Gulf Arabs offered bribe to Russia for yes vote on Syria
by courtesy of Wayne Madsen February 27-28, 2012
Informed diplomatic sources have reported to WMR that Bahrain, representing the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), offered Russia a bribe of $5 billion if it did not use its veto in the Security Council to defeat an Arab League-sponsored resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. In the February 4 vote on the resolution, Russia, along with China, used their vetos to shoot down the resolution. U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice called the vetoes "disgusting" and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to the Russian and Chinese action as "despicable," with Germany's UN ambassador Peter Wittig calling the vetoes a "disgrace."
But in what could be termed disgusting, despicable, and disgraceful was the reported offering of a $5 billion bribe for Russia's yes vote by Bahrain's Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa during a trip to Moscow prior to the UN Security Council vote. Our sources report that the Russian government flatly turned down the offer of the money, which was bundled by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.
WMR has also learned that a similar bribe by the GCC was offered to China in return for its yes vote on the Syria resolution. The offer, which was scoffed at by the Chinese government, was reportedly made during a visit by Chinese Prime Minister Wei Jiabao to Doha, the Qatari capital, on January 18.
Under U.S. law, specifically, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the involvement of any GCC financial institutions in arranging for bribe offers to Russia or China could be construed as a violation of the law. If Rice or other U.S. officials were involved with the GCC in making such offers, they could also be found in violation of federal law.
Angry: Multinational protesters demonstrate as Tony Blair gives evidence to the Inquiry (source)
We believe there is more than what Lord Goldsmith defined a “reasonable case” for saying that the Iraq war could have been avoided through the exile of Saddam Hussein. The entire truth needs to emerge or we will have missed an opportunity to restore the west's credibility in the promotion of human rights, rule of law and democracy.
According to a WikiLeaked cable, on 22 September 2009, in a meeting with officials of the UK administration U.S. Undersecretary for Justice Ellen Tauscher stated that the General Director of the British Ministry of Defence Jon Day had assured her that the UK had “put measures in place to protect [American] interests” during the UK inquiry into the causes of the Iraq war. The Chilcot inquiry did not ask Mr. Day to deny that statement.
Main facts
19 February 2003 - The Italian Parliament with the support of Government adopted the radical proposition (345 yes, 38 no, 52 abstentions) which committed Government to seek support in all international bodies, primarily within the Security Council of the United Nations, to the option of an exiled dictator of Iraq and [...] establishment of a provisional government that will restore a control of the full exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms of all Iraqis.
During a meeting in Crawford, on 22 February 2003, Bush said to Aznar that Gaddafi told Berlusconi that Saddam wants to go.
Aznar: «Is it true that there’s a possibility of Saddam Hussein going into exile?» Bush: «Yes, that possibility exists. Even that he gets assassinated». Aznar: «An exile with some guarantee»? Bush: «No guarantee. He’s a thief, a terrorist, a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa. (source)
1 March 2003 – Colonel Gaddafi disrupts the Arab League meeting of Sharm el-Sheik where the United Arab Emirates (UAE) representatives were supposed to table the document outlining the exile plan as agreed by Saddam Hussein.
18 March 2003 – The White House spokesperson states that the American troops and their allies will enter Iraq anyway, no matter how.
19 March 2003 – Bahrain officially offers Saddam Hussein a last-ditch proposal to go into exile.
Clare Short, on 2 February 2010: “I'm sure that's in the public domain, were initiatives from the Saudis and the Jordanians about possibly getting Saddam Hussein to go into exile, which would have been an attractive option, it seems to me.” “As I have said, Saudi Arabia and Jordan were talking about getting him into exile. There was the possibility of the International Criminal Court. He wasn't popular in his country. There is an argument about very strong sanctions that you actually lock countries in, and it is better to open them up, because then, as with Serbia, that's the way we got -- in the end, the people of Serbia sent Milosevic to the International Criminal Court. That was all another option. “ “the Arab world was talking more and more about taking him out, getting him into exile, you know, getting more pressure on him, getting a resolution of the problem and him out without a war. It is just not true that he was jerking any strings. He was -- the pressures were mounting and mounting.”
A dispatch sent by Ellen Tauscher, the US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, describes a conversation with Jon Day, the MOD Director General for security policy, in which he "promised that the UK had ’put measures in place to protect your [US] interestshttp://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cables/2009/09/09LONDON2198.html> during the UK inquiry into the causes of the Iraq War.
Freedman: So timing of your advice is determined by questions of diplomacy and readiness for armed forces - but your advice might've been different two or three weeks later?
Goldsmith: That depends what would have happened. More could have come to light. If there'd been a sea-change, if Saddam had gone into exile say, why would we then need force.
Hans Blix, 27 July 2010: “I thought it was, both then and in retrospect, a bit curious that precisely at the time when we were going upward in evidencing cooperation, at that very time the conclusion from the UK side and also from the US side was that no, inspections are useless.” “They had opened the doors. I had said on some occasions it is not enough to open doors. You also have to be proactive. I think that's what they became when they came up with the idea of further excavations, for instance.”
“Was Iraq a danger in 2003? They were not a danger. They were practically prostrate and could not – it would have taken a lot of time – to reconstitute in selling oil.”
As Elizabeth Wilmshurst put it at the Iraq Inquiry, “I could see that the UK reputation as an upholder of the rule of law and as an upholder of the United Nations would be seriously damaged, at least that's what I foresaw.” We believe that the same applies for the reputation of democracy and the rule of law. The things Jod Day said to the American undersecretary of defense in september 2009 cast a worrying shadow over the Chilcot inquiry and its criteria and limits. Should none of the members of the inquiry look into the dark pages that Blair wrote, so that the International Criminal Court would not be able to proceed, the liberal and democratic values and society that we struggling to uphold will be compromised for generations to come.
Finally, the Cato Institute has mentioned a recent debate in which Condoleeza Rice partook, to possibly spark a debate on the fact that Saddam might have been willing to go into exile. Justin Logan (associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute) writes in ... that “if there was anything approaching a realistic opportunity to make this happen, we really missed out on the bargain of the century here. You’re looking at something like 500%-1000% returns, not counting several thousand American and a-hundred-or-so-thousand Iraqi lives saved.”
