Posted on 02/27/2004 12:39:42 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Australia was privy to the phone-tapping operation on the United Nations figures Kofi Annan and Hans Blix before the Iraq war, receiving transcripts under the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the US and Britain.
And the bugging was almost certainly undertaken - at least in part - by spy satellites linked with the Pine Gap relay station outside Alice Springs, an intelligence source told the Herald.
A diplomatic scandal has erupted over the bugging, and yesterday the former UN weapons inspector Richard Butler revealed he was the victim of clandestine phone taps and surveillance when he was working in Iraq.
The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, declined to confirm or deny any knowledge of the operation, saying that if he did it "would destroy our intelligence services".
A British cabinet minister at the time of the Iraq war, Clare Short, triggered the scandal, which has rocked the Blair Government, when she revealed that she had read transcripts of conversations by Mr Annan, the UN Secretary-General.
"In the case of Kofi's office, it [the bugging] was being done for some time," she said.
Mr Downer joined the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in condemning her. "I think what Clare Short has done is grossly irresponsible," Mr Downer said. "She's just making a complete fool of herself."
A UN spokesman, Frank Eckhard, broke with the convention of not commenting on intelligence matters by saying: "We are throwing down a red flag and saying, if this is true, then stop it. It is not good for the United Nations' work and it is illegal."
Mr Butler, now Governor of Tasmania, told the Herald he believed the US, Britain, France and Russia had eavesdropped on him when he was the UN chief weapons inspector.
While he was at the UN headquarters in New York, he would hold sensitive meetings in whispers in a noisy basement cafe, or walk in Central Park, he said. "A hostile intelligence attack on this office is an attack on the system of objectivity of the UN, and functioning international law."
Under international treaties, UN premises are supposed to be protected from eavesdropping.
Mr Downer said Australian intelligence services never broke a domestic law but he was less forthcoming when asked if they breached international rules, saying: "We're not confirming or denying anything in relation to operational matters."
Australia shares intelligence with the US and Britain and was intimately involved in the lobbying of UN members to back the war on Iraq.
"You can be sure we saw this stuff," the Australian intelligence source said. "It would be wrong to think this type of operation necessarily involves people planting listening devices in Kofi Annan's office . . . the satellites these days suck pretty much anything and everything out of the air. Mobile calls, in particular, are quite easy to track."
The ABC reported yesterday that Mr Blix, the UN weapons inspector before the war, had his mobile phone tapped in Iraq.
A leading US intelligence expert, James Bamford, said the UN had long been a bugging target for US intelligence.
"Whatever Kofi Annan happened to be talking about, if that happened to be of interest to the Australians, they would pass it on," said Mr Bamford, who uncovered previous operations to bug the UN by America's electronic spy organisation, the National Security Agency
That agency and the US State Department refused to comment on Ms Short's revelations. "You can assume we are not going to have anything to say at all," a State Department spokesman said.
Everybody does it. No big deal.
They bug the s*** out of me every time I see one of those worthless cleptocrats ranting with my tax dollars.
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