on US/UK illegal spying in UN SC

So what? Everyone spies on everyone else-friends spy on friends-Remember
John Pollard, who spied on the U.S. for Israel? The U.S. spied on neutrals
and allies in WW II, and so did the Brits. Soviets spied on everyone. Knowing
what course of action other parties are considering helps decision makers.
There is a saying in the intelligence community:
"In God we trust. All others we monitor." Oh, BTW, remember MAGIC?
We were reading Japanese diplomatic message traffic faster than any Japanese
embassy or the Foreign Ministry. The Japanese Ambassador in Germany was,
to use Allen Dulles's words, "Our man in Berlin." Everything Hitler told
him was on FDR's desk the next day, thanks to MAGIC.







(Michael Petukhov) wrote:
Yet another blight on US, British credibility
17.02.2004 [08:33]


A report in the British newspaper The Observer
about Britain aiding
the United States in conducting a secret and
illegal spying operation
at the United Nations (UN) prior to the Iraq
War is more frightening
than shocking.
It raises new questions about how far the two
countries had gone
before pulling the trigger that launched the
invasion of Iraq.

The issue was brought to light during the trial
of Katherine Gun, a
translator formerly employed at Britain's secret
global listening
facility.

Gun was arrested for violating Britain's Officials
Secrets Acts. Her
disclosure of classified documents concerning
attempts by the British
secret service to bug UN delegates in order
to help the United States
better "negotiate" support for invading Iraq
made a furor last March.
For sure, Gun's conduct embarrassed the US and
British governments.

A highly classified US National Security Agency
memo outlined the
operation, which included e-mail surveillance
and taps on home and
office telephones.
Gun's revelations may have been critical in
denying the military
strikes on Iraq a cloak of legitimacy. However,
that did not prevent
the war.

The case is another example of illegal and immoral
behaviour by the
United States and Britain concerning the war.

It should not be a surprise, given US President
George W. Bush's
clear-cut mentality at the time of the invasion,
when he told the rest
of the world community "You are either with
us or against us."
Nor is it surprising that a man who referred
to the UN Security
Council as "the so-called security council"
treats such an august body
with contempt.

Based on the fact Gun is considered an expert
translator of Chinese,
there is speculation that China, a permanent
Security Council member,
was likely a target of the operation.
The memo, dated January 31, 2003, stated the
National Security Agency
wanted to gather "the whole gamut of information
that could give US
policy-makers an edge in obtaining results favourable
to US goals or
to head off surprises."
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 information was intended for US Secretary
of State Colin Powell
before his presentation on weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) to the
Security Council on February 5, 2003.
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.

Such action was certainly a breach of the Vienna
Convention on
diplomatic relations, which strictly outlaws
espionage at the UN
missions in New York.
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."

In the wake of the Hutton report on the absence
of WMD in Iraq and the
establishment of inquiries into intelligence
failures on both sides of
the Atlantic, the Gun case has dropped yet another
cluster bomb on US
and British credibility over the Iraq War. It
shows how far the two
nations were prepared to go in their ultimately
unsuccessful attempt
to persuade the world of the case for UN support
for their invasion.

The Gun trial has reopened questions about the
legality of the Iraq
War.

On March 8, 2003, the office of UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan said
the UN had started a top-level investigation
into the bugging of its
delegates by the United States.
No results from that investigation have been
made available.

When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the "Pentagon Papers"
to the New York
Times in 1971, he blew the whistle on the deceptions
and lies of the
Nixon administration and other forms of official
misconduct relating
to the war in Viet Nam.
There are expectations Gun's case will have
a similar impact - and
unveil truths rather than tricks.

Source: Renmin Ribao, Feb 17


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