The exile of Saddam Hussein would have set an important precedent as far as conflict-resolution is concerned. Had it been applied - possibly under the thrust of the UN authority - for the first time to an influential country whose strategic position and role is of the utmost importance in the development of the world order, the benefit of it would reverberated in the Middle East, in the Arab world and beyond. Thus, the most precious lesson to learn from the 2003 invasion may not be drawn by a seemingly endless analysis revolving around the (il)legality vs. (il)legitimacy of the military action, but by a deeper understanding of the reasons why a peaceful outcome was not eventually sought. So far, former rulers who peacefully ousted through include Idi Amin Dada (Uganda), Gen. Alfredo Stroessner (Paraguay), Charles Taylor (Liberia), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire) and Hissene Habre (Chad).
Testimony by Rai journalist Duilio Giammaria to Radio Radicale
Rome, 21.10.2010
Duilio Giammaria: During those years, as the Iraqi situation unfolded, we obviously paid frequent visits to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which proved to be a real discovery since we found a world revolutionizing itself and of tremendous economic development. Those who know the region, know there are seven Emirates. Usually we would fly aboard military aircraft, leaving from Abu Dhabi, about 150 km north of Dubai. Travel time on these 150 km is about one hour by car on a huge highway consisting of eight lanes. Exactly in the middle of this route between Abu Dhabi and Dubai , one finds a particular place, strongly defined by a long, endless and very orderly line of fences. I asked what this place was, in the midst of the endless route between Abu Dhabi and Dubai we were travelling up and down from.
“It’s interesting, try and figure it out,” I was told half-heartedly. I happened to be lucky enough to meet someone very close to the Emirates’ Royal family. He was a close friend of one of the Emir’s sons.
... he was close to the Emir’s sons, and he gave me this news which I found extremely interesting at the time, although I have to confess not to have elaborated on it sufficiently for the exact same reasons Alberto Negri just gave.
“It is a field, a special field belonging to the Emir’s family, containing many houses”, they told me. Coming from Abu Dhabi, it is on the right-hand side, towards the desert.
“Most of them are inhabited by Iraqi officials.”
“Iraqi oficials?’, I said.
“Yes, those people have been living there since 2003, and it was meant to harbor all of Saddam Hussein’s nomenclature that was supposed to be exiled with him.”
If an agreement had been secured, obviously Saddam Hussein wouldn’t have left on his own. Let’s say he would have taken his top aides and closest staff with him, since a head of state clearly doesn’t leave his country thinking that everything remains the same.
But the most amazing feat –this took place in 2004- is that this happened before one of Sheikh Maktum’s sons explicitly told Al Arabyia that the agreement negotiations had in fact been brought up to the final stage. The UAE believed up until the end that this agreement was possible. So in 2005, when this news feat became known, Al Arabyia suddenly published the declaration by one of the sons, stating the word about a hidden field in the desert of the Arab Emirates, prepared to receive Saddam Hussein’s nomenclature, was completely true. This is in 2005. Also at this point however, we didn’t elaborate on it enough, because obviously there was enough to work on, exactly as there is enough to work on today.
Iran's top security official Saeed Jalili has called for an international tribunal to put former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on trial for war crimes.
The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council told a press conference in Istanbul, Turkey that Blair should be tried as a war criminal at an international court for his complicity in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq. In his second appearance at the Iraq War Inquiry in London on Friday, Blair unleashed an all-out attack on Iran, accusing the Islamic Republic of posing a “looming challenge” to the West by pursuing its nuclear activities. The Iranian official reacted to the allegations, noting that “Blair should first save himself at the trial.” “A dispute arises at this point over the fact that why some people allow themselves to violate the rights of other nations and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, but nobody neither issues a resolution against them nor questions them in this regard,” Jalili said. Bringing up the question that why the UK government is the only nation that tries Blair, the top Iranian official stressed that “he attacked Iraq without United Nation's authorization, an act that contributed to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. But nobody questions him today.” The former British Prime Minister and the then US president George W. Bush are complicit in the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blair made all the crucial decisions that led Britain to become the second-biggest contributor of troops to the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Whitehall chief blocks release of Blair's notes to Bush on Iraq
Sir Gus O'Donnell stops publication of documents Chilcot inquiry says are crucial to understanding how invasion happened
Richard Norton-Taylor 18 January 2011
Sir Gus O'Donnell giving evidence to a Commons committee last year. Photograph: PA
Britain's top civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, is preventing the official inquiry into the Iraq invasion from publishing notes sent by Tony Blair to George W Bush - evidence described by the inquiry as of "central importance" in establishing the circumstances that led to war.
O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, consulted Blair before suppressing the documents, it emerged tonight. The Cabinet Office said: "There is an established convention covering papers of a previous administration whereby former ministers would normally be consulted before release of papers from their time in government." The prime minister's spokesman said David Cameron had not been consulted.
Raising the stakes ahead of Blair's recall on Friday, Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, released a sharp exchange of letters with O'Donnell in which he repeated requests for the notes to be declassified. Chilcot said: "The material requested provides important, and often unique, insights into Mr Blair's thinking and the commitments he made to President Bush, which are not reflected in other papers."
In a letter dated 6 January, his third to O'Donnell in less than a month, Chilcot wrote: "The question when and how the prime minister made commitments to the US about the UK's involvement in military action in Iraq and subsequent decisions on the UK's continuing involvement, is central to its considerations".
He refers to passages in memoirs, including Blair's autobiography, A Journey, and disclosures by Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, and Alastair Campbell, his former head of communications. Those publications, and the refusal to disclose Blair's notes, Chilcot said, "leads to the position that individuals may disclose privileged information (without sanction) whilst a committee of privy counsellors established by a former prime minister to review the issues, cannot".
Chilcot, who, with his four-member panel, has privately seen Blair's notes, said the documents "illuminate prime minister Blair's positions at critical points".
O'Donnell replied to Chilcot that releasing Blair's notes would damage Britain's relations with the US. and would not be in the public interest. "We have attached particular importance to protecting the privacy of the channel between the prime minister and president," he told Chilcot.
