Eliza Manningham-Buller

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British intelligence officer, Director General of MI5 2002–2007, crossbench peer

Eliza Manningham-Buller

Image ElizaManninghamBuller.jpg
Eliza Manningham-Buller. © Crown Copyright 2007
Nationality British
Occupation Director General of the Security Service (MI5), 2002 to 2007; crossbench life peer from 2008; Chair of the Wellcome Trust, October 2015 to April 2021
Known for 2006 public estimate of terrorist plots and networks; evidence to the Iraq Inquiry
Parents Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne; Lady Mary Lindsay
Spouse(s) David Mallock
Education Benenden School; Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (English)
Predecessor Stephen Lander

Eliza Manningham-Buller (Baroness Manningham-Buller) was Director General of the Security Service (MI5) from 2002 to 2007.[1] She joined MI5 in 1974 and spent 33 years in the service, becoming Deputy Director General in charge of operations in 1997.[2]

In November 2006 she gave a speech putting figures on the terrorist threat, which The Guardian described as "the first time MI5 has provided figures to illustrate its assertions". She said MI5 knew of "nearer thirty" plots and of "some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals".[3][4] Her successors have continued the practice of publishing plot counts.

After retiring she became a crossbench life peer in 2008. She told the Iraq Inquiry in 2010 that the invasion of Iraq had "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK.[5][6] She later chaired the council of Imperial College London and the Wellcome Trust.[5][7]

Background

Manningham-Buller's father was Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, later Viscount Dilhorne, who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor under Harold Macmillan.[8] Her mother was Lady Mary Lilian Lindsay, fourth daughter of the 27th Earl of Crawford,[9] who herself trained carrier-pigeons for use by the resistance in Europe during the Second World War.[10]

Manningham-Buller was educated at Benenden School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read English[8] and reportedly rebuffed an initial attempt at recruitment by MI5.[9]

She subsequently spent three years as an English teacher at the private Queen's Gate School in South Kensington, London.[8]

MI5 career

Manningham-Buller was recruited into MI5 at a cocktail party in Chelsea in 1974, a time when women were still marginalised in the service and confined to transcribing telephone intercepts.[8]

Soviet section

In the early 1980s, Manningham-Buller worked in counter-espionage, monitoring the Soviet spy network in Britain.[8]

She was a key player in running the Soviet double-agent Oleg Gordievsky:

During the early 1980s, only five people knew that Oleg Gordievsky, the deputy head of the KGB at the Soviet embassy in London, was actually a double agent. One of this exclusive group was MI5's senior officer dealing with Soviet affairs, Eliza Manningham-Buller.
As Gordievsky recently acknowledged, Manningham-Buller's ability to keep a secret saved his life.
Despite the fact that two of her assistants shared an office with Michael Bettany, a traitor working for the KGB, Gordievsky's crucial role was never mentioned. [11]

The Royal Society says she "was part of the team that uncovered the colleague who offered to work [for] the Soviet Union".[2]

Middle East section

In 1988, she became head of MI5's Middle East section, in which role she was involved in the Lockerbie investigation.[8]

US liaison

Manningham-Buller was next posted to Washington DC as liaison officer, exchanging intelligence with the FBI and the CIA. While there she met her husband, university lecturer David Mallock.[8] According to the Independent Mallock was "a lecturer in moral philosophy and an Irish Catholic who once held strong left-wing views. He did not find out until they married what her job was."[9]

IRA in Britain

Between 1992 and 1993 Manningham-Buller headed T2 Section which had taken over responsibility for countering IRA operations in Great Britain from the Metropolitan Police Special Branch.[12]

Operations Director

Manningham-Buller became Operations Director in 1994.[12] In this post, she had responsibility for mail interception, telephone tapping and covert searches.[13] Imperial College says she was promoted to MI5's Management Board in 1993 and at various times led the service's work on technical intelligence collection, surveillance, finance, IT and Irish terrorism.[5]

When Stella Rimington announced her retirement as head of MI5 in 1995, Manningham Buller formed an alliance with Stephen Lander. The pair blocked the succession of Rimington's deputy Julian Hansen by threatening to resign. The Cabinet Office was told only that Hansen had withdrawn his application. [14]

