Eliza Manningham-Buller
Lord Temporal | |
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Assumed office 2 June 2008 Life Peerage | |
Personal details | |
Born | Elizabeth Lydia Manningham-Buller 14 July 1948 Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath |
Elizabeth Lydia Manningham-Buller, Baroness Manningham-Buller,
She became chair of the
Professional life
Lady Manningham-Buller worked as a teacher for three years at
She was a senior liaison officer working out of Washington, D.C. to the US intelligence community over the period of the first Gulf War, before leading the newly created Irish counter-terrorism section from 1992 when MI5 were given the lead responsibility for such work (from the Metropolitan Police). Having been promoted to the management board of the Security Service the next year, Manningham-Buller became the director in charge of surveillance and technical operations. She was appointed Deputy Director General in 1997, and succeeded Sir Stephen Lander as Director General in 2002, the second woman to take on the role after Dame Stella Rimington.[6]
In the
She reportedly joined the public speaking circuit.
On St George's Day (23 April), 2014, Lady Manningham-Buller was appointed a
She became chair of the Conduct Committee on 19 January 2022.[18]
She took part in the Royal Procession at the
Personal life
Lady Manningham-Buller was the second daughter in a family of four, born to Reginald Manningham-Buller, 1st Viscount Dilhorne, and his wife, the former Lady Mary Lindsay. Manningham-Buller's father, Lord Dilhorne (1905–1980) was a Conservative MP from 1943 to 1962. He was Britain's second highest legal officer, the Solicitor General. He later held the office of Lord Chancellor for two years. He was created an hereditary peer with the title Viscount Dilhorne. Her mother, Lady Dilhorne, trained carrier pigeons that were used to fly coded messages in World War II.[20] The pigeons were dropped in wicker baskets with little parachutes over France and Germany and they were used to fly back to her mother's pigeon loft carrying intelligence.[4] One of the pigeons won the Dickin Medal, and one brought back intelligence of the V-2 rocket project in Peenemünde, Germany.[4] Lady Dilhorne died in Oxfordshire on 25 March 2004, aged 93.[20]
Manningham-Buller was educated at
On 15 July 1991, she married David John Mallock and has five stepchildren by her husband's prior marriage.[21][22]
Public statements
Backing the War on Terror
Manningham-Buller has made speeches to invited audiences containing members of the press, as well as making court statements. On 17 June 2003, at a conference at the
Speech on 7 July 2005 London bombings
On 10 September 2005, she spoke to an audience in the Netherlands about the 7 July 2005 London bombings and her disappointment that MI5 failed to stop attacks, even when in possession of intelligence, because of bureaucratic inertia. She added that "[the] world has changed and there needs to be a debate on whether some erosion of [the] civil liberties we all value may be necessary to improve the chances of our citizens not being blown apart as they go about their daily lives."[24][25]
Stance on gaining intelligence through torture
On 21 October 2005,
Her example to support the need for intelligence gathering from overseas was the case of Mohammed Megeurba, an Algerian man who was questioned by agencies in his country. Evidence collected by this questioning led to a raid in London which led to the
Refusal to appear before the Joint Committee on Human Rights
On 23 January 2006, she refused to appear before the Joint Committee on Human Rights in Parliament to speak about "the extent to which the Service is, or could take steps to ensure it is, aware that information it receives from foreign agencies may have been obtained by the use of torture", and "any information which the Service may have about extraordinary renditions using UK airports".[29]
Speech on MI5 after the September 11 attacks
On 9 November 2006, Manningham-Buller gave a speech to the Mile End Group at
This speech came three days after
Attack on 42-day terrorism detention
On 8 July 2008, Baroness Manningham-Buller made her maiden speech in the House of Lords since her resignation. She told the House that she was against government plans to extend the time period for retaining terrorist suspects in the UK from 28 to 42 days. She told peers that she disagreed on a "practical basis as well as a principled one". She criticised the plans for terrorism detention as being not "in any way workable" and emphasised the need for all political parties to work together in finding a solution for dealing with terrorism. Furthermore, Lady Manningham-Buller maintained that "complete security" could never be achieved in a country and that civil liberties were at risk of being compromised if the plans were passed by the House of Lords.[33]
The speech, only 501 words long and lasting only four minutes, attracted praise from other Lords, including
Other peers supported Lady Manningham-Buller's stance against the plans, including former Attorney General
Lecture on torture in the House of Lords (9 March 2010)
Giving a lecture in the House of Lords, Baroness Manningham-Buller said "the government did lodge protests" to its US counterparts once the extent of torture was known. It is the first time that has been said publicly. Asked if she had known of the use of waterboarding and other techniques of pressure while she was Director General of MI5, from October 2002 until her retirement in April 2007, she said she had done, and had disapproved. "Nothing – not even the saving of lives – justifies torturing people ... the Americans were very keen to conceal from us what they were doing [with suspects]".[37]
2010 Iraq inquiry comments
Baroness Manningham-Buller giving evidence to the
Desert Island Discs
Manningham-Buller was a castaway on Desert Island Discs broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2007 giving her first interview after her retirement. She talked briefly about her personal life and her former professional life, including her reactions to the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the importance of protecting their agents. She explained that she had decided on her retirement date shortly after she took up the Director General job, choosing to retire with a total of 33 years' service in the security services. She chose an anthology of poems edited by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, entitled The Rattle Bag.[4]
The BBC Reith Lectures
In June 2011, the BBC announced Eliza Manningham-Buller would present the 2011 Reith Lectures, alongside the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a series entitled Securing Freedom.[39] Eliza Manningham-Buller's lectures broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service in September 2011.[40]
In her first lecture, titled "Terror", recorded at BBC Broadcasting House in London, she reflected on the lasting significance of 11 September 2001, asking was it a terrorist crime, an act of war, or something different. She also revealed details of her own role in the discussions involving international security agencies in the days following the attacks on New York and Washington DC and examined the impact the US-led invasion of Iraq had on the fight against al-Qaeda.[41]
In her second lecture, titled "Security", recorded at the Leeds City Museum, she stated that the use of torture is "wrong and never justified" and should be "utterly rejected even when it may offer the prospect of saving lives". She said that the use of torture had not made the world a safer place, adding that the use of water-boarding by the United States was a "profound mistake" and as a result America lost its "moral authority".[42]
In her third and final lecture, titled "Freedom", recorded at the
Coat of arms
Order of the Bath (Appointed DCB 2005)
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See also
- List of terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom
References
- ^ "House of Lords Appointments Commission – New Non-Party-Political Peers (2008)". Archived from the original on 3 September 2009. Retrieved 8 May 2008.