The Cabinet Office said the refusal to allow Blair's notes to be disclosed conformed to the inquiry's protocols. Chilcot said recently the protocols were "put in place to protect national security, international relations and the personal security of individuals. They are not there to prevent embarrassment."
In evidence to the inquiry last year, Campbell described the tenor of Blair's notes to Bush as: "We share the analysis, we share the concern, we are going to be with you in making sure that Saddam Hussein is faced up to his obligations and that Iraq is disarmed."
Campbell added: "If that cannot be done diplomatically and it is to be done militarily, Britain will be there. That would be the tenor of the communication to the president."
The inquiry has also heard from senior British diplomats that regime change was being discussed by Blair in meetings with Bush in 2002 even though, according to leaked documents, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, warned that military action aimed at regime change, as opposed to disarmament, would be unlawful.
One document, previously leaked, notes that Blair told Bush at a meeting in Washington on 31 January 2003, less than two months before the invasion, that "he was solidly with the president". That was his response after Bush said military action would be taken with or without a new UN resolution and the day after Goldsmith warned Blair that an invasion of Iraq would be unlawful without a fresh UN resolution. Goldsmith subsquently changed his mind.
An inquiry official said: "It not about what President Bush told prime minister Blair. It is about what Mr Blair said to President Bush."
The inquiry has summoned back the former prime minister, to press him about what he promised Bush in private, and why he repeatedly questioned, then shut out, his government's chief law officer, Lord Goldsmith, after receiving unwelcome advice about the legality of an invasion.
Tony Blair 'misled' Commons over legal advice on war in Iraq Tony
Blair misled Parliament by claiming that Britain could legally attack Iraq in the face of United Nations opposition despite being given clear advice to the contrary, new evidence suggests.
Rosa Prince 17 Jan 2011
In evidence to the Iraq inquiry, Lord Goldsmith, who at the time was the government’s top legal adviser, disclosed that he was “uncomfortable” about statements made by the then-prime minister in the run up to the 2003 invasion.
Two months before the war began, in a meeting at No 10, the former attorney general told Mr Blair that war would not be legal without a fresh mandate from the UN.
In a statement to MPs the following day, however, the Labour prime minister said that there were “circumstances” in which an attack could be valid.
The following month, he gave an interview in which he suggested that war would be legal if another nation had made an “unreasonable” veto at the UN on military action.
A witness statement to the Chilcot Inquiry into the war, published today, makes clear that Lord Goldsmith considered that this did not accord with the advice he had given Mr Blair.
Asked whether Mr Blair's words were compatible with the advice he received, the former attorney general wrote simply: "No."
He added: "I was uncomfortable about them (the prime minister's comments) ...
"My concern was that we should not box ourselves in by the public statements that were made, and create a situation which might then have to be unravelled."
Lord Goldsmith evidence to the inquiry has come under scrutiny after he admitted changing his mind about the legality of military action on the eve of the war.
His views were swayed during meetings he was encouraged to have with American government lawyers and Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the UN.
Giving evidence to the inquiry last year, he denied that he was “leant on” by No 10 to change his legal opinion.
Until two weeks before the invasion, in March 2003, Lord Goldsmith had been of the view that UN resolution 1441, which was passed in November 2002 and declared Iraq in “material breach” of its obligations to disarm, was not sufficient to sanction war by the UK and United States.
In the new evidence to the inquiry, Lord Goldsmith said in his statement that the phrasing of resolution 1441 was "problematic".
He was not actively consulted on the final drafting of the resolution after telling Mr Blair in October that the text as it stood did not authorise the use of force.
The former attorney general said: "I was not being sufficiently involved in the meetings and discussions about the resolution and the policy behind it that were taking place at ministerial level.
Documents reveal how Goldsmith repeatedly warned Blair of the consequences of invading Iraq without fresh UN authority.
A note from Goldsmith to Blair, marked secret and dated 30 January 2003, stated: "I thought you might wish to know where I stand on the question of whether a further decision of the [UN] security council is legally required in order to authorise the use of force against Iraq."
Goldsmith warned Blair that "the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 [the last security council decision on Iraq] is that it does not authorise the use of force without a further determination by the security council". He concluded: "My view remains that a further [UN] decision is required."
The document contains a handwritten note, by David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, which warned: "Clear advice from attorney on need for further resolution."
...
By 7 March, 2003, Goldsmith had told Blair that a new UN resolution might not be needed after all, though war without one would risk Britain's indictment before an international court.
On 17 March, Goldsmith, published a short note saying an invasion was lawful.
David Kelly death riddle grows as it emerges personal items found on his body did not have fingerprints on them
Miles Goslett 27th January 2011
Further questions have been raised over the death of Dr David Kelly after police admitted that two personal items found with his body – his mobile phone and a watch – did not have any fingerprints on them.
The news brings the number of objects without fingerprints at the site where the weapons inspector’s body was discovered to five – the other three being the knife he allegedly used to slash his wrist, the packs of pills he is said to have overdosed on, and a water bottle.
It had been suggested that the lack of fingerprints on the knife might be due to the presence of gaffer tape on it. But Thames Valley Police have now confirmed that the knife had no tape on its handle.
Dr Kelly is said to have killed himself in 2003 after being named as the prime source of a BBC report accusing Tony Blair’s government of lying to take Britain into war in Iraq. No coroner’s inquest has been held. Instead, a public inquiry found he killed himself in woods near his Oxfordshire home.
Chilcot inquiry's credibility 'is on edge of an abyss'
Leading international lawyer Philippe Sands says inquiry has shown inability to tackle central question of illegality – or otherwise – of Iraq invasion
Richard Norton-Taylor 14 November 2010
Philippe Sands says the credibility of the Chilcot inquiry into the invasiona of Iraq is 'on the edge of an abyss'. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
The credibility of the Chilcot inquiry into the invasion of Iraq is "on the edge of an abyss" because of its lack of transparency, a leading international lawyer warned today.
Philippe Sands QC, professor of international law at University College London, said the inquiry had been undermined by its inability to refer publicly to documents it had seen.
He said it had shown an inability to tackle the central question of the illegality – or otherwise – of the US-led military action head on.
