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| Britain Spied On Kofi Annan In Run-Up to Iraq War: Ex-Minister | |
| 2004-02-26 | |
British intelligence spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war, former British cabinet minister Clare Short said. "Yes, absolutely... These things are done, and in the case of Kofi’s office it’s been done for some time," said Short in an interview on BBC radio, adding that she had read transcripts of Annan’s conversations. Short, one of the longest-serving members of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government, quit as secretary for international development in May last year in protest over the Iraq war.
On Wednesday, prosecutors in London dropped their case against Katharine Gun, a British intelligence translator who had leaked a US intelligence memo requesting Britain’s help in spying on non-aligned UN Security Council members. The top-secret memo was sent in January last year, when Britain and the United States were trying to get a green light from the United Nations to launch the invasion of Iraq. Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Pakistan were the UN Security Council members named in the memo from the UN National Security Agency as targets of the eavesdropping effort. Prosecutors said they were dropping their case against Gun because they felt they did not have enough evidence to secure a conviction. But Gun’s lawyers speculated that the real reason was because a trial would have forced the government to reveal details of Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith’s controversial legal opinion in support of the Iraq war. Short’s sensational claim emerged during an interview on BBC radio’s "Today" programme about the Gun case. "Spying in the United Nations is quite different, isn’t it?" she was asked. Short replied: "Well indeed, but these things are done, and in the case of Kofi’s office it’s been done for some time." | |
| Posted by:Geoffrey M. LaMear |
| #21 Dave is right about the OSA, but there is also a whistleblower act that protects whistleblowers. It may well be that Ms Gunn could have mounted a defence based on this law. Anyway the government should have taken it to the courts to find and if necessary amend the law. Otherwise what the heck do people think spies do? Compile nifty crossword puzzles? |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-26 6:40:58 PM |
| #20 Add WHISTLEBLOWER to the list of protected classes for which it is politically incorrect to hold legally accountable for their crimes. The dominant left-wing media will go ballistic on any government that is unpleasant to lawbreaking whistleblowers, homosexuals, left-wing women, people of color, the mentally ill, physically disabled, recent immigrants, members of certain linguistic groups such as Hispanics, etal. |
| Posted by: Garrison 2004-2-26 6:08:35 PM |
| #19 Lets hope so, but if so the fact that someone further up the foodchain's been caught needs to be made public pretty quickly, otherwise the OSA will look distinctly toothless. Lord Goldsmith's comments are really cute though, Blair et al take us for cretins: Lord Goldsmith said they could prove the Official Secrets Act was breached. But senior government lawyers did not believe it was easy to overcome Mrs Gun's defence of "necessity" - that she felt a duty to act to prevent an unlawful war. Defence of 'necessity'? There's no public interest clause in the OSA, surprisingly enough! You leak classified info & you go down (or should go down) period. It's not as if there are complex legal issues at stake here! |
| Posted by: Dave 2004-2-26 5:47:21 PM |
| #18 Well, well, Bulldog and TGA posting in the same thread. That's quite a European re-union. No wait, forget I said that! |
| Posted by: Matt 2004-2-26 3:44:09 PM |
| #17 It's possible Gun's prosecution fell through, not because of Number 10's cold feet, but because GCHQ had already discovered, one way or another, who'd passed on the email originally... |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-2-26 3:06:16 PM |
| #16 Something is very wrong with the vetting process - don't forget the business with David 'My God, the SIS spy on Johnny foreigner' Shaler. If she was getting access to this sort of stuff on a regular basis she should have been DV'd (DV: Developed Vetting, needed before you have access to TS info), the DV process is/was pretty thorough & I'd like to think that someone this naive would have been clocked for the cloud-dweller she was. But then again, the DVA didn't catch Shaler... If she wasn't cleared & someone passed on this info (I'm guessing info about an on-going espionage operation would be at least classified as TS) then that someone's head needs to roll. |
| Posted by: Dave 2004-2-26 2:51:18 PM |
| #15 You know your diplomacy is in trouble when NOBODY bothers to spy on you. Gerhard? Don't you feel kinda ummm left out? They spied at Mexico, Chile, Cameroon... and Kofi (what could they have learned from Kofi???) But... nobody spied on Germany? Oh boy... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-2-26 2:37:28 PM |
| #14 Short does not exist in a vacuum - Nor for that matter can anyone else. Let's try it and know fur sure. dorf |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-2-26 2:16:30 PM |