- ^ "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women". Forbes. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
- ^ "LMH, Oxford – Prominent Alumni". Retrieved 20 May 2015.
- ^ a b c d e "Desert Island Discs with Eliza Manningham-Buller". Desert Island Discs. 23 November 2007. BBC. Radio 4.
- ^ "Eliza Manningham-Buller profile". BBC News. 9 November 2006. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ^ "First lady of espionage". BBC News Online (8 September). 8 September 2001. Retrieved 26 October 2008.
- ^ "No. 57665". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2005. p. 2.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
- ^ "New Director General Announced" (Press release). MI5. 7 March 2007. Archived from the original on 9 March 2007. Retrieved 9 July 2007.
- ^ "No. 58719". The London Gazette. 5 June 2008. p. 8441.
- ^ Profile, guardian.co.uk; accessed 30 May 2014.
- ^ "Eliza Manningham-Buller appointed Chairman of Imperial College London". Imperial College London. 18 May 2011.
- ^ "Eliza Manningham-Buller LG, DCB". The Wellcome Trust.
- ^ "Board of Governors". Wellcome.
- ^ "Former MI5 Director General Eliza Manningham-Buller Appointed Co-President of Chatham House". Risk Xtra. 14 August 2015.
- ^ "Our Governance". Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
- ^ "No. 60848". The London Gazette. 24 April 2014. p. 8182.
- ^ "Conduct Committee - membership". UK Parliament. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
- ^ "Coronation order of service in full". BBC News. 5 May 2023. Retrieved 6 May 2023.
- ^ a b "'War secrets' pigeon trainer dies". BBC News. 1 April 2006. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ^ Eliza Manningham-Buller: Life in the shadows, BBC News; accessed 30 May 2014.
- ^ The Times, 18 July 1991
- ^ "Terror attack 'a matter of time'". BBC News. 17 June 2003. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ^ "MI5 head warns on civil liberties". BBC News. 10 September 2005. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ^ Manningham-Buller, Eliza (1 September 2006). "The international terrorist threat and the dilemmas in countering it" (Press release). MI5. Archived from the original on 1 December 2006. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ISBN 978-0141044699.
- ^ "MI5's 'torture' evidence revealed". BBC. 21 October 2005. Retrieved 18 October 2006.
- ^ Foreign Affairs Committee (15 February 2006). "Foreign Affairs – First Report". UK Parliament. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ^ Joint Committee on Human Rights (24 July 2006). "Joint Committee on Human Rights – Twenty-Fourth Report". Parliament. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ^ "MI5 tracking '30 UK terror plots'". BBC. 10 November 2006.
- ^ Manningham-Buller, Eliza (9 September 2006). "The international terrorist threat to the UK" (Press release). MI5. Archived from the original on 6 January 2007. Retrieved 10 November 2006.
- ^ here.
- ^ "Former MI5 head speaks out against 42-day detention". The Guardian. 8 July 2008. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
- ^ Kettle, Martin (11 July 2008). "The 42-day plan is dead, but its assassin may surprise you". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 November 2008.
- ^ Kirkup, James (8 July 2008). "Eliza Manningham-Buller, former MI5 chief, savages 42-day detention plan". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 10 July 2008. Retrieved 7 November 2008.
- ^ "Ex-MI5 chief attacks 42-day plan". BBC. 8 July 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2008.
- ^ "London protested at torture, says ex-MI5 chief". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
- ^ "Iraq inquiry: Ex-MI5 boss says war raised terror threat". BBC News. 20 July 2010.
- ^ "Aung San Suu Kyi to present the BBC's Reith Lectures". BBC News. 10 June 2011.
- ^ "MI5 former chief decries 'war on terror'". The Guardian. 2 September 2011. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 – the Reith Lectures, Securing Freedom: 2011, Eliza Manningham-Buller: Terror".
- ^ "Former MI5 head: Torture is 'wrong and never justified'". BBC News. 7 September 2011.
- ^ "Former MI5 head: Talks with Gaddafi was right decision". BBC News. 13 September 2011.
- ^ "Eliza Manningham-Buller's Reith Lecture Nightmare". Archived from the original on 27 September 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
External links
- The BBC Reith Lectures 2011: Securing Freedom
- The BBC Reith Lectures 2011: Eliza Manningham-Buller podcast
- The BBC Reith Lectures 2011: Eliza Manningham-Buller transcripts