Norman Solomon: NSA Spied on U.N. Diplomats in Push for Invasion of Iraq

Norman Solomon: NSA Spied on U.N. Diplomats in Push for Invasion of Iraq
Tue Dec 27,11:39 AM ET


http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051227/cm_huffpost/012927;_ylt=Am1hu1iXXV5mRS93C99l7Jglr7sF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl



That spying had nothing to do with protecting the United States from a terrorist attack. The entire purpose of the NSA surveillance was to help the White House gain leverage, by whatever means possible, for a resolution in the U.N. Security Council to green light an invasion. When that surveillance was exposed nearly three years ago, the mainstream U.S. media winked at Bush’s illegal use of the NSA for his Iraq invasion agenda.



In early March 2003, journalists at the London-based Observer reported that the NSA was secretly participating in the U.S. government’s high-pressure campaign for the U.N. Security Council to approve a pro-war resolution. A few days after the Observer revealed the text of an NSA memo about U.S. spying on Security Council delegations, I asked Daniel Ellsberg to assess the importance of the story. “This leak,” he replied, “is more timely and potentially more important than the Pentagon Papers.” The key word was “timely.”



The Observer explained: “The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the U.N. headquarters in New York -- the so-called ‘Middle Six’ delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the U.S. and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for U.N. inspections, led by France, China and Russia.”

The NSA memo, dated Jan. 31, 2003, outlined the wide scope of the surveillance activities, seeking any information useful to push a war resolution through the Security Council -- “the whole gamut of information that could give U.S. policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises.”

Noting that the Bush administration “finds itself isolated” in its zeal for war on Iraq, the Times of London called the leak of the memo an “embarrassing disclosure.” And, in early March 2003, the embarrassment was nearly worldwide. From Russia to France to Chile to Japan to Australia, the story was big mainstream news. But not in the United States.

who aren't suspected of a crime is low.

More at:
http://www.speakspeak.org/speak-blog/2005/12/27/spying-on-un-officials-too/

I hope you put this in editorials and other articles too so more people will read it.

I sort of expect a nation with a CIA and an NSA to do that sort of thing in the service of the interest of the country.

Unfortunately, this time it was not about the nation's interests but rather about Bush's wacko push to illegal war.

He knew he had no support.

Hell, we could have told him that without wiretaps!

When will it be enough to boot his smarmy ass out?

One more nomination, please.

This is exactly the reason I built the GuvWurld News Archive - to create a record of the stories the government would probably prefer we not remember from this era (over 4000 articles now). I have the Observer article from March 2, 2003 archived here. The original link is: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html

Will bookmark.

From Russia to France to Chile to Japan to Australia, the story was big mainstream news. But not in the United States.

How I miss Media Whores Online!

We'll get nowhere trying to reign in these warmongers
without complete media reform. Which will take politicians
who are committed to breaking up the media conglomerates which
will take fair elections to be able to elect those politic ans, which will take the corporate media drawing attention to the horrible state of our elections proceess....oh stop the world and let me off!

In 1997 his PNAC crowd wrote that an Iraqi war would be good.
In 1998 * was quoted in a Houston paper saying, "When I am President I will
have a war in Iraq."
In Oct of 2000 PNAC is on record asking for a new Pearl Harbor.
In 2000 in a debate w/ Gore he was quoted that he was against "nation building"
IN 2000 with the help of the SCOTUS and a dirty vote he "took" control of the White House
In Jan of 2001 Condi Rice was told by Sandy Berger about al Qaeda & bin Laden ..... she did nothing
Paul O'Neil wrote in his book that Dick Cheney had maps of Iraqi Oil fields on his desk in March of 01
On 9-11 the worst strike ever on American soil happen .... after 52 FAA warnings, a personal warning
to * & from the President of Egypt, and just by chance our air force was having "mock" war games that day
about "hijacked planes"
The office of special plans in the DoD & The White House Iraqi group cherry picked intel about Iraq
and feed it to a compliant and in some cases a bought off media.
In 2002 & 2003 bush used the NSA to spy on the U.N. (that is why he didn't ask for a vote in front of the
security counsel .... he already knew the results) & spied on the UN weapons inspectors
According to the report compiled by J. Conyers * & company were told that the intel they were using about
the reasons for an Iraqi was bad ..... he went anyway.

And now over 100,000 people are dead and 1/2 a trillion dollars has been pissed away on this unneeded war.
No wonder * lives in a bubble and only speaks in front of "safe crowds," he knows that if he ever got in front
of real Americans who were aware of these facts he would get torn a new ass.

US media commentator Norman Solomon reported last week on the global reaction to last Sunday's Observer story and asked why the story seemed to be downplayed in the American press. We reproduce his analysis here.
Sunday March 9, 2003

Several days after the "embarrassing disclosure," not a word about it had appeared in America's supposed paper of record. The New York Times - the single most influential media outlet in the United States - still had not printed anything about the story. How could that be?

"Well, it's not that we haven't been interested," New York Times deputy foreign editor Alison Smale said Wednesday night, nearly 96 hours after the Observer broke the story. "We could get no confirmation or comment" on the memo from U.S. officials. The Times opted not to relay the Observer's account, Smale told me. "We would normally expect to do our own intelligence reporting." She added: "We are still definitely looking into it. It's not that we're not."