Deputy Director-General

A year after Lander became director-general, Manningham-Buller succeeded Hansen as his deputy. [13]

In the 1999 edition of Defending The Realm, Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding suggested she was not well-liked within MI5:

Nicknamed 'Bullying Manner', the fifty-one-year-old deputy director-general is regarded as a formidable administrator who does not suffer fools gladly. She is unpopular with staff, and lacks Rimington's foresight and insight.[15]

However, a later edition cited supporters who "say she is determined, unpretentious and hates the paper-shuffling management culture of MI5."[12]

World Trade Center Attacks

Manningham-Buller flew to Washington to liaise with US authorities the day after the World Trade Center attacks. She also participated in a subsequent security review which led to a ring of concrete around Parliament.[9]

Iraq War Buildup

Documents declassified for the Iraq Inquiry include a 22 March 2002 memo in which Manningham-Buller told John Gieve of the Home Office that "There is no credible intelligence that demonstrates that Iraq was implicated in planning the 11 September attacks," and that Iraqi capability to launch terrorist attacks in the UK was limited.[16]

Manningham-Buller reportedly had doubts about threat from Iraq at the time of the Government's September 2002 dossier on the Iraqi weapons programme.[9]

Director General

Prior to becoming Director General, Manningham-Buller underwent a three hour psychological examination during which she reportedly lost her temper with the examiner.[17]

According to Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Manningham-Buller gave a background briefing to a prominent Sunday newspaper, soon after her appointment.[18]

It was reported in January 2003 that Manningham-Buller had told ministers "that she cannot be sure that she knows the identities of more than 50 per cent of the people in the UK who might carry out a terrorist attack" linked to Al-Qaeda.[17]

The Royal Society states that during her time as Director General the service "almost doubled in size in response to the threat from 'Islamist' terrorism".[2] She told the Iraq Inquiry that "by 2003 I found it necessary to ask the prime minister for a doubling of our budget".[6]

Wood Green raid

On 5 January 2003, MI5 officers and police raided a flat in Wood Green, North London. They arrested six North African men who were alleged to have been developing the lethal substance ricin.[17]

The Financial Times cited the operation as evidence that " MI5's new chief is making a mark in the war against terror."[17]

However, within two days of the raid Martin Pearce of the Biological Weapon Identification Group at Porton Down, had established that traces of ricin found in the flat were a false positive.[19]

The alleged 'UK poison cell' would nevertheless be cited by US Secretary of State Colin Powell in his case for war on Iraq at the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003.[19]

All of those arrested in Wood Green would be acquitted in April 2005, although Kamel Bourgass would be convicted of conspiring "together with other persons unknown to commit public nuisance by the use of poisons and/or explosives to cause disruption, fear or injury". Bourgass had been arrested separately in a Manchester operation during which he had murdered detective Stephen Oake.[20]

The announcement that ricin had been found was released after deliberation in the Cabinet Office's Civil Contingencies Secretariat, under the name of the Deputy Chief Medical Officer. David Miller argued in 2006 that the episode "ushers in a new era of threat warning and assessment where the threat of terrorist attack is whipped up on shaky evidence for our own good".[21] Miller and Rizwaan Sabir later noted that the ricin plot "turned out not to involve any Ricin", and cited Lawrence Archer and Fiona Bawdon's finding that there was no "plot" either.[22]

In a statement to the Law Lords on 20 September 2005, Manningham-Buller disclosed that the Wood Green raid had been prompted by information provided Mohammed Meguerba in detention in Algeria. She cited this as evidence that "detainee reporting can be accurate and may enable lives to be saved.[23]

She said of Meguerba:

"In those circumstances, no inquiries were made of Algerian liaison about the precise circumstances that attended their questioning of Meguerba.
"In any event, questioning of Algerian liaison about their methods of questioning detainees would almost certainly have been rebuffed and at the same time would have damaged the relationship to the detriment of our ability to counter international terrorism."[24]