Sands said he had seen some unpublished documents which contradicted or undermined the testimony by witnesses to the inquiry. The inquiry had also had a series of "private chats" with a number of "notable individuals", he said.
The lawyer referred to what he called a "curious advertisement" the inquiry had placed, asking international lawyers to submit their view of the invasion. More than 30 had done so more than two months ago, yet the submissions have not been posted on the inquiry's website.
"Why did the inquiry not issue personal invitations to key individuals to appear before it in a public session? Why has it not even convened a private seminar amongst invited international legal experts, as it has done on other matters?" Sands asked.
His comments came in the 2010 Remembrance Sunday lecture on war and law at the Imperial War Museum in London. The lecture was sponsored by the Movement for the Abolition of War.
Sands noted that the Chilcot inquiry had appointed an "adviser on international law" - Dame Rosalyn Higgins, a former judge and president of the international court of justice – but said it was unclear what her role was.
He said he hoped the inquiry would insist that, in future, the attorney general must provide early and full advice on the legality of a future use of force, ensure the attorney provided advice to all of government, not just the prime minister, and give a parliamentary committee an oversight role on legal advice relating to war.
Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes; Blair's, which has earned him a £4.6m advance, will appear next month.
Now consider the Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenceless country, of a kind the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime". This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.
In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma. Cancer rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf and Basra (the latter "liberated" by the British) are now higher than those at Hiroshima. "UK forces used about 1.9 metric tonnes of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003," the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, told parliament on 22 July. A range of toxic "anti-personnel" weapons, such as cluster bombs, was employed by British and US forces.
Such carnage was justified with lies that have been exposed repeatedly. On 29 January 2003, Blair told parliament: "We do know of links between al-Qaeda and Iraq . . ." Last month, the former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller told the Chilcot inquiry: "There is no credible intelligence to suggest that connection . . . [it was the invasion] that gave Osama Bin Laden his Iraqi jihad." Asked to what extent the invasion exacerbated the threat to Britain from terrorism, she replied: "Substantially."
His ongoing theme of injustices perpetrated by our foreign policy, and the lies told to keep us in the dark, always carries with it a critique of the media for not exposing the truth. But now, reporters are his specific target. Pilger's thesis is that uncomfortable facts, such as the extent of civilian casualties, are not part of a mainstream media narrative instead dominated by officialdom's talk of "spreading democracy", "fighting terror" and so on. The film argues that this censorship by omission dates back to the First World War. Journalists who are now on the outside looking in, including Rageh Omaar (now of Al Jazeera) and CBS's Dan Rather, speak about the pressure they worked under; Julian Assange of Wikileaks likens modern whistleblowers to the conscientious objectors of previous wars; and BBC and ITV news chiefs face Pilger's admirably direct questioning. Conventional wisdom about modern warfare comes under a sustained assault. ..
Carne Ross, the UK’s Iraq expert at the UN from 1997-2002, says all the invasion documents should now be made public. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
I testified last week to the Chilcot inquiry. My experience demonstrates an emerging and dangerous problem with the process. This is not so much a problem with Sir John Chilcot and his panel, but rather with the government bureaucracy – Britain's own "deep state" – that is covering up its mistakes and denying access to critical documents.
There is only one solution to this problem, and it requires decisive action.
After I was invited to testify, I was contacted by the Foreign Office, from which I had resigned after giving testimony to the Butler inquiry in 2004, to offer its support for my appearance. I asked for access to all the documents I had worked on as Britain's Iraq "expert" at the UN Security Council, including intelligence assessments, records of discussions with the US, and the long paper trail on the WMD dossier.
Large files were sent to me to peruse at the UK mission to the UN. However, long hours spent reviewing the files revealed that most of the key documents I had asked for were not there.
In my testimony I had planned to detail how the UK government failed to consider, let alone implement, available alternatives to military action. To support this I had asked for specific records relating to the UK's failure to deal with the so-called Syrian pipeline, through which Iraq illegally exported oil, thereby sustaining the Saddam regime. I was told that specific documents, such as the records of prime minister Tony Blair's visit to Syria, could not be found. This is simply not plausible.
I had also asked for all the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments on Iraq, some of which I helped prepare. Of dozens of these documents, only three were provided to me – 40 minutes before I was due to appear before the Chilcot panel.
Playing by the rules, I had submitted my written testimony to Chilcot before my appearance. In the hours before my appearance, invited to visit the Foreign Office to see further documents (mostly irrelevant), an official repeatedly sought to persuade me to delete references to certain documents in my testimony.
He told me that the Cabinet Office wanted the removal of a critical reference in my evidence to a memo from a senior Foreign Office official to the foreign secretary's special adviser, in which the official pointed out, with mandarin understatement, that the paper sent that week to the Parliamentary Labour Party dramatically – and inaccurately – altered the UK's assessment of Iraq's nuclear threat.
In a clear example of the exaggeration of Iraq's military capabilities, that paper claimed that if Iraq's programmes remained unchecked, it could develop a nuclear device within five years.
The official's memo pointed out that this was not, in fact, the UK assessment: the UK believed that Iraq's nuclear programme had been checked by sanctions.
The paper to the PLP was instead sent by the foreign secretary to "brief" the wider cabinet. This paper was pure overstated propaganda, filled with ludicrous statements like "one teaspoon of anthrax can kill a million people". The paper was soon made public, as part of the campaign to create public hysteria.
The official's memo about the PLP paper contained nothing secret. It relates to a public document, the PLP paper. Yet, of all the references in my testimony, this was the one that the Cabinet Office most wanted removed. I refused. Strikingly, this memo has never been mentioned to the inquiry, including by its author, who testified earlier this year. Neither has the author of the PLP paper been questioned, or the paper itself discussed.
I was repeatedly warned by inquiry staff not to mention any classified material during my testimony. The only problem is that almost every document I ever wrote or read in my work was classified. It was made clear to me, and to journalists attending the hearing, that if I mentioned specific documents the broadcast of my testimony would be cut off. Other forms of retribution (Official Secrets Act prosecution?) hung in the air. It was a form of subtle intimidation.
