Britain Accused of Spying on UN.'s Annan
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| Fri, 02-27-2004 - 1:21pm |
>"Britain spied on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the build up to the Iraq war, a former Cabinet minister said Thursday, triggering yet another postwar crisis for Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Blair refused to confirm or deny the accusation and branded his former international development secretary, Clare Short, ``deeply irresponsible'' for commenting on sensitive security issues.
For Blair, the allegation is another potentially damaging aftershock of the Iraq invasion, following controversies over Britain's prewar intelligence dossiers, the death of a weapons scientist, the coalition's failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the collapse of a court case on alleged U.S.-British bugging of the United Nations.
But in a poised performance at his monthly news conference, the prime minister insisted British spies always acted within international law.
The United Nations said any spying on Annan's office would be illegal. "<
>"Short's allegation came a day after the collapse of a criminal case against a British intelligence agency worker who admitted leaking a document disclosing a U.S. appeal for British help in monitoring phones and e-mail traffic of members of the U.N. Security Council, when the two countries were seeking the council's backing for war.
Opposition politicians have questioned whether the government intervened to drop the case against Katharine Gun, fearing a trial would probe the legal argument for going to war.
Gun, 29, a former Mandarin translator with Britain's Government Communications Headquarters listening station, leaked a Jan. 31, 2003 memo from U.S. intelligence officers asking their British counterparts to spy on members of the U.N. Security Council in advance of a key vote on Iraq. "<
Quotes from....................
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3795530,00.html
Weapons inspectors' phones 'bugged'.
The telephones of former UN chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Richard Butler were also tapped while on missions abroad, it was claimed today, amid the continuing fallout of Clare Short's claims that British spies bugged the UN secretary general.
Speaking on Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio, Mr Butler said he was "well aware" that his phone calls were being monitored during his time as chief weapons inspector.
Mr Butler told ABC: "Of course I was bugged. I was well aware of it. How did I know? Because those who did it would come to me and show me the recordings that they had made on others to help me do my job disarming Iraq."
ABC investigative reporter Andrew Fowler also claimed that sources had told him that Australia's Office of National Assessments had read transcripts of telephone conversations involving Mr Blix, Mr Butler's successor in the role during the Iraq crisis last year, while he was in Iraq.
Fowler said: "That's what I'm told, specifically each time he entered Iraq his phone was targeted and recorded and the transcripts were then made available to the United States, Australia, Canada, the UK and also New Zealand."
More..............
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1157686,00.html



The outright paranoia exhibited by this just makes me sick.
Will he bounce back from this too, or will this be the straw that breaks Tony's back? (Yeah, I know, it's a mixed metaphor.)
There are other implications too--the Bush administration received transcripts of Blix's telephone conversatons in Iraq? Sheesh, here's more evidence that the war was conducted not only in poor judgement but unscrupulously as well. What on earth did they think, that Blix was playing a double agent's role? It's too dam bad that they didn't spend this much time and effort to getting the on-the-ground facts in Iraq straight. This revelation could rank right up there with the deceptions about the Al Qaeda 9/11 & Iraq link or the exposure of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent when her husband didn't give the right answer about the relationship between Nigerian "yellow cake" and Iraq's fledgling nuclear program. Wonder who'll take the fall for it in the U.S.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.