowed, to the ceiling.

Having presumably regained control of his emotions - all that training clearly works - he went on to coolly, even icily, deal with each suggestion in turn.

Harry Palmer could not have done a better job.