Meanwhile, my requests to see documents about the infamous Number 10 WMD dossier were ignored, including requests for letters I had written.
This experience and the inquiry's record so far is cause for concern. It is clear from testimonies so far that most witnesses, most of whom went along with the war at the time, are offering a very one-sided account to the panel. A story is being peddled that sanctions on Iraq were collapsing and the allied policy of containment was failing. Thus, the military alternative to deal with the Iraqi threat was more or less unavoidable.
Though there is some truth to this argument, it was not what the Foreign Office, or the government as a whole, believed at the time. The true story is there to be seen in the documents. In memos, submissions to ministers and telegrams, the official view is very clear: while there was concern at the erosion of sanctions, containment had prevented Iraq from rearmament.
When invasion was promoted by Washington, the available alternative – to squeeze Saddam financially by stopping oil exports or seizing the regime's assets, which I and some colleagues had repeatedlyadvocated, was ignored. Here the documents tell a different but equally clear and appalling story: there is not a single mention of any formal discussion, by ministers or officials, of alternatives to military action. It is hard to pinpoint a graver indictment of the government's failure.
The oral testimonies delivered to the inquiry have not given an accurate picture of what the government really thought. Unfortunately, the panel is neither equipped, nor apparently inclined, to challenge witnesses on the contradictions of their testimonies with this documentary record. This may not be the panel's fault: how can they know which pertinent documents exist?
In these circumstances, it is very worrying that the government machine is still trying to withhold key documents, and silence those of us with detailed knowledge of the policy history – and documents. I have been told too, from secondary sources, that members of the panel have been refused documents they have specifically requested.
There is a clear solution to these problems: break down the continued obstruction by the bureaucracy by releasing the documents – all of them. Only the most secret documents deserve continued protection, and there are very few of these. The vast majority of relevant documents relate to policy discussion inside the government before the war. Though profoundly embarrassing, there is little here that damages national security, except in the hysterical assessment of officials protecting their own reputation. Nick Clegg said a few weeks ago that almost all documents must now be released. He is right.
Carne Ross was the UK's Iraq expert at the UN from 1997 to 2002. He now heads Independent Diplomat, a non-profit diplomatic advisory group.
Nick Clegg was tonight forced to clarify his position on the Iraq war after he stood up at the dispatch box of the House of Commons and pronounced the invasion illegal.
The deputy prime minister insisted he was speaking in a personal capacity, as a leading international lawyer warned that the statement by a government minister in such a formal setting could increase the chances of charges against Britain in international courts.
Philippe Sands, professor of law at University College London, said: "A public statement by a government minister in parliament as to the legal situation would be a statement that an international court would be interested in, in forming a view as to whether or not the war was lawful."
The warning came after a faltering performance by Clegg in the Commons when he stood in for David Cameron at prime minister's questions. The deputy prime minister made an initial mistake when he announced that the government would close the Yarl's Wood centre as it ends the detention of children awaiting deportation. The Home Office was forced to issue a statement saying that the family unit at Yarl's Wood would close but that the rest of the centre would remain open.
Shortly before that slip-up, Clegg threw the government's position concerning the legality of the Iraq war into confusion when, at the end of heated exchanges with Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the war, Clegg said: "We may have to wait for his memoirs, but perhaps one day he will account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all: the illegal invasion of Iraq."
Clegg's remarks could be legally significant because he was standing at the government dispatch box in the Commons.
Downing Street played down the significance of the remarks by issuing a statement saying that he was expressing his "long-held view" about the Iraq conflict. In an attempt to avoid speculation about splits with Cameron, who voted in favour of the war, Downing Street added that the government would await the findings of the Chilcot inquiry before reaching a view on the war.
"The coalition government has not expressed a view on the legality or otherwise of the Iraq conflict," the No 10 spokesman said. "But that does not mean that individual members of the government should not express their individual views. These are long-held views of the deputy prime minister.
"The Iraq inquiry is currently examining many issues surrounding the UK's involvement in Iraq, including the legal basis of the war. The government looks forward to receiving the inquiry's conclusions."
But this appeared to be contradicted by the Chilcot inquiry, which issued a statement saying it was examining the legal issues in the run-up to the war but would not make a judgment about the legality of the war. A spokesman said: "The inquiry is not a court of law, and no one is on trial."
The government also faced a challenge in explaining an apparently new constitutional convention that the second most senior member of the cabinet is now free to stand at the dispatch box and express opinions of his own that do not reflect government policy.
Asked whether Clegg had been speaking as the leader of the Liberal Democrats and not as deputy prime minister, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: "Yes."
Asked how MPs could establish in future whether Clegg is speaking as deputy prime minister or as leader of the Liberal Democrats, the spokeswoman said: "The deputy prime minister is entitled to express his own view at the dispatch box."
The Lib Dems were keen to play down the significance of Clegg's remarks. But it is understood that the Lib Dem leader feels freer to speak out against the alleged illegality of the Iraq war after the recent publication of previously classified documents by the Chilcot inquiry.
Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, wrote to Sir John Chilcot on 25 June to allow the inquiry to publish more documents relating to the legal advice. The most significant of these documents was a note on 30 January 2003 by the then attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to Tony Blair.
In the note Goldsmith wrote: "I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of [UN security council] resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the security council."
Goldsmith famously changed his mind on the legality of the war in March 2003 after Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the former chief of the defence staff, demanded a clear undertaking that military action would be lawful. Boyce feared that British forces could face legal action unless the invasion had legal cover.
On 7 March 2003, after visiting Washington, Goldsmith told Blair that a new UN resolution may not be necessary, although invading Iraq without one could lead to Britain being indicted before an international court. Ten days later Goldsmith ruled that an invasion would be lawful.
Sands said: "Lord Goldsmith never gave a written advice that the war was lawful. Nick Clegg is only repeating what Lord Goldsmith told Tony Blair on 30 January 2003: that without a further UN security resolution the war would be illegal and Jack Straw knows that."
Former MI5 chief demolishes Blair's defence of the Iraq war
Andy McSmith 21 July 2010
Tony Blair's evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry that toppling Saddam Hussein helped make Britain safe from terrorists was dramatically undermined by the former head of MI5 yesterday.