Manningham-Buller's testimony, in a case about the admissibility of evidence from detainees who may have been mistreated, was widely interpreted as condoning torture.[25][26]

Pat Finucane case

A June 2005 cable by the US ambassador in Dublin, featured an account of by US envoy Mitchell Reiss of a meeting with Manningham-Buller:

The Taoiseach raised the Finucane case, as did every other GOI official with whom Reiss met. Reiss briefed him on his talks in London, including with the head of MI5, who committed to turning over all evidence her agency has to the inquiry, but she was adamant that the inquiry will proceed using the new legislation. Reiss noted his concern that the Finucane case will become an irritant in Irish relations with the UK and get in the way of a deal.[27]

July 7 2005 bombings

According to The Guardian Manningham-Buller "told senior MPs there was no imminent terrorist threat to London or the rest of the country less than 24 hours before the July 7 suicide bombings."

Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller gave the assurance at a private meeting of Labour whips at the Commons on the morning of July 6 2005, the Guardian has learned from a number of those present.
The whips are said to have been confident, on leaving the meeting, that they could brief fellow MPs that the security situation was under control, and are said to have been deeply alarmed by the following day's events.[28]

Ken McCallum, who became Director General in 2020, said in 2025: "I will never forget the morning of the 7th of July 2005. I was in a meeting with the then Director General Eliza Manningham-Buller when the news came in".[29]

Private office and Ken McCallum

The Sun reported that McCallum spent time "helping to run the office of then MI5 boss Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller" before he took charge of a large counter-al-Qaeda team in 2008.[30] The Scottish Sun wrote that she "set him on the road to succeed her".[31] The sources located do not say when he joined her office, or that he began there on 7 July 2005.

Threat assessments and plot counts

On 9 November 2006 Manningham-Buller gave a speech at Queen Mary's College, London, on "the realities of the terrorist threat facing the UK in 2006". She said:

"We are aware of numerous plots to kill people and to damage our economy. What do I mean by numerous? Five? Ten? No, nearer thirty - that we know of."[3]

She added that MI5 and the police were contending with "some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don't know)". She said that since July 2005 the agencies had "thwarted a further five major conspiracies in the UK".[3] The Guardian reported that "this is the first time MI5 has provided figures to illustrate its assertions".[4] The Associated Press described the speech as "the first public estimate of the threat by the head of Britain's domestic spy agency".[32]

This was the earliest public plot count by a head of MI5 identified. Plot figures attributed to official sources had appeared in the press earlier in 2006, however. According to David Miller and Rizwaan Sabir, these included "at least 20 major plots" in June, "70 plots" in July, 74 in August and 70 in September. Later counts included 30 in July 2007, "80 separate terror plots" in July 2008 and 30 in December 2008. The authors noted that "there was never any explanation for the fluctuations, nor was any explanation or definition of a terrorist 'plot' given", and argued that "the definition of 'plot' may be elastic enough to respond to the needs of strategic communication work".[22] Before 2006 police chiefs had given arrest totals rather than plot counts. In March 2004, for example, Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Stevens said that "since September 11 there have been 520 arrests".[33] In 2006 Miller had cited Home Office figures showing 609 terrorism arrests between September 2001 and June 2004 and 15 convictions, observing that "the number of convictions for planning or carrying out specific acts of terrorism is zero".[21]

Her figure counted plots MI5 knew of at the time, a live caseload. Her successors reported other measures:

Public figures given by Directors General of MI5, 2006–2026
Date Director General Figure What was counted
9 November 2006 Eliza Manningham-Buller "Nearer thirty" plots; 200 networks; over 1,600 individuals; five major conspiracies thwarted since July 2005[3] Live caseload
5 November 2007 Jonathan Evans "At least 2,000" individuals, and "as many again that we don't yet know of"[34] Individuals
7 November 2013 Andrew Parker 34 plots disrupted since 7/7[35] Disruptions over eight years
14 October 2020 Ken McCallum 27 late-stage plots disrupted since 2017, 8 of them right-wing[36] Late-stage disruptions
8 October 2024 Ken McCallum 43 late-stage plots since March 2017; 20 Iran-backed plots since January 2022[37] Disruptions; state-backed plots
13 October 2026 Ken McCallum More than fifty Iran-linked arrests in twelve months[38] Arrests

