New York Times | By TERENCE NEILAN | February 26, 2004 British spies have regularly bugged the office of Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations, including during the period leading to the invasion of Iraq, a former British government minister said today.
The ex-cabinet minister, Clare Short, who quit as international development secretary because of her opposition to the war, said she had seen transcripts of Mr. Annan's conversations.
"In fact," she added in a BBC radio interview, "I've 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.' "
Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, was not available for immediate comment, but was quoted by the BBC as saying that Mr. Annan had nothing to hide, and that if the allegations were true the actions would have been illegal.
At his monthly news conference today, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "I'm not going to comment on the work of our security services - do not take that as an indication that the allegations made by Clare Short are true.
"I really do regard what Clare Short has said this morning as totally irresponsible, and entirely consistent."
Mr. Blair insisted that the British security services had acted in accordance with domestic and international law.
Ms. Short said the spying at the United Nations had been carried out for some time. Asked if British spies had been instructed to carry out operations at the United Nations on people like Mr. Annan, Ms. Short replied, "Yes, absolutely."
Questioned about whether she had been aware of the spying at the United Nations during her time in the Blair cabinet, she said: "Absolutely. I read some of the transcripts of the accounts of his conversations."
Asked if the spying was legal, she replied: "I don't know. I presume so. It's odd. I don't know about the legalities."
Ms. Short was interviewed a day after Britain said it would not prosecute a 29-year-old government linguist, Katharine Gun, who admitted leaking a top-secret American request for assistance in bugging United Nations diplomats.
There has been speculation, denied by the government, that the case was dropped because ministers were concerned about the disclosure of secret documents during the trial, particularly the advice from the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, about the legality of the war.
The decision to go war was widely unpopular with the British public and has proved to be a political headache for Mr. Blair.
Today Ms. Short said: "The major issue here is the legal authority for war, and whether the Attorney General had to be persuaded at the last minute against the advice of one of the foreign ministry legal advisers who then resigned that he could give legal authority for war and whether there was exaggeration of the threat of the use of chemical and biological weapons to persuade him that there was legal authority. That is the big question."New York Times:
