David Morrison | ukwatch.net

Victory for the Raytheon 9

Tim Holmes — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:26:05 +0000

On 11 June 2008, 6 people, who had occupied the offices of Raytheon in Derry and destroyed computers, were acquitted of criminal damage by a Belfast jury. Raytheon is a huge US arms manufacturer, with sales of $20 billion in 2006 and over 70,000 employees worldwide. It makes Patriot, Tomahawk, Cruise and Sidewinder missiles, and much more besides.

The action which gave rise to the criminal charges took place on 9 August 2006 during Israel’s war on Lebanon, in which well over 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed by Israeli bombing and shelling. On 30 July 2006, an Israeli aircraft targeted a residential building in Qana in southern Lebanon with a Raytheon-supplied “bunker buster” bomb. As a result, 28 civilians, from two extended families, the Hashems and the Shaloubs, were killed. The dead included 14 children.

This event led to 9 members of the Derry Anti War Coalition occupying Raytheon’s offices in Derry ten days later. They remained there until forcibly removed by police in riot gear about 8 hours later.

Substantial damage was done to Raytheon property:

“Documents found on the premises were thrown from the windows to supporters outside. After our supporters were moved away by the police, computers, already damaged, were hurled out. Our main target was the mainframe: we knew that putting this out of action would disrupt Raytheon’s ordering system and thus hamper production, including production of missiles. The mainframe was decommissioned with a fire-extinguisher.”

This account is taken from The Raytheon 9: Resisting war crimes is not a crime, an excellent pamphlet about the affair by Eamonn McCann, who took part in the occupation.

The action eventually led to 6 of the participants appearing before a judge and jury in Belfast in May 2008, charged with criminal damage and affray. On 4 June 2008, after the prosecution had put its case, the judge expressed the opinion that there was no case to answer on either charge. However, the prosecution appealed to a higher court and won with respect to the criminal damage charge, which then had to be put the jury. A few days later, the jury found all the accused not guilty on the criminal damage charge. The charge of affray was dismissed by the judge without it being put to the jury.

The trial went largely unreported in the local Northern Ireland media, and in the Dublin and London media. The same is true of the verdict, even though it has sensational implications. The defence argued that the accused had undertaken their action in order to prevent war crimes being perpetrated in Lebanon by Israel using Raytheon-supplied weapons. In the words of Eamonn McCann in a statement afterwards, by finding the accused not guilty:

“The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that: the Israel Defence Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; and that the action we took was intended to have, and did have, the effect of hampering or delaying the commission of war crimes.” [1]

In other words, in the opinion of the jury, having heard the evidence, it was reasonable of the defendants to believe that Raytheon was engaged in criminal activity by supplying Israel with armaments and that they were justified in perpetrating criminal damage on Raytheon property in order to hamper this criminal activity. In his statement, Eamonn McCann called

“on the office of the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service, in light of this verdict, to institute an investigation into the activities of Raytheon at its various plants across the UK, with a view to determining whether Raytheon is, as we say it is, a criminal enterprise.”

Gagging order

The Raytheon trial would normally have taken place in Derry, where the offences alleged were committed. However, on 14 September 2007, the prosecution requested a change of venue, on the grounds that protests outside the court might intimidate jurors, and coverage in the local media might prejudice them.

At this time, the presiding judge, the Derry recorder, Corinne Philpott, banned publicity about the case, but in such general terms that journalists present didn’t know what they were allowed to report and what was banned. There was no reporting of the application for a change of venue. On 10 December 2007, Judge Philpott imposed a blanket ban on reporting in Northern Ireland of any matter relating to the trial, including anything at all relating to Raytheon. The objective seems to have been to prevent publicity in Northern Ireland about Raytheon’s arms business, which might make a jury incline to the view that damaging its computers was a good idea.

There was no attempt by mainstream media organisations in Northern Ireland or elsewhere to have this extraordinary gagging order lifted or modified, despite the fact that their work was being hampered by the ban. For example, the Village magazine reported on 29 February 2008:

“Suzanne Breen (formerly of Village, now writing for the Sunday Tribune) has been referred to the Attorney General for possible contempt in an article published on 18 November in the Sunday Tribune. She had mentioned possible witnesses from the USA and Lebanon, and that, if convicted, defendants could face lengthy jail sentences.

“Also RTE has ordered Belfast independent production company Below the Radar to delete sections on Raytheon from a film about Ireland and the arms trade transmitted on 14 January. The effect of the ban is that all discussion of Raytheon’s presence in Derry has been shut down.” [2]

However, a legal challenge to the order was launched by Shane O’Curry of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign. As a result, the Belfast recorder, Judge Burgess, modified the order in late February 2008 to limit the ban to the usual one on pre-trial reporting of material directly relevant to the trial. It could then be reported for the first time that the Derry recorder had acceded to the prosecution’s request to move the trial from Derry to Belfast.

Notes

[1] www.ukwatch.net/article/raytheon9_acquitted
[2] www.village.ie/Ireland/Northern_Ireland/Media_gag_over_Derry_arms_factory_occupation/

The Blair Legacy

Ellie Keen — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:48:30 +0000

Hundreds of thousands dead, Britain less safe

Is there a causal link between British military intervention in the Muslim world and terrorism by Muslims in Britain? That is a vital question. After all, the Government is never done telling us that it is the first duty of government to keep us safe.

