Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(March 2004)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
Breaking News:
Dateline: 26th February 2004. London,
UK.
 Accusations
have been made by Clare Short, (a former Cabinet Minister
in the Blair government), suggesting that the British
Secret Service had been accused of spying upon Kofi Annan,
the United Nations Secretary General, shortly before the
decision by Prime Minister Tony Blair and United States
President George Bush to invade Iraq.
A so-called "whistle blower", Mrs. Katherine
Gun initiated the accusations and when a British court
acquitted her of charges that she leaked sensitive information
detrimental to British security, the British Government
immediately announced that it would review the Official
Secrets Act. Mrs Gun apparently had been privy to an "E"
mail from a United States source requesting help in bugging
United Nations delegates ahead of the invasion of Iraq,
which involved gaining access to private telephone conversations
between Kofi Annan and certain delegates, including world
leaders.
 An
agitated Tony Blair said that that he would not comment
on the accusations, which were ludicrous and unfounded.
But he did not directly deny that bugging operations had
taken place. What he did say was that British Security
Forces had not contravened any international laws. This
is not the proverbial storm in a teacup, and if there
is even a vestige of truth in the accusations, it would
appear that this act could be considered as being a serious
breech of international protocol and diplomacy, which
could have serious repercussions for the British Secret
Service if it is proven that they spied upon the Secretary
General.
It has been stated that this is not the only time that
British Secret Service agencies have been involved in
electronic spying - Surprise, Surprise, for after all
I thought that their job is to gather intelligence - for
instance a number of years ago a joint United States /United
Kingdom surveillance operation, named Operation Echelon,
eavesdropped upon millions of electronic communications
in Europe - as I said that is part of their job.
Unfortunately in this particular incident they were either
sloppy in their work or perhaps intentional in their objective
to disrupt the efforts of certain foreign nations who
were trying to prevent the unilateral decision by the
United States to invade Iraq.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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