Posted on 11-3-2003
Falling
Off World Stage
Scene I by Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter
Beaumont,
Sunday March 9, 2003, Observer
The United Nations has begun a top-level investigation into
the bugging of
its delegations by the United States, first revealed in The
Observer last
week. Sources in the office of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
confirmed
last night that the spying operation had already been discussed
at the UN's
counter-terrorism committee and will be further investigated.
The news comes as British police confirmed the arrest of a 28-year-old
woman working at the top secret Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ) on suspicion of contravening the Official Secrets Act.
Last week The
Observer published details of a memo sent by Frank Koza, Defence
Chief of
Staff (Regional Targets) at the US National Security Agency,
which monitors
international communications. The memo ordered an intelligence
'surge'
directed against Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea
with 'extra
focus on Pakistan UN matters'. The 'dirty tricks' operation
was designed to
win votes in favour of intervention in Iraq. The Observer reported
that the
memo was sent to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking
for help in
the operation. It has been known for some time that elements
within the
British security services were unhappy with the Government's
use of
intelligence information.
The leak was described as 'more timely and potentially more
important than
the Pentagon Papers' by Daniel Ellsberg, the most celebrated
whistleblower
in recent American history. In 1971, Ellsberg was responsible
for leaking a
secret history of US involvement in Vietnam, which became known
as 'the
Pentagon Papers', while working as a Defence Department analyst.
The papers
fed the American public's hostility to the war.
The revelations of the spying operation have caused deep embarrassment
to
the Bush administration at a key point in the sensitive diplomatic
negotiations to gain support for a second UN resolution authorising
intervention in Iraq. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and
Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were both challenged about the operation
last
week, but said they could not comment on security matters. The
operation is
thought to have been authorised by US National Security Adviser
Condoleezza
Rice, but American intelligence experts told The Observer that
a decision
of this kind would also have involved Donald Rumsfeld, CIA director
George
Tenet and NSA chief General Michael Hayden. President Bush himself
would
have been informed at one of the daily intelligence briefings
held every
morning at the White House.
Attention has now turned to the foreign intelligence agency
responsible for
the leak. It is now believed the memo was sent out via Echelon,
an
international surveillance network set up by the NSA with the
cooperation
of GCHQ in Britain and similar organisations in Australia, New
Zealand and
Canada. Wayne Madsen, of the Electronic Privacy Information
Centre and
himself a former NSA intelligence officer, said the leak demonstrated
that
there was deep unhappiness in the intelligence world over attempts
to link
Iraq to the terrorist network al-Qaeda. 'My feeling is that
this was an
authorised leak. I've been hearing for months of people in the
US and
British intelligence community who are deeply concerned about
their
governments "cooking" intelligence to link Iraq to al-Qaeda.'
The Observer story caused a political furore in Chile, where
President
Ricardo Lagos demanded an immediate explanation of the spying
operation.
The Chilean public is extremely sensitive to reports of US 'dirty
tricks'
after decades of American secret service involvement in the
country's
internal affairs. In 1973 the CIA supported a coup that toppled
the
democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende
and
installed the dictator General Augusto Pinochet. President Lagos
spoke on
the telephone with Prime Minister Tony Blair about the memo
last Sunday,
immediately after the publication of the story, and twice again
on
Wednesday. Chile's Foreign Minister Soledad Alvear also raised
the matter
with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Chile's ambassador to Britain
Mariano
Fernández told The Observer: 'We cannot understand why the United
States
was spying on Chile. We were very surprised. Relations have
been good with
America since the time of George Bush Snr.' He said that the
position of
the Chilean mission to the UN was published in regular diplomatic
bulletins, which were public documents openly available.
While the bugging of foreign diplomats at the UN is permissible
under the
US Foreign Intelligence Services Act, it is a breach of the
Vienna
Convention on Diplomatic Relations, according to one of America's
leading
experts on international law, Professor John Quigley of Ohio
University. He
says the convention stipulates that: 'The receiving state shall
permit and
protect free communication on the part of the mission for all
official
purposes... The official correspondence of the mission shall
be inviolable.'
Scene II, No Claps No Speech
Mar 8 2003, The Mirror, by Paul Gilfeather
George W Bush pulled out of a speech to the European Parliament
when MEPs
wouldn't guarantee a standing ovation.
Senior White House officials said the President would only go
to Strasbourg
to talk about Iraq if he had a stage-managed welcome. A source
close to
negotiations said last night: "President Bush agreed to a speech
but
insisted he get a standing ovation like at the State of the
Union address.
"His people also insisted there were no protests, or heckling.
"I believe
it would be a crucial speech for Mr Bush to make in light of
the opposition
here to war. But unless he only gets adulation and praise, then
it will
never happen."
Mr Bush's every appearance in the US is stage-managed, with
audiences full
of supporters.
It was hoped he would speak after he welcomed Warsaw pact nations
to Nato
in Prague last November. But his refusal to speak to EU leaders
face-to-face is seen as a key factor in the split between the
US-UK
coalition and Europe. The source added: "Relations between the
EU and the
US are worsening fast - this won't help."
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