Giving evidence to the same inquiry, Eliza Manningham-Buller revealed that there was such a surge of warnings of home-grown terrorist threats after the invasion of Iraq that MI5 asked for – and got – a 100 per cent increase in its budget. Baroness Manningham-Buller, who was director general of MI5 in 2002-07, told the Chilcot panel that MI5 started receiving a "substantially" higher volume of reports that young British Muslims being drawn to al-Qa'ida.
...
Lady Manningham-Buller also hinted at tension between Mr Blair's office and MI5 over the dossier that the Prime Minister presented to Parliament in September 2002, to prepare public opinion for the likelihood of war.
"We were asked to put in some low-grade, small intelligence to it and we refused because we didn't think it was reliable," she said.
Evidence: What he said – and what she said
False claims of links between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein
Tony Blair claimed on 21 Jan 2003:
"There is some intelligence evidence about loose links between al-Qa'ida and various people in Iraq... It would not be correct to say there is no evidence whatever of linkages between al-Qa'ida and Iraq."
Foreign Office spokesman claimed on 29 Jan 2003:
"We believe that there have been, and still are, some al-Qa'ida operatives in parts of Iraq controlled by Baghdad. It is hard to imagine that they are there without the knowledge and acquiescence of the Iraqi government."
Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, yesterday:
"There was no credible intelligence to suggest that connection and that was the judgment, I might say, of the CIA."
Hand-picking flimsy 'intelligence'
Blair, to the Commons 24 Sept 2002:
"It [the intelligence service] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability..."
Blair, to the Commons 25 Feb 2003:
"The intelligence is clear: He [Saddam] continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death."
Manningham-Buller, yesterday:
"The nature of intelligence – it is a source of information, it is rarely complete, it needs to be assessed, it is fragmentary... We were asked to put in some low-grade, small intelligence to it [the September 2002 dossier] and we refused because we didn't think it was reliable."
Iraq posed no risk to Britain
Blair, to the Commons 10 April 2002:
"Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."
Manningham-Buller, yesterday:
"We regarded the direct threat from Iraq as low... we didn't believe he had the capability to do anything in the UK."
Ministers were told that invading Iraq would increase the threat of terrorism to Britain
Blair, farewell speech at the Labour conference, 26 September 2006:
"This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it. It's not the consequence of foreign policy."
Manningham-Buller, yesterday:
"It was communicated through the JIC assessments, to which I fed in... I believe they [senior ministers] did read them. If they read them, they can have had no doubt."
The Iraq war made Britain a more dangerous place and allowed al-Qa'ida to gain a hold in Iraq
Blair, 29 Jan 2010:
"If I am asked whether I believe we are safer, more secure, that Iraq is better, that our own security is better, I believe we are. The world is safer as a result."
Manningham-Buller, yesterday:
"Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a generation of young people who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as an attack on Islam. We [MI5] were pretty well swamped... with intelligence on a broad scale that was pretty well more than we could cope with in terms of plots, leads to plots and things that we needed to pursue.
"We gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad so that he was able to move into Iraq in a way that he was not before.
Iraq war inquiry: Blair government 'massaged' Saddam Hussein WMD threat
Former diplomat Carne Ross says exaggeration, accretion and editing of intelligence documents led to lies in threat assessment
Richard Norton-Taylor 12 July 2010
Tony Blair's government "intentionally and substantially" exaggerated assessments of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction culminating in highly misleading statements about the threat that amounted to lies, the inquiry into the war in Iraq was told today
Carne Ross, a British diplomat to the UN who was responsible for Iraq in the runup to the invasion, said intelligence was "massaged" into "more robust and terrifying" statements about Saddam's supposed WMD.
Analysis: Deadly conflict inside Iraqi spy service goes unmentioned
September 23, 2010 JOSEPH FITSANAKIS, intelNews.org
Amidst the chaos of post-Ba’athist Iraqi politics, a deadly sectarian conflict is raging within Iraq’s powerful spy agency. Employees inside Iraq’s National Intelligence Service (INIS) are split along religious sectarian lines, with Sunni and Shiite officers battling for control of the organization. The warring factions are directly affiliated with opposing political parties, and represent various political interests. Shiite officers are seen as aligned with Tehran, whereas Sunnis are close to Washington and –ironically– to the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party. The conflict has resulted in the assassination of several INIS officers, mostly by their colleagues in the Service, according to two anonymous Iraqi security officials, who spoke to The National, an English-language newspaper published in the United Arab Emirates. One of them, a brigadier-general with recent experience in intelligence work in Baghdad, told the paper that Shiite INIS officers are beeing killed by professionally trained assassins using “plastic explosives, sticky bombs and silenced pistols”. These killings, said the brigadier-general, are conveniently reported as random terrorist attacks against Iraqi government employees. Another intelligence source told The National that the killings are targeted and involve the use of inside information, including pen-register data of cell phones belonging to spies targeted for assassination. He added that the assassins are former members of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat (Iraqi Intelligence Service), who have been rehired and trained by American forces in recent years, in an effort to curtail Shiite influence inside Iraq. Iraqi government representatives refused to discuss the newspaper’s revelations. Meanwhile in Washington, a CIA representative described the allegations about a civil war within the INIS as “absolute rubbish”.
Emirates police says US, Israel, use BlackBerry to spy
September 8, 2010 IAN ALLEN, intelNews.org
The alleged use of encrypted BlackBerry communications by adversary intelligence services operating in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is prompting local authorities to consider a nationwide ban on the popular phone. This was revealed late last week by Dubai Police chief, Lt. General Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, who repeated a warning by UAE authorities that BlackBerry services in the country will be curtailed on October 11, unless the government is given access to BlackBerry’s encryption code by the manufacturer. Several other countries in the Middle East and beyond have made similar moves, including Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, India and Indonesia, all of which have cited security reasons for the ban. But Lt. General Tamim’s comments provide the first known connection between a threat to ban BlackBerry and its alleged use by rival intelligence agencies. Speaking to journalists, the Dubai Police chief implied that encrypted BlackBerry telephones are used by the intelligence agencies of “America, Israel, Britain and other countries” that operate in the UAE. He also shared the view that “[t]he United States is the primary beneficiary of having no controls over the BlackBerry, as it has an interest to spy on the UAE”. According to local media, UAE government officials are currently engaged in confidential negotiations with Research in Motion Ltd., BlackBerry’s Canada-based manufacturer. There are over 500,000 permanent BlackBerry users in the UAE, a number which does not include the millions of foreign BlackBerry subscribers that visit the country each year.
