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UK's GCHQ Whistle-blower case also impacts Greenpeace protesters (Katherine Gun)
"Oelewapper" wrote in message ... Hans Blix: Bush and Blair behaved as if they were on a 'witch hunt' over Iraqi weapons Hans Blix is chuckling as he emerges from his study and settles into an armchair in his spacious Stockholm flat to leaf through a document. The document is no laughing matter: it is the Blair Government's now-notorious dossier from September, 2002, which framed the case for war on Iraq, and indirectly led to the death of David Kelly, the government arms expert. But Mr Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector, smiles as he cites examples of the Prime Minister's "faith-based" approach to intelligence. "Listen to this," he says. "This is Blair speaking, 'I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt'." Mr Blix is mocking Mr Blair's uncritical view of intelligence, which prevented the Prime Minister backing down even when the UN inspectors returned from Iraq unable to report that they had the "smoking gun" which would demonstrate "beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein had rebuilt his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Today he is angry at the lack of attention paid by the British and American governments to the inspectors' findings in the rush to topple Saddam. "Why the hell didn't they pay more attention to us?" he asks. When Mr Blix, now 75, was called out of retirement to become chief UN weapons inspector in March 2000, he suspected that Iraq retained lethal stocks of WMD. Like other weapons inspectors, including Dr Kelly, who had witnessed first-hand the "cat and mouse" game played by Iraq in the 1990s, Mr Blix was hawkish. After all, under his watch as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Iraqis had been caught red-handed as they worked on a clandestine nuclear programme. "My gut feelings, which I kept to myself, suggested to me that Iraq still engaged in prohibited activities and retained prohibited items, and that it had the documents to prove it," he says in a new book, Disarming Iraq: the search for weapons of mass destruction. This is why he would not challenge Mr Blair's claim on Friday about Saddam's WMD, that in November, 2002, when resolution 1441 was adopted, "everyone thought he had them". But Mr Blix's doubts set in when the inspectors were allowed back into Iraq at the end of that month, exactly four years after they were pulled out, as the US/UK bombing campaign of Operation Desert Fox started. They inspected suspicious sites, acting on tip-offs from the intelligence agencies, but they found no credible evidence of WMD. " I said, 'If this is the best, what is the rest?'" In fact, he adds: "Considering how misleading much of the intelligence given us eventually proved to be, perhaps it was a blessing we did not get more." He tells of a conversation with Mr Blair, one month before the war, amid a controversy over the alleged presence of mobile biological weapons production facilities after the inspectors had been unable to confirm the intelligence claims. "I added that it would prove paradoxical and absurd if 250,000 troops were to invade Iraq and find very little. Blair responded that the intelligence was clear Saddam had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction programme. Blair clearly relied on the intelligence and was convinced, while my faith in intelligence had been shaken." What Mr Blix still cannot understand is why his doubts and those of his professional teams of trained inspectors failed to make an impression on Mr Blair and President George Bush, who continued to mislead the public with categorical assertions about the existence of WMD with the fervency of religious crusaders. He accuses the British and US governments of "distorting" the reports of the weapons inspectors, who had said that amounts of chemical and biological weapons remained unaccounted for. This became an accusation that Iraq "retained" chemical and biological weapons. Worse, he says, the Bush administration actively sought to undermine the inspectors, accusing them of playing down the threat from Saddam's WMD, particularly after Mr Blix refused to brand the discovery of an Iraqi drone as a "smoking gun". He adds: "I still find it insulting if they believed that our assessments were prompted by a wish to avoid finding incriminating evidence." He also feels insulted by the lack of consideration with which Americans treated the inspectors. "I am flabbergasted that the American military could believe there were such easily available large stores of this stuff when Unscom (the previous inspection regime) hadn't seen any, and we hadn't seen any. They had such a low opinion of the inspectors." Mr Blix's doubts increased further after the war, when Saddam's chief weapons expert, Amer al-Saadi, was taken away in a US Jeep, still insisting on the official Iraq line that all the WMD had been destroyed after the first Gulf War in 1991. "It was only then that I said to myself, 'There is nothing there'." Today, in the comfort of his flat scattered with rugs and modern Swedish paintings and as he embarks on a new career at the head of an independent Stockholm WMD commission, Mr