| #13 Hey Shipman! Good thanks. And yourself? Hope the 'Burgers all had enjoyable Christmases and New Years. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-2-26 2:04:18 PM |
| #12 Very fishy. Seems to me that it's most likely someone more senior used (the bored, naive) Gun as a willing conduit for publication of the email. There's probably a bigger stinking fish or two still at large in GCHQ. Something was obviously amiss with vetting, and it seems as though it was a soft department: "I'm a pretty emotional person and I felt I just couldn't go on working there after what I had done. I went to my line manager. I trusted her and respected her. She put her arm around me and I was crying on her shoulder. She was great about it." PC-corrosion, anyone? I'm not sure what you mean by the law on incrimination. Both Gun and Short are obviously in breach of the Official Secrets Act, and Gun helpfully admitted it. Self-incrimination should just make the process of prosecution easier, which makes the fact that Gun isn't going to be prosecuted even more outrageous. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-2-26 1:55:58 PM |
| #11 Is it The Bulldog? If so how 'ya been? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-26 1:50:26 PM |
| #10 Bulldog, after reading that article I have concluded that that family is either way out of touch will reality or they are complete imbeciles. They have no idea how the world or the U.N. works. If that is the brightest at GCHQ then I understand the ‘intelligence gap.’ BTW how did an obviously high-level classified Email get in the hands on a low-level linguist? Something is fishy here. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-2-26 1:31:51 PM |
| #9 Thanks Bulldog, I had the worng language. What is the law on incrimination? They admitted guilt. If Tony still has a pair he should arrest them. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-2-26 1:21:10 PM |
| #8 short should be hung for treason and if i were in power it would have already been done.I hate the munter anyway but now i really feel shes gone to far and is simply a waste of our oxygen |
| Posted by: Jon Shep U.K 2004-2-26 11:48:35 AM |
| #7 CS, The lowdown on Gun and her "independent mind" can be found here. She's a Mandarin, not Arab, linguist. She learnt Chinese through spending a childhood on Taiwan. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-2-26 11:25:31 AM |
| #6 Short does not exist in a vacuum - My good man, she certainly thinks in one. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-2-26 11:08:28 AM |
| #5 Blair lets the blatant, self-confessed traitor, Gun, walk free from justice and now Short understandably thinks she's also been granted a free pass to tell the world the nation's security secrets with impunity. Of course Blair's furious over this, but he's only got himself to blame. Lefties have once again demonstrated that they shouldn't be allowed access to intelligence material. The concept of national security's something they simply neither respect nor understand. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-2-26 11:02:01 AM |
| #4 You stole my RANT! I was getting ready to post this too ;-) But here are my comments: Here is my Readers Digest of the Article: Two people who had been cleared for classified information admitted disclosing that information UNLAWFULLY. They did this because they found out that an OVERT spy agency was spying on/and for other governments. What are the laws in Britain about incriminating yourself? In the U.S. these two would have been hauled away (and rightly so) to the nearest Federal prison. Also GCHQ needs a better screening process if Mrs. Gun is an example of what they are hiring today. It’s good to be idealistic but what did Mrs. Gun think she was going to be doing as an ?Arab? translator at GCHQ? She may be smart enough to learn a language but lacking in the common sense department. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-2-26 10:54:36 AM |
| #3 Am I the only one to think that this is... treason? |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2004-2-26 10:52:52 AM |
| #2 Judging by the state of the Tory party at the moment I wouldn't hold out much hope of that, Zhang m'dear. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-2-26 10:26:35 AM |
| #1 One would hope so. This is why Britain has a foreign intelligence service - to read the other side's mail. Policy-makers need to know what the other side is thinking before negotiations actually take place. Clare Short is an example of the kind of Bolshie twit that should never have been an MP in the first place, let alone a member of the Cabinet. But that's the Labor Party for you. Short does not exist in a vacuum - significant chunks of Labor see the UN Secretary General as the Holy Trinity all rolled into one (or they would if they believed in God - they are Bolshies, after all). This is why Blair is an unreliable partner at best, being a creature of the Labor Party, and the best hope for a better relationship with Britain is the election of a Tory majority. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-2-26 10:03:49 AM |