Miller and Sabir set the official emphasis on 'Islamist' terrorism in these years against the recorded incidents. Europol recorded 472, 583, 515 and 294 attacks across the EU in 2006–2009, of which "'Islamist'-related incidents amounted to one, four, zero and one". For the UK they calculated that "99.5 per cent of UK political violence came from armed Northern Irish groups and 0.5 per cent from Jihadists". The chapter also notes that "the 'official' threat assessment ... was first made public in 2006".[22]

House of Lords

Manningham-Buller was awarded the DCB in 2005 and became a life peer in 2008, sitting on the crossbenches.[5] In the Lords she has twice served on the Science and Technology Committee, has chaired the committee dealing with the Lords' conduct, and chairs a select committee on social mobility.[2]

In a lecture at the House of Lords in March 2010, Manningham-Buller claimed that she had wondered in 2002 and 2003 how the US was able to obtain intelligence from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and that the Americans had concealed their use of torture techniques such as waterboarding from the British.[39]

In 2011 she gave the BBC Reith Lectures.[2] In her first television interview, in March 2011, she said the "war on terror" was not winnable in a military sense and that "it's always better to talk to the people who are attacking you than attacking them, if you can".[40]

Iraq Inquiry

Manningham-Buller testified to the Iraq Inquiry on 20 July 2010. During her testimony, she was critical of the intelligence case for the war, which she said had increased the 'homegrown' terrorist threat to Britain:

In terms of Iraq, we were not directly involved in the decision-making to go to war in Iraq; that was generally other people, although we were involved, obviously, in a number of meetings and in some of the discussions and of course in the JIC. Our focus was then on dealing with the manifestations of terrorist threats in the United Kingdom since 9/11, and since 9/11 and before our work was increasing exponentially. It increased very much more when we went into Iraq, but our main focus was dealing with the protection of the United Kingdom.[41]

According to the BBC, she told the inquiry that the invasion "substantially" increased the threat, and said: "Our involvement in Iraq, for want of a better word, radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam". She immediately corrected this to "not a whole generation, a few among a generation". She described the intelligence on Iraq's weapons as "fragmentary". She also said MI5 had refused to put "low-grade, small intelligence" into the September 2002 dossier "because we did not think that it was reliable".[6]

Later posts

  • Governor, Wellcome Trust, from 2008; Chair, October 2015 to April 2021, when she was succeeded by Julia Gillard.[7]
  • Member of the Council of Imperial College London from 2009; Chair of the Council and Court, July 2011 to 2015.[5]
  • Lady of the Garter, 2014;[5] appointed Chancellor of the Order of the Garter in 2024.[2]
  • Co-president of Chatham House for a decade; elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2025.[2]