Blix admits he feels vindicated for his cautious and critical approach. His old nemesis, David Kay, the former US chief weapons hunter, threw in the towel, proclaiming: "We are all wrong." But Mr Blix maintains he was right. "I don't like to have any glee because the matter is far too serious for that. But yes, I think the attitude we had of a critical examination of the evidence, that is vindicated." Although Mr Blix says he is not bitter, he is scathing about the "faith-based" approach of Messrs Bush and Blair which he says was tantamount to a "witch hunt". After a conversation with John Wolf, Assistant US Secretary of State for Non-proliferation, who is accused of obtaining secret information from his office, he says: "I understood his formulations to say, 'The witches exist; you are appointed to deal with these witches; testing whether there are witches is only a dilution of the witch-hunt'." His account is particularly damaging for Dick Cheney, the Vice-President who continued to insist that Iraq had "nuclear weapons" long after the evidence proved the contrary. Given Mr Blix's IAEA background, he is well-placed to know that US statements about Iraq's nuclear potential were "too alarming or exaggerated". In the light of the bugging revelations, he is clearly smarting. "Although it's nice they were listening to us, why weren't they paying attention to what we said? They might have learnt something." Some leaders did believe the inspectors. Mr Blix says Jacques Chirac, the French President, had a healthy disrespect for intelligence. Although the French intelligence services were convinced WMD remained in Iraq, Mr Chirac's thinking "seemed to be dominated by the conviction that Iraq did not pose a threat that justified armed intervention". Mr Chirac believed that the intelligence services "sometimes intoxicate each other". So were the French right? "I think they were, yes. Chirac was right that the intelligence agencies intoxicated each other; I think they were right on the second resolution, they were right also in saying that one should defer, that one should have more inspections. "They did not say that they would always say 'no' to war. The Americans might have suspected that, but clearly March was too early a date." So what were Mr Blair's channels that made Mr Blair so certain of the Iraqi threat? Defectors, certainly. "They wanted Saddam gone." And the weapons inspectors, many of whom from the Unscom teams of the 1990s remained as government advisers. Mr Blix admits they must share the blame. "Where was [Mr Blair] getting his information from? He could have had reports from British agents that went further than the [Unscom] reports did." Mr Blix does praise the British Government for pursuing the inspection route - at least in public - to the bitter end. "I never doubted that Blair was strongly advocating inspections all the way through; that the resistance to that must have come from the Americans and mainly from the Pentagon side. Even to the last they were trying with the inspection path." But how sincere was the Government? "They certainly tried very hard." Mr Blix takes pains to stress that he is no pacifist. While he maintains that the Iraqi invasion was unjustified based on the nature of the weapons threat, "you can take another line, on humanitarian grounds. I would be in favour of that." From that perspective, Mr Blix sounds remarkably like Mr Blair, who complained in his speech on Friday that international law, as presently constituted, meant that "a regime can systematically brutalise and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do". On the wall of Mr Blix's study is a framed letter from Bill Clinton, congratulating him after his retirement on his 16 years at the head of the IAEA. "I don't expect I'll be getting one from Bush," Mr Blix says drily. Disarming Iraq, the Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Bloomsbury, £16.99 THE CV: Born: 1928 in Uppsala, Sweden Career: 1963-76, adviser on international law at Swedish Foreign Ministry; 1978, Swedish Foreign Minister; 1981-97, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (retired1997); January 2000, executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission; January 2004, chairman of independent international commission on WMD, based in Stockholm. Married to Eva Kettis, two sons The Monday Interview: Retired Chief UN Weapons Inspector By Anne Penketh in Stockholm The Independent newspaper - London, 08 March 2004 GREENPEACE.ORG.UK STATEMENT ON IRAQ WHISTLE-BLOWER CASE: Government faces further headache over legal case for Iraq war Last edited: 28-02-2004 Whistle-blower case has 'huge implications' for Greenpeace protesters Tony Blair faces further embarrassment in less than a fortnight, when fourteen Greenpeace volunteers appear in court on charges relating to an anti-war protest. Their case has taken on great significance since the Crown Prosection Service (CPS) claimed the case against Katherine Gun was dropped because they could not "disprove the defence of necessity" -- that is to say, they could not counter the defence that her actions were justified to save lives. The so-called Marchwood Fourteen occupied tanks at the Southampton military port in February last year. Throughout their case