The death of opposition activist and journalist Oleg Bebenin(who was found hanged ) has thrown a murky light on both the circumstances of his demise and those who might be behind it. Those close to the dead man claim foul play, and dark rumours are circulating about President Lukashenko’s cash-strapped government.
In the lead up to Belarusian elections speculation is bubbling about rebel undercurrents in the regime and the motivation of potential perpetrators is far from straightforward - with some pointing the finger at Minsk's modern-day KGB.
“Things indicate that at the very least it was premature to make such a conclusion… the police told me very confidently on the same day that it had happened on the same day….and I saw the body, it was not even stiff,” leader of Charter 97 and presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov told The Moscow News. “I do not believe in Oleg’s suicide. There is a lot here that is very questionable,” he told Moskovsky Komsomolets. Bebenin was a member of the group.
An unlikely suicide
“What I get from this is the impression that nobody thought that he had any signs of depression. But it would be rather difficult to prove that it was suicide,” Jana Kobzova at the European Council on Foreign Relations told The Moscow News.
There were certainly strange circumstances. “There was not a crumb of food around,” one witness said. “And two bottles of Belovzhskogo Balsam, which he wouldn’t have drunk even at gunpoint, seeing as he was one of the country’s leading whisky experts.”
“And there was some [Balsam] at the wheel [of his car]. He had to go to the cinema and people were waiting for him, but he sent a text message saying not to wait for him at the café but go straight on to the cinema.”
Of his body, “His feet were stood on the ground, not hanging. And there was a scratch on his hand.” There was no note.
KGB implicated
If Bebenin, who leaves behind a wife and two young children, did not take his own life there are lively conspiracy theories.
“It is not in the interests of Lukashenko for this guy to be dead because it sheds the obvious suspicion that the government were behind it,” said Kobzova. “There are rival factions in the regime and the most radical is the security forces.” The more Lukashenko pays his overtures to the EU the more Belarus has to open up and, “the less breathing space for security forces.”
The death of a high profile activist and journalist could derail discussions with Europe and thus undermine Lukashenko’s regime whose western advances the KGB, as they are still called in Belarus, look on with disfavour.
And the security forces have some unlikely allies here. Charter 97 also believes that the EU should sever relations with Belarus while Lukashenko is still in power, as his concessions to human rights have been perfunctory. “The pre-election season in Berlarus only highlights that this will be a politically sensitive case - both for Minsk and Brussels,” says Kobzova.
“It doesn’t matter who did it,” Sannikov said by telephone. “I don’t care about details, this is the nature of [Lukashenko’s] regime.”
Li Fengzhi, Chinese spy who defected to U.S., facing deportation
The U.S. government is trying to deport Li Fengzhi, a veteran Chinese intelligence agent who defected here in 2004, back to China, where he could well be executed on charges of treason, he and others said in interviews.
The reasons for the government's six-year-long opposition to Li's application for political asylum, entangled in spy wars and layers of secrecy, are not easily discerned.
Li became an officer in the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) upon graduation from college in 1990, according to his application for political asylum. In 2003, the spy agency sent him to the University of Denver to pursue a PhD in international politics and diplomatic philosophy, during which time he began to voice his criticism of the Chinese Communist Party.
During a trip home, Chinese security agents harshly interrogated him about his views. When he returned to Denver, he decided to apply for political asylum, on the basis that his increasingly outspoken views would subject him to retribution if he were forced to go back.
But he did not reveal his identity as a Chinese intelligence officer at the time, he said. His application was initially denied.
Two years later, petitioning again for asylum, Li volunteered to an immigration official that he had not mentioned that he had been an intelligence officer of China.
Nor had he volunteered that, “because of the difficulties I had and the great danger to my family that I felt in those days, I decided to ask the CIA and FBI for help....”
In fact, Li was extensively debriefed by the FBI and CIA, he and others familiar with his case said.
But neither agency has stepped forward to help keep him from being deported, he and the others said. Although individual FBI agents were supportive of him, one source said, the bureau officially played down his intelligence value.
“Just getting verification that he worked with them has been an enormous task,” said the source.
Neither agency could be reached for comment.
Rumors about Li's exact relationship with the CIA and FBI abound.
One explanation for their allegedly cool treatment of Li now, said a law enforcement source, was that he "oversold" himself -- inflated his rank in the MSS -- when he finally decided to cooperate with the FBI and CIA. Another line of thinking is that he rejected their overtures to work as their mole inside Chinese intelligence, and they feel they owe him no favors.
Whatever the truth, neither agency should get in the way of Li's effort to stay here now, said Michelle Van Cleave, chief of the National Counterintelligence Executive, a policy-setting arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, during the Bush administration.
“I can’t understand why the Obama Administration would oppose Li’s application for asylum,” she said. “Can you imagine the fate that would await him if he were deported? Or what kind of a signal that would send?”
“Whether he came over with the crown jewels of Chinese intelligence or just some crumbs from the table, we should be welcoming him with open arms and encouraging others to follow,” she said.
Li admitted he was ambivalent about asking the CIA and FBI for help. He wants to be known as a dissident, not a turncoat.
“My number one target is the CCP” -- the Chinese Communist Party of China, Li said. “If they can connect me to U.S. intelligence agencies, they will use it against me.”
Other government agencies involved in Li’s case -- the departments of Justice and Homeland Security -- either did not respond to requests for comment or declined comment.
Li was critical of the handling of his case by DHS's Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes asylum requests, saying in his halting English, “I have a strong feeling they didn’t know this case very well.”
Later, in court proceedings led by a prosecutor with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said, “I felt this lady” -- he did not identify the prosecutor -- “couldn’t understand the smallest thing about Chinese security agencies.”
