UN spying charges roil Britain

Former cabinet minister says Annan targeted.

By Seth Stern

Adding fuel to the debate in Britain over whether war in Iraq was justified, a former cabinet minister on Thursday accused the government of spying on United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Ex-Minister of International Development Clare Short claimed in an interview with BBC radio that Mr. Annan had been recorded during the run up to war in Iraq. Ms. Short, who resigned last May in protest against the war, claimed she had read transcripts of Anan's conversations and wondered whether her own talks with him were being recorded.

"In fact I have had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to the war thinking, 'Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying," Short said, according to a Guardian transcript of her BBC interview.

Short's comments were a response to questions about the British government's decision to drop an investigation against a former intelligence linguist, Katharine Gun, who was arrested last March for leaking a confidential memo about spying against the United Nations.

Prime Minister Tony Blair did not comment on the veracity of Short's allegations at his monthly press conference Thursday but called the disclosure "deeply irresponsible." He added British intelligence always acts within the law and would do nothing "in breach of our international obligations."

Apparently, the news was less of a surprise at the UN. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said that many UN officials always worked on the basis that they were being bugged. But he added: "That is not to say that it is acceptable if they are not suspected of terrorism or other crimes."

"We always have suspected that," Andreas Nicklisch, the deputy director of the UN's Brussels office, told Reuters. "It's illegal of course, but it's also unnecessary because we work in complete transparency and openness."

The Financial Times reported Thursday Ms. Gun was cleared of any charges under the Official Secrets Act after she claimed there had been a request from the US asking Britain to help spy on UN members before the war. Gun has insisted that she had acted in an effort to prevent the war and said at a news conference Thursday, "I have no regrets and I would do it again." She added, "This needed to get out, the public deserved to know what was going on at the time."

Gun leaked a memo the Observer newspaper last January that reportedly said the US National Security Agency had begun a "surge" in eavesdropping on UN Security Council countries - including Angola, Bulgaria and Chile - crucial to the vote on a second resolution for action in Iraq.

As the New York Times reported Thursday, Gun received offers of support from Sean Penn, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Daniel Ellsberg, who handed a secret Defense Department history of the Vietnam War to reporters in 1971.

Short alleged there was "something fishy" about UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's decision to drop the investigation against Gun.

"My own suspicion is that the Attorney General has stopped this prosecution because part of her defense was to question the legality and that would have brought his advice into the public domain again and there was something fishy about the way in which he said war was legal."

The government has denied that the decision to drop the case was politically motivated, the BBC reported. Lord Goldsmith said in a statement to the House of Lords: "It was a decision on solely legal grounds … and free from any political interference."

As Reuters suggests, Clare Short has proved "a perennial thorn" in Tony Blair's side ever since her resignation, but her assertion that London spied at the United Nations before the Iraq war is "her most damning allegation yet."

The BBC suggested Short's comments "appeared to cast doubt on her future as a Labor MP." Asked whether Short would be prosecuted or face Labor Party discipline, Mr. Blair said he would "have to reflect upon" her comments, adding, "There will obviously be issues that arise … I am not in a position to answer them at the moment."

British political pundits also expect Short's claims to adversely affect Blair. Times of London writer Michael Evans suggests that "Rightly or wrongly, the affair may add more fuel to the row over whether the war with Iraq was legal."

 Courtesy of csmonitor.com