133

NATIONAL NEWS

LONDON (AP) - British intelligence agents spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the run-up to the Iraq war, a former member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet said Thursday. Blair refused to say whether the allegation was true. But he said Clair Short, formerly his international development secretary, had been "deeply irresponsible." A UN spokesman said any such espionage would be illegal. For Blair, Short's accusation was yet another potentially damaging aftershock from his alliance with U.S. President George W. Bush to topple Saddam Hussein. British intelligence dossiers claiming Iraq had an active and growing program of weapons of mass destruction have not been validated by evidence on the ground. It also was only the latest allegation of spying on UN missions ahead of the United States' invasion of Iraq. Earlier this month, Mexico's former ambassador to the United Nations said it was common knowledge that the United States spied on UN delegations in the lead-up to war. Chile also alleged its UN mission telephones were tapped as the Security Council considered a resolution backed by Washington, Britain and Spain authorizing the war. On Wednesday, prosecutors in London abandoned a case against an intelligence employee who leaked a memo disclosing U.S. and British intentions to eavesdrop on several UN missions in advance of a key Security Council vote. Blair's government also became involved in a furious controversy over the death of a weapons scientist who reportedly raised questions about the integrity of the intelligence dossiers. At UN headquarters in New York, the world body gave its first reaction Thursday to allegations that Annan was spied on. "We would be disappointed if this were true," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York. "Such activities would undermine the integrity and confidential nature of diplomatic exchanges. Those who speak to the secretary general are entitled to assume that their exchanges are confidential." Short, who resigned her post after the campaign to topple Saddam, said she had read transcripts of Annan's conversations while she was a cabinet member. "The U.K. in this time was also getting, spying on Kofi Annan's office and getting reports from him about what was going on," she said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio. Questions about the allegation dominated Blair's monthly news conference. "I'm not going to comment on the operations of our security services," Blair said. "But I do say this: we act in accordance with domestic and international law, and we act in the best interests of this country, and our security services are a vital part of the protection of this country." "So I'm not going to comment on their operations, not directly, not indirectly. That should not be taken, as I say, as an indication about the truth of any particular allegations. And I think the fact that those allegations were made, I think, is deeply irresponsible." In her interview, Short spoke of seeing evidence of eavesdropping. "These things are done. And in the case of Kofi's office, it's been done for some time," she said. Asked whether Britain was involved, she said: "Well, I know I have seen transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations. In fact, I have had conversations with Kofi in the run-up to war thinking 'Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this and people will see what he and I are saying.' " Asked explicitly whether British spies had been instructed to carry out operations within the United Nations on people such as Annan, she said: "Yes, absolutely." She made no comment on the method of spying on Annan. Short had publicly questioned whether Britain should go to war in Iraq but eventually backed it in the House of Commons. She resigned in May, complaining the United Nations did not have a large enough role in reconstruction. Since then, she has called for Blair to resign, accusing him of misleading the country about the threat posed by Saddam. Short's comments came as she was interviewed about Wednesday's decision to drop legal proceedings against a former intelligence employee who leaked a confidential memo raising concerns about spying in the United Nations.

Katharine Gun, 29, a former Mandarin translator with Britain's Government Communications Headquarters listening station, leaked a memo from U.S. intelligence officers asking their British counterparts to spy on members of the UN Security Council. At the time, the United States was seeking to win Security Council backing for war. The Observer newspaper quoted the memo, dated Jan. 31, 2003, as asking British and American intelligence staff to step up surveillance operations "particularly directed at . . . UN Security Council Members (minus U.S. and GBR, of course)." Opposition politicians have questioned whether the decision to abandon the case was politically aimed to avoid embarrassing disclosures. Reacting to the Gun case and Short's allegations, Blair told reporters: "We are going to be in a very dangerous situation as a country if people feel they can simply spill out secrets or details of security operations, whether false or true actually, and get away with it." It is not the first time Britain has been accused of spying on foreign diplomats. In December, Pakistan asked Blair's government to respond to a newspaper report that British intelligence agents had attempted to plant listening devices at its embassy in London. President Pervez Musharraf said Britain's failure to respond strained relations between the two countries. The European Union disclosed last March that bugging devices planted by an undisclosed country were found on phone lines of several nations - including Britain - in the building used for EU summits. -Ed Johnson/CP