Li made his latest case for political asylum at a hearing before an immigration judge in Denver on Monday. Another hearing is scheduled for Oct. 4, at which time he hopes his long quest to stay here will be over.
“I still hope the immigration system can make the right decision,” Li said in a phone interview.
A Denver law firm, Lichter & Associates, has represented Li for the last four years. The current lead attorney on his case, Mark Robert Barr, said Li “faces severe repercussions” if he is forced to return to China, ranging from a “lengthy prison term to capital punishment, with very little due process.”
“As an intelligence agent," Barr added, "he is at extreme risk.”
Retired FBI official I.C. Smith, one of the bureau’s top China experts, agreed.
In a letter to Denver immigration Judge Donn L. Livingston last March, Smith said “Mr. Li has two fundamental problems: he betrayed the trust of the ubiquitous MSS and far more importantly, he denounced the CCP. These are unforgivable actions on the part of the MSS as well as the CCP.”
“Based on my past experience… I can state, without equivocation,” Smith added, “that if Mr. Li were to be returned to China that his punishment would be severe and devoid of civil liberties.”
The final decision on Li’s fate could rest with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, said an official who asked not to be identified.
September 2, 2010 JOSEPH FITSANAKIS, intelNews.org
It is a story that was largely ignored when it surfaced last year: since 1994, US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officer Richard A. Horn had been claiming that CIA agents illegally wiretapped his conversations while he was stationed in Burma. It appears that, at the time, the US diplomatic representation in Burma and the CIA station in Rangoon were at loggerheads with the DEA. The latter, represented by special agent Horn, had a policy of publicly commending the Burmese government for its significant efforts to end the vastly lucrative illegal drug trade in the country. But the diplomatic leadership at the US embassy in Rangoon, supported by the CIA, felt that their inroads with the Burmese military junta, which has controlled the country since 1990, were being obstructed by the DEA. Horn claims that, in an effort to sabotage the DEA activities in the country, Franklin Hurdle Jr. (who was then US ambassador to Burma) and CIA officer Arthur Brown (who later headed the CIA’s East Asia division) illegally eavesdropped on his telephone communications with his DEA superiors and others. In July of 2009, a US court ruled that CIA attorneys committed fraud in alleging that US national security would be threatened if details of Richard Horn’s lawsuit were openly discussed, and determined that the CIA had kept the case secret for years simply in order to avoid embarrassment. Soon afterwards, a worried CIA was forced to settle the lawsuit out of court. The CIA, the DEA, and –it seems– the American media, are trying to quickly put behind them the grim details of that bloody turf war in post-Cold-War Burma. But in a brave piece written for the Eurasia Review, Joseph Allchin revisits the DEA-CIA clash, and explains the crucial function of the CIA in the turbulent internal politics of Burma. Most definitely essential reading.
Russian General goes missing in Syria, turns up dead in Turkey
Yuri Ivanov, believed to have masterminded assassination campaign against Chechen leaders abroad, was last seen visiting the building site for a new Russian military base in the Syrian coastal city Tartus.
The former deputy chief of a Russian military intelligence service was found dead on the shore of the Mediterranean by Turkish villagers in the province of Hatay, the Turkish newspaper Vatan reported Wednesday, citing Russian sources.
Experts had identified the body as that of Yuri Ivanov, the former deputy head of the Russian military intelligence service GRU, the report said. The general had last been deployed to review Russian military installations in Syria.
Moscow had confirmed the death of the general last week but only released further details this week, the report said.
Ivanov's body had been swept ashore on August 16 but was not identified immediately.
The Turkish foreign ministry had therefore approached neighbouring countries for further information, and Damascus reported that Ivanov had gone missing in Syria.
The general was last seen visiting the building site for a new Russian military base in the Syrian coastal city Tartus. After his visit he had left for a meeting with Syrian intelligence agents, but went missing.
Ivanov was believed to have masterminded a series of assassination attacks which the Russian secret service carried out against Chechen leaders living abroad, the report said.
Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances
Andrew Osborn, Moscow 31 Aug 2010
... According to the Kremlin, he was on holiday in Syria and died in a tragic swimming accident. However, other reports have suggested he was on official business and the location where he is reported to have disappeared was only about fifty miles from a strategically vital Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartus which is being expanded and upgraded to service and refuel ships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
The facility is Russia’s only foothold in the Mediterranean Sea, and Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, is know to be concerned that Moscow will use the upgraded facility as a base for spy ships and electronic espionage directed at the Middle East. The port is also close to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a terminal for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which is seen as a lifeline for Georgia, against whom Russia fought a short war in 2008.
The news portal Svobodnaya Pressa also pointed out that Ivanov was the second top GRU agent to die in unexplained circumstances. Another senior agent, Yuri Gusev, was killed in 1992 in a "car accident". His fellow officers later established that he had been murdered, the paper said, adding: "Spies of that rank are well protected. As a rule, they don't die by chance."
After finding the body, Turkey's foreign ministry approached neighbouring countries for further information, with Damascus reporting that Ivanov had gone missing while on assignment in Syria.
The general was last seen visiting the building site for a new Russian military base in the Syrian coastal city of Tartus, which is being expanded as a base for Russia's Black Sea fleet.
After his visit, he left for a meeting with Syrian intelligence agents. He then went missing, the Turkish newspaper Vatan reported today.
GRU is the country's main military intelligence and reconnaissance agency, and reports directly to the general staff of Russia's armed forces. The directorate is much bigger than the KGB – which was broken up after the collapse of communism into two agencies: the foreign intelligence service, the SVR, and its domestic equivalent, the FSB.
Historically, Russia's intelligence agencies have often been fierce rivals.
The Kremlin assigned Ivanov to lead its war against Chechen separatists in 2000, and he allegedly masterminded a series of assassination attacks, which the Russian secret service carried out on Chechens living abroad. In 2004, two GRU agents killed the Chechen separatist leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, blowing up his SUV in Qatar.
The Qatar authorities swiftly arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment two Russian GRU spies who were said in court to have been acting under direct orders from the Russian leadership. The pair were extradited back to Russia in 2005 to serve out their sentences on home soil. Both then promptly disappeared.
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