Yet, the Prime Minister cannot bring himself to admit the existence of such a link, even though the British intelligence services say:

“We judge that the conflict in Iraq has exacerbated the threat from international terrorism and will continue to have an impact in the long term. It has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not.”

Blair cannot bring himself to admit that there is a causal link. For him to do so is to admit that his military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, which he justified to counter alleged threats to Britain’s security, have in reality made Britain less safe.

As for the threats to Britain’s security, there were none, neither from al-Qaida in October 2001, nor from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March 2003.

That is Blair’s legacy. He has made Britain less safe by his military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and, in the process, he has caused the deaths of nearly 200 British soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis.

That should be engraved on his tombstone.

This pamphlet traces Blair’s deceit about the threats facing Britain in order to take us to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It also shows that Bush and Blair misrepresent the objective of al-Qaida, which is not about overthrowing “democracy and freedom” in the West, but about ending Western, especially British and American, interference in the Muslim world. It can be guaranteed that al-Qaida will not attack Sweden.

As Michael Scheuer, who was the first head of the CIA’s al-Qaida desk, wrote in his bookImperial Hubris: Why the West is losing the War on Terror:

“...the greatest danger for Americans confronting the radical Islamist threat is to believe – at the urging of US leaders – that Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do.

“Rhetorical political blustering ‘informs’ the public that Islamists are offended by the Western world’s democratic freedoms, civil liberties, intermingling of genders, and separation of church and state. However, although aspects of the modern world may offend conservative Muslims, no Islamist leader has, for example, fomented jihad in order to destroy participatory democracy, the national association of credit unions, or coed universities... “

Al-Qaida’s public statements condemn America’s protection of corrupt Muslim regimes, unqualified support for Israel, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a further litany of real-world grievances. Bin Laden’s supporters thus identify their problem and believe its solution lies in war.”

If the West stops interfering in the Muslim world, then the al-Qaida threat to the West will disappear. It’s as simple as that.

This is a summary of David Morrison's pamphlet "THE BLAIR LEGACY". Read the full pamplet (pdf).

The British Government Runs Scared of Israel

Ellie Keen — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:03:36 +0000

On 18 February 2008, the British Government was forced to release a draft dossier on Iraq’s so-called “weapons of mass destruction” under the Freedom of Information Act. But it succeeded in persuading a Freedom of Information Tribunal to allow a handwritten reference to Israel in the margin of the document to be suppressed.

The Foreign Office sought this redaction because the person who wrote “Israel” in the margin of the document was implying that Israel was on a par with Iraq in its pursuit of “weapons of mass destruction”. Since the author must have been a high ranking official in the Foreign Office in order to have access to the draft dossier, the Foreign Office argued that UK relations with Israel would be damaged if the document was published intact and, as a consequence, the Israeli government became aware of the existence of such an outlandish opinion in the senior ranks of the Foreign Office.
A photocopy of the document is now available on the Foreign Office website [1]. At the time of its publication, it was known that a “minor redaction” had been made to the document, but the nature of the redaction was not known until it was revealed by The Guardian on 21 February 2008 [2]. At the same time, The Guardian published in full the Foreign Office statement to the Tribunal making the case for the redaction [3].

Freedom of Information request

The draft was written in early September 2002 by John Williams, a former Daily Mirror journalist, who was Director of Communications at the Foreign Office from 2000 to 2006. A Freedom of Information request for its publication, which was made by Chris Ames on 9 February 2005, was turned down by the Foreign Office under Section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that its publication would “inhibit the free and frank provision of advice and the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation” (see Chris Ames’ website here [4]). However, the Information Commissioner ordered its publication on 3 May 2007.

The Foreign Office appealed against this decision to an Information Tribunal seeking, in the first instance, to prevent publication altogether and in the second instance, if the Tribunal ruled in favour of publication (which it did), to have the handwritten reference to Israel suppressed under Section 27 of the Act. This Section allows an exemption from publishing material that would do damage to the UK’s international relations. On 22 January 2008, almost three years after the initial request, the Tribunal ordered publication but accepted the Foreign Office case that the reference to Israel be redacted.

The Tribunal’s published decision stated that “a minor redaction [is] to be made to the information to be disclosed” [5], but didn’t reveal the nature of the redaction nor the Foreign Office argument for requesting the redaction. However, all this was revealed by The Guardian a few days after its publication.

The Foreign Office case for redaction
The case for the redaction of the reference to Israel was set out in a witness statement to the Tribunal by Neil Wigan. At the time, he was the head of the Arab, Israel and North Africa Group in the Foreign Office and therefore responsible for UK relations with Israel.