the defendants - all Greenpeace volunteers - have argued that their actions were necessary to prevent loss of life. With the CPS now saying they could not have disproved such a defence in the Gun case, Greenpeace lawyers wonder how the CPS will proceed against the fourteen. In a further development Greenpeace has today written to the CPS asking it for the Attorney-General's full advice to government on the legality of the war. Lawyers for the group claim access to the full advice is vital if the defendants are to be allowed a proper defence. Greenpeace has given the CPS 24 hours to produce the full advice, otherwise the group will renew its request for the advice in court on the first day of the trial, set for March 9th. Greenpeace legal adviser Kate Harrison said, "The protesters thought the war was illegal. We think it is essential for a fair trial that they see the full Attorney General's legal advice and the basis on which it was made." "Since the Katharine Gun trial it would appear that the Attorney General probably thought at the time of the protest that the war would be unlawful and that the Foreign Office and other advisors thought so too." The case against the fourteen will be held at Southampton Magistrate's court from March 9th. Further information Greenpeace opposed the war in Iraq and campaigned actively to prevent it. We joined the Stop the War coalition and made submissions to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on the illegality of the war, see http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk...0219to0222.pdf For more information contact the Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255 or 07801 212967 or 07801 212968 http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Multime...eport/6206.pdf |
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UK's GCHQ Whistle-blower case also impacts Greenpeace protesters (Katherine Gun)
"Oelewapper" wrote in message ... GREENPEACE.ORG.UK STATEMENT ON IRAQ WHISTLE-BLOWER CASE: 'Marchwood 14' lawyers put Attorney General on the spot Last edited: 09-03-2004 The Attorney General has been forced to dispatch a barrister to Southampton Magistrates Court, where the 'Marchwood 14' case is being heard, following the Greenpeace legal team's application for the disclosure of his advice on the legality of the Iraq war. The Government has never released the advice, which it used to justify the 2003 invasion. Judge Woollard told the court he didn't have the power to order disclosure on a technicality, unless the advice was 'prosecution material'. Instead, Judge Woollard will listen to an application for a witness summons for the Attorney General tomorrow. The court was then adjourned for the afternoon to give the Attorney General time to organise representation in court tomorrow. Outside the court, Greenpeace executive director Stephen Tindale said: "The government is grasping desperately at technicalities to avoid disclosing the Attorney General's advice. Their unexpected argument today was that the Attorney General is not part of the prosecution, even though he is the ultimate head of the prosecution service." "The judge has now agreed to consider a witness summons to require the attorney general to provide the advice directly. The Attorney General is sending a top barrister to resist this, even though he has promised in the past that he is willing to go to court to explain and defend the advice he gives." "These 14 people deserve a fair trial. It is essential that the Attorney General either makes his advice available or comes to court to explain himself." Last February, the 14 Greenpeace activists attempted to stop the UK going to war in Iraq. Some of the defendants chained themselves to the gates of the Marchwood military port. Others locked themselves inside tanks bound for the gulf, after using pink paint to write 'No War' on the side of the vehicles. This morning, when applying for the disclosure of the Attorney General's advice, Greenpeace's legal team argued that the outcome of the recent Katherine Gun case has impacted on our case. Gun's case was discontinued because the Crown was unable to disprove her defence of 'necessity'. If her case went ahead, Gun was preparing to argue that it was necessary to leak a controversial Government email to the media to prevent the deaths of thousands of innocent people in a war. The email revealed that the US and UK Governments were planning to secretly record the conversations of members of the United Nations Security Council. In documents provided to Greenpeace, Gun said she firmly believed the UK Government would not send troops to Iraq without a second UN resolution. During the week the Marchwood 14 defendants will argue that they believed the war on Iraq was immoral and illegal. The defence team has already argued that, if the Attorney General's initial advice did not assert that a war on Iraq, without the UN resolution, was legal then that advice is relevant to the case. The activists face charges of aggravated trespass and criminal damage. To be convicted of these charges, the prosecution has to prove the defendants disrupted a lawful activity. The case will continue throughout the week. www.greenpeace.org.uk |
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