Belated coverage would be better than none at all. But readers should be suspicious of the failure of the New York Times to cover this story during the crucial first days after it broke. At some moments in history, when war and peace hang in the balance, journalism delayed is journalism denied. Overall, the sparse U.S. coverage that did take place seemed eager to downplay the significance of the Observer's revelations.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,910379,00.html

to protect the bush cabal. The number of stories they have withheld from the American public is growing as opposed to the number of Miller articles they kept pushing on the public, interesting for sure.

The right keeps carrying on about the "liberal media". If we had a liberal media this story would have been plastered all over the front pages of every newspaper in the U.S. in 2003, Bush would not have been re-elected and there probably would have been no Iraq war. The right equates any peep of criticism of the Bush administration and the republican party with a liberal media in attack mode.

The bogus BS fabricated stories that made it into the mainstream news during Clinton's term speaks volumes to the myth of a liberal media.

group for 4 years now and we were posting this every where we could...msn , yahoo, aol message boards and chat rooms...everywhere..and we were laughed at..the * cabal of propagandists that this admin paid to post in chat rooms and message boards..laughed at us and called all these articles not credible...well i have maintained all these articles in my files..for this day...but i won't count on msm ever outting themselves on this ...but it makes on wonder how if little ole me and my internet group could have worked so hard to get this info out to americans..where was any media whatsoever on this...well we knopw those answers..they are bought and paid for by the *cabal" and have been from the get go...and for the nyt to say now we didn't know if this story was creduble..well the lady was arrested and tried.. in england..and they didn't think the story was credible..,hell it was in asia times..and the aussie papers and french papers and german papers...as well as the british..

but how could the nyt or post cover this when their front pages were filled with judy miller bullshit!! and propaganda for war...

give me a break nyt and post and la times...you are what you are ..nothing but propagandists..for the destruction of our republic and democracy!!

The Observer | International | Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,905899,00.html


Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war

Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members

Read the memo

Talk about it: dirty tricks?

Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont
Sunday March 2, 2003
The Observer

snip:

The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.


Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.

The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input.


snip:

The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia.

The memo is directed at senior NSA officials and advises them that the agency is 'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning information not only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any second resolution on Iraq, but also 'policies', 'negotiating positions', 'alliances' and 'dependencies' - the 'whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises'.

Dated 31 January 2003, the memo was circulated four days after the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix produced his interim report on Iraqi compliance with UN resolution 1441.


snip:

The language and content of the memo were judged to be authentic by three former intelligence operatives shown it by The Observer. We were also able to establish that Frank Koza does work for the NSA and could confirm his senior post in the Regional Targets section of the organisation.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

another of the articles we posted over and over and were called liars!! i had in my files..i kept all this stuff ..so if you ever need it ..it may take time for me to find it..but i have it all!! fly



http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4807339-107982,00.html



Ex-GCHQ official accused of spy leak says she was trying to prevent war


Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday November 28, 2003


Guardian

snip:

A former GCHQ official exposed an American plan to eavesdrop on members of the UN security council, to try to prevent an illegal war leading to the deaths of British soldiers and Iraqi civilians, magistrates were told yesterday.

Katharine Gun intends to deny breaching the Official Secrets Act, because she disclosed the information out of necessity.

Mrs Gun, 29, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, appeared at Bow Street magistrates court in central London where her counsel, Ben Emmerson QC, said the case raised important issues of law and disclosure.

He said GCHQ had imposed limits on what instructions she could give her defence lawyers, an action which was attacked by Amnesty International for being in breach of her human rights.

In a move which required the consent of Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, Mrs Gun was charged two weeks ago, eight months after she was arrested. She was sacked from her job as a GCHQ translator in June.




xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

fly

:mad:

I assume they didn't have court approval for those wiretaps either. And this had nothing to do with stopping terrorism. They tried to buy off the votes of some poor nations in the Security Council, but even that didn't work.

I had forgotten all about this story until today. It is amazing that the New York Times didn't cover it.

If the Bush wiretaps had been legitimate, they would have gone to court. Instead, they not only kept these illegal wiretaps secret from the secret court, they also kept them secret from the career staff at the NSA.

Rove/Ashcroft, "we'll just wire the whole damn place and have the Bush-boy tell the american people that we only spy on the bad guyz!!

After the holiday break I hope this important bugging mission is brought back out by the slowly awakening media...! C'mon Keith!!!!!

What bothers me is why doesn't any of the countries which were spied make a big stink about it?

PNAC warmongering and the prez is a serial liar?

1) The power to wage a war against terror has already been abused to wage war against political opposition. This will only get worse.

2) The Serial Liar claims he ate some bad intell and was just going along with what "everyone knew" and everyone wanted him to do to keep us all safe, so what could he do? Here is evidence that even a Mercun can grasp: the administration worked hard, really hard for this war, Bush's War.

...the NSA was secretly participating in the U.S. government’s high-pressure campaign for the U.N. Security Council to approve a pro-war resolution.

With great responses from all. I tried to nominiated but it's too late.