Wigan wrote:

“On page 3 of the document, I refer to the marginal references in the first paragraph to Israel. The reference to Israel is linked (by a hyphen) to a sentence which reads: ‘No other country has flouted the United Nations’ authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction’. I interpret this note to indicate that the person who wrote it believes that Israel has flouted the United Nations authority in a manner similar to that of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.” (paragraph 3)

He went on to point out the difficulties that this would pose for the UK’s relations with Israel:

“I believe that if these comments were released into the public domain, this would seriously damage our bilateral relations with Israel. In my view, Israel will, in seeing these comments believe that the FCO has firstly, compared the Israeli regime to that of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and secondly, suggested that Israel has flouted the authority of the United Nations in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Although the author of the marginal notes is unknown, I believe that the Israeli government would consider it likely that they would have been written by a senior figure. The assumption could, and I believe would, easily be made that these marginal notes represent the views of the FCO in relation to Israel.” (paragraph 5)

“Both the comparison with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and an implied accusation of a breach of the UN’s authority by Israel are potentially very serious. In my view it is inevitable that the relations between the UK and Israel would suffer if the reference in page 3 of the Williams draft were allowed to enter the public domain.” (paragraph 6)

Having worked the British Embassy in Tel Aviv prior to his present job, he had seen Israel get upset at a lot less:

“I have seen that far more minor matters than this have been of great concern to the Israeli authorities. Unfortunately there is a perception already in Israel that parts of the FCO are prejudiced against the country. These notes would therefore confirm this pre-existing suspicion and would increase the damage. During the last five years there were approximately 10 substantial incidents and 20 more minor ones relating to Israeli concerns over perceived attitudes about their regime within the British government.” (paragraph 7)

There’s nothing of consequence in the Williams document itself (and later drafts of the dossier were brought into the public domain by the Hutton inquiry), so it is almost certain that the Government’s resistance to its publication was driven solely by worries about Israel’s reaction to the handwritten reference in the margin of the document.

This whole incident demonstrates the extraordinarily craven attitude of the Government towards Israel. If it is running scared of Israel learning about an unconsidered comment written more than 5 years ago in the margin of an unimportant document, it would be unwise to expect a major UK policy change that would really upset Israel, such as a decision to talk to Hamas or Hezbollah.

Did Israel deserve comparison with Iraq?

But did Israel deserve comparison with Iraq in its pursuit of “weapons of mass destruction” in defiance of the UN?

As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, Israel didn’t violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in developing nuclear weapons – since it refused to sign up to the Treaty in the first place. Had Iraq followed Israel’s example, it too would have been free to develop nuclear weapons without breaching any international treaty obligations. However, Iraq did sign up to the NPT (in 1968) and clearly breached its obligations under the Treaty by attempting to develop nuclear weapons in the 1980s and early 1990s. Unlike Israel, it failed in its attempt – and it abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 1991 after its defeat in the first Gulf War.

In the 1980s, when the West supported Iraq in its aggression against Iran, the West turned a blind eye to Iraq’s development of non-conventional weapons and its widespread use of chemical weapons on the battlefield against Iran. The moral outrage from the West about Iraq’s alleged possession of these weapons that was prevalent in the 1990s, and was worked up to fever pitch before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, was completely absent in those days, when Iran was on the receiving end of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”.

Security Council Resolution 487

Israel has flouted, and is flouting, one Security Council resolution about its nuclear programme. This resolution was passed in reaction to the Israeli bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor on 7 June 1981. In response, the Security Council unanimously passed resolution 487, which “strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct” and said that “Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel” [6].

Crucially, in paragraph 5, the Security Council called

“upon Israel urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards”.

None of Israel’s nuclear facilities were then under IAEA supervision. Nothing has changed in the interim. So, for nearly 27 years, Israel has flouted the authority of the United Nations as expressed in resolution 487. Perhaps, the senior official in the Foreign Office had this in mind when he wrote “Israel” in the margin of the Williams document.

Of course, 487 was a Chapter VI resolution with no enforcement measures to attempt to compel Israel to do what it was told. And, when Israel ignored the demand to put its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards, no pressure was put on Israel to comply: unlike Iraq no economic sanctions were applied and there were no threats of military action to enforce compliance.

Joining the NPT

Resolution 487 didn’t specifically demand that Israel sign up to the NPT. To do so, Israel would have had to give up its nuclear weapons.

The NPT allows states that “manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to 1 January 1967” to sign up to the Treaty as “nuclear-weapon” states and retain their nuclear weapons. This is built into Article IX(3) of the Treaty itself [7]. Only, five states – the US, the UK, France, Russia and China – qualify for this extraordinary privilege. All other states must join as “non-nuclear-weapon” states and undertake not to develop nuclear weapons – and place their nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards. So, any state that possesses nuclear weapons, other than the privileged five, must give them up and join as “non-nuclear-weapon” states.

Neither Israel (nor India nor Pakistan) is going to do that, particularly since the penalty for staying outside the NPT, and remaining nuclear armed, isn’t onerous. It is limited to being unable to trade in nuclear material and equipment, a restriction that the US is trying to have lifted in the case of India (see my article The US-India nuclear agreement: A triumph for India [8]).

Williams’ role played down

The Government has been at pains to play down the role of John Williams, and his draft, in the production of its dossier on Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” in September 2002. It has been at pains to do so because Williams was a Foreign Office spin doctor and the Government’s story was that the