Revolving Door

Resources

See also

External Resources

Notes

  1. ↑ Former Directors General, MI5, accessed 19 July 2009.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Royal Society, Baroness Manningham-Buller LG DCB FMedSci FRS Royal Society, accessed 22 October 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Eliza Manningham-Buller, The international terrorist threat to the UK MI5, 9 November 2006, accessed 22 October 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Richard Norton-Taylor, MI5: 30 terror plots being planned in UK The Guardian, 10 November 2006, accessed 22 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Imperial College London, Baroness Manningham-Buller Imperial College London, accessed 22 October 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 BBC News, Iraq inquiry: Ex-MI5 boss says war raised terror threat BBC News, 20 July 2010, accessed 22 October 2026.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Wellcome, Julia Gillard to be the next Chair of Wellcome Wellcome, 13 May 2020, accessed 22 October 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War On Terrorism, Andre Deutsch, 2003, p.289.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Paul Vallely, Eliza Manningham-Buller: Spying dame, The Independent, 11 November 2006.
  10. ↑ Viscountess Dilhorne, telegraph.co.uk, 1 April 2004.
  11. ↑ Eliza Manningham-Buller: Life in the shadows, by Andrew Walker, BBC News, 7 October 2002.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War On Terrorism, Andre Deutsch, 2003, p.290.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War On Terrorism, Andre Deutsch, 2003, p.285.
  14. ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War On Terrorism, Andre Deutsch, 2003, pp.284-285.
  15. ↑ Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair, by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Andre Deutsch, 1999, p.238.
  16. ↑ Eliza Manningham-Buller, Iraq:Possible Response to a US Attack, 22 March 2002, Archived by the Iraq Inquiry.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 James Blitz and Jimmy Burns, A resolute spy who prefers to stay out in the cold, Financial Times, 11 January 2003, accessed via jimmy-burns-com, 19 July 2009.
  18. ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War On Terrorism, Andre Deutsch, 2003, p.15.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 George Smith, UK TERROR TRIAL FINDS NO TERROR: Not guilty of conspiracy to poison London with ricin,globalsecurity.org, 11 April 2005.
  20. ↑ Chris Summers, Questions over ricin conspiracy, BBC News, 13 April 2005.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 David Miller, 'Propaganda and the "Terror Threat" in the UK', in Elizabeth Poole and John E. Richardson (eds), Muslims and the News Media, London: I.B. Tauris, 2006, pp. 45–52.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 David Miller and Rizwaan Sabir, 'Propaganda and Terrorism', in Des Freedman and Daya Kishan Thussu (eds), Media and Terrorism: Global Perspectives, London: Sage, 2012, pp. 77–94.
  23. ↑ Statement of Eliza Manningham-Buller, Channel 4 news 20 October 2005.
  24. ↑ MI5's 'torture' evidence revealed, BBC News, 21 October 2005.
  25. ↑ Emily Rueben, The price of freedom?, Channel 4 News, 17 October 2005.
  26. ↑ David Sanderson, Torture valid as it saves lives, says MI5, The Times, 21 October 2005.
  27. ↑ US embassy cables: MI5 prepared to hand over files on Pat Finucane murder, guardian.co.uk, 12 December 2010.
  28. ↑ MI5 told MPs on eve of 7/7: no imminent terror threat, by Ian Cobain, David Hencke, and Richard Norton-Taylor.
  29. ↑ MI5, Director General Sir Ken McCallum gives threat update MI5, 16 October 2025, accessed 22 October 2026.
  30. ↑ Ken McCallum, MI5 boss urges Sun readers to join elite spy team and keep Britain safe The Sun, 2021, accessed 22 October 2026.
  31. ↑ The Scottish Sun, I grew up in Glasgow and now I'm MI5 chief - we're not all James Bond stereotypes The Scottish Sun, 2021, accessed 22 October 2026.
  32. ↑ Associated Press, U.K. tracking 30 terror plots, 1,600 suspects NBC News, 10 November 2006, accessed 22 October 2026.
  33. ↑ Helen William, UK terror attack 'inevitable' says police chief The Independent, 16 March 2004, accessed 22 October 2026.
  34. ↑ The Guardian, MI5 chief's warning - full text The Guardian, 5 November 2007, accessed 22 October 2026.
  35. ↑ The Guardian, MI5 chief says 34 UK terror plots disrupted since 7/7 attacks The Guardian, 7 November 2013, accessed 22 October 2026.
  36. ↑ MI5, Director General Ken McCallum makes first public address MI5, 14 October 2020, accessed 22 October 2026.
  37. ↑ MI5, Director General Ken McCallum gives latest threat update MI5, 8 October 2024, accessed 22 October 2026.
  38. ↑ MI5, MI5 Director General Delivers Annual Threat Update MI5, 13 October 2026, accessed 22 October 2026.
  39. ↑ Ex-MI5 chief says US 'concealed suspect mistreatment', BBC, 20 March 2010.
  40. ↑ BBC News, UK should talk to al-Qaeda, says former head of MI5 BBC News, 21 March 2011, accessed 22 October 2026.
  41. ↑ Baroness Manningham-Buller transcript, Iraq Inquiry, 20 July 2010.
  42. ↑ Tenth Report 2008-2009 Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, accessed 25 November 2014
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