What the courage of Katherine Gun has revealed could,
in the end-game, proof of tremendous importance in
outsing not only the-shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair but
also the _resident and the VICE _resident...Who did
the order come from on this side of the Alantic? Stay
tuned.
Martin Bright, Guardian: Britain helped America to
conduct a secret and potentially illegal spying
operation at the United Nations in the run-up to the
Iraq war, The Observer can reveal. The operation,
which targeted at least one permanent member of the UN
Security Council, was almost certainly in breach of
the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations, which
strictly outlaw espionage at the UN missions in New
York...The information was intended for US Secretary
of State Colin Powell before his presentation on
weapons of mass destruction to the Security Council on
5 February. Sources close to the intelligence services
have now confirmed that the request from the security
agency was 'acted on' by the British authorities. It
is also known that the operation caused significant
disquiet in the intelligence community on both sides
of the Atlantic."
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1143572,00.html
Britain spied on UN allies over war vote
Security Council members 'illegally targeted' by GCHQ
after plea from US security agency
Martin Bright and Peter Beaumont
Sunday February 8, 2004
The Observer
Britain helped America to conduct a secret and
potentially illegal spying operation at the United
Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war, The Observer
can reveal. The operation, which targeted at least one
permanent member of the UN Security Council, was
almost certainly in breach of the Vienna conventions
on diplomatic relations, which strictly outlaw
espionage at the UN missions in New York.
Translators and analysts at the Government's
top-secret surveillance centre GCHQ were ordered to
co-operate with an American espionage 'surge' on
Security Council delegations after a request from the
US National Security Agency at the end of January
2003. This was designed to help smooth the way for a
second UN resolution authorising war in Iraq.
The information was intended for US Secretary of State
Colin Powell before his presentation on weapons of
mass destruction to the Security Council on 5
February. Sources close to the intelligence services
have now confirmed that the request from the security
agency was 'acted on' by the British authorities. It
is also known that the operation caused significant
disquiet in the intelligence community on both sides
of the Atlantic.
An operation of this kind would almost certainly have
been authorised by the director-general of GCHQ, David
Pepper. But the revelation also raises serious
questions for Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, who
has overall responsibility for GCHQ.
Details of the operation were first revealed in The
Observer on the eve of war last year, after the
leaking of a top-secret memo from the NSA requesting
British help.
But until today it was not known whether British spy
chiefs had agreed to participate. The operation was
ordered before deliberations over a second UN
resolution and targeted the so-called 'swing nations'
on the Security Council - Chile, Bulgaria, Cameroon,
Angola, Guinea and Pakistan - whose votes were needed
to proceed to war.
The first evidence has also emerged that China, a
perma nentmember of the Security Council, was a likely
target of the operation.
The Observer has discovered that a GCHQ translator,
Katherine Gun, 29, who faces trial after leaking
details of the US request, was hired by the
surveillance centre as a Chinese language specialist.
Documents of this level of secrecy are circulated on a
strict 'need-to-know' basis. Security experts have
said that it is highly unlikely that someone as junior
as Gun would have seen the memo had she not been
expected to use her language expertise in the
operation.
She is thought to be an expert translator of Mandarin,
the language of Chinese officialdom.
The memo, dated 31 January, 2003, stated that the
security agency wanted to gather 'the whole gamut of
information that could give US policymakers an edge in
obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head
off surprises'.
It was sent out four days after the UN's chief weapons
inspector, Hans Blix, produced his interim response on
Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions.
In the wake of the Hutton report and the establishment
of inquiries into intelligence failures on both sides
of the Atlantic, the Gun case represents a further
risk to government credibility over the Iraq war,
showing how far the US and Britain were prepared to go
in their ultimately unsuccessful attempts to persuade
the world of the case for UN support for war against
Iraq.
The Gun trial will reopen embarrassing questions for
the Government over the conflicting views on the
legality of war which were debated in the run-up to
the conflict. At the time when the memo was received
at GCHQ, officials at the Foreign Office, Ministry of
Defence and in the intelligence services - including
senior legal advisers - were expressing serious doubts
over the legality of any invasion.
At the time, The Observer was told by Foreign Office
officials of serious doubts that the war was legal.
When the GCHQ revelations were first published in The
Observer last March, the Attorney-General, Lord
Goldsmith, had still not publicly announced his final
advice to Downing Street.
At the time, it was expected that he would agree with
most experts in international law that intervention
would be unlawful without a second resolution.
The legality of the war was a highly sensitive issue
for senior military officers on the eve of war, who
were wary of being accused of war crimes in the
aftermath of the conflict.
The former assistant chief of defence staff Sir
Timothy Garden said that the legal basis of the war is
all the more important now that Britain has signed up
to the International Criminal Court.
'We did it on the best advice that was available in a
democratic country. But following an order is not an
excuse in the end.'
martin.bright@observer.co.uk
Read the memo (pdf)
Observer article of March 2003
Posted by richard at February 8, 2004 01:15 PM