It
comes amid increasingly
threatening noises from the US
towards undecided countries
who have been warned of the
unpleasant economic
consequences of standing up to
the US. | [Images added
by this website] Sunday,
March 2, 2003 Revealed:
US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq
war Secret
document details American plan to bug
phones and emails of key Security Council
members Martin Bright, Ed
Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont David
Irving comments: I WONDER how many US
newspapers will mirror this
well-researched news report from
Britain's The
Observer? Seasoned
diplomats will of course realize
that their phones are bugged by
the United States: Britain's MI5
tapped the telephones of the
Japanese and Italian embassies
during the run-up to World War
II, and Hermann Göring's
secretive Forschungsamt
obtained priceless information by
tapping the lines of the foreign
embassies in Berlin, particular
that of Britain's ambassador Sir
Nevile Henderson (below), and the
major trunk telephone cables that
crossed German territory from,
e.g. London to Prague. As reader's
of my biography, Hitler's
War, will know, I revealed in
my 1967 book Breach of
Security, and again in my
full length history of the
Forschungsamt, Das Reich
hört mit, that in 1938
this source provided Adolf
Hitler with the strategic
Intelligence he needed to up the
ante during his negotiations with
Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain. Related
file:
Das
Reich hört
mit
(1989) [not yet
uploaded] | THE United States is
conducting a secret 'dirty tricks'
campaign against UN Security Council
delegations in New York as part of its
battle to win votes in favour of war
against Iraq. Details of the aggressive
surveillance operation, which involves
interception of the home and office
telephones and the emails of UN delegates
in New York, are revealed in a document
leaked to The Observer.The disclosures were made in a
memorandum written by a top official at
the National Security Agency - the US body
which intercepts communications around the
world - and circulated to both senior
agents in his organisation and to a
friendly foreign intelligence agency
asking for its input. The memo describes orders to staff at
the agency, whose work is clouded in
secrecy, to step up its surveillance
operations 'particularly directed at
. . . UN Security Council
Members (minus US and GBR, of course)' to
provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for
Bush officials on the voting intentions of
UN members regarding the issue of
Iraq. The leaked memorandum makes clear that
the target of the heightened surveillance
efforts are the delegations from Angola,
Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and
Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New
York - the so-called 'Middle Six'
delegations whose votes are being fought
over by the pro-war party, led by the US
and Britain, and the party arguing for
more time for UN inspections, led by
France, China and Russia. The memo is
directed at senior NSA officials and
advises them that the agency is
'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning
information not only on how delegations
on the Security Council will vote on
any second resolution on Iraq, but also
'policies', 'negotiating positions',
'alliances' and 'dependencies' - the
'whole gamut of information that could
give US policymakers an edge in
obtaining results favourable to US
goals or to head off surprises'. Dated 31 January 2003, the memo was
circulated four days after the UN's chief
weapons inspector Hans Blix
produced his interim report on Iraqi
compliance with UN resolution 1441. It was sent by Frank Koza, chief
of staff in the 'Regional Targets' section
of the NSA, which spies on countries that
are viewed as strategically important for
United States interests. Koza specifies that the information
will be used for the US's 'QRC' - Quick
Response Capability - 'against' the key
delegations. Suggesting the levels of surveillance
of both the office and home phones of UN
delegation members, Koza also asks
regional managers to make sure that their
staff also 'pay attention to existing
non-UN Security Council Member UN-related
and domestic comms [office and home
telephones] for anything useful
related to Security Council
deliberations'. Koza also addresses himself to the
foreign agency, saying: 'We'd appreciate
your support in getting the word to your
analysts who might have similar more
indirect access to valuable information
from accesses in your product lines
[ie, intelligence sources].' Koza
makes clear it is an informal request at
this juncture, but adds: 'I suspect that
you'll be hearing more along these lines
in formal channels.' Disclosure of the US operation comes in
the week that Blix will make what many
expect to be his final report to the
Security Council. It also comes
amid increasingly threatening noises
from the US towards undecided countries
on the Security Council who have been
warned of the unpleasant economic
consequences of standing up to the
US. Sources in Washington familiar with the
operation said last week that there had
been a division among Bush administration
officials over whether to pursue such a
high-intensity surveillance campaign with
some warning of the serious consequences
of discovery.
THE existence of the surveillance
operation, understood to have been
requested by President Bush's National
Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice,
is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in
the middle of their efforts to win over
the undecided delegations. The language and content of the memo
were judged to be authentic by three
former intelligence operatives shown it by
The Observer. We were also able to
establish that Frank Koza does work for
the NSA and could confirm his senior post
in the Regional Targets section of the
organisation. The NSA main switchboard put The
Observer through to extension 6727 at
the agency which was answered by an
assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's
office. However, when The Observer
asked to talk to Koza about the
surveillance of diplomatic missions at the
United Nations, it was then told 'You have
reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the assistant had
just said this was Koza's extension, the
assistant repeated that it was an
erroneous extension, and hung up. While many diplomats at the UN assume
they are being bugged, the memo reveals
for the first time the scope and scale of
US communications intercepts targeted
against the New York-based missions. The disclosure comes at a time when
diplomats from the countries have been
complaining about the outright 'hostility'
of US tactics in recent days to persuade
then to fall in line, including threats to
economic and aid packages. The operation
appears to
have been spotted by rival organisations
in Europe. 'The Americans are being very
purposeful about this,' said a source at a
European intelligence agency when asked
about the US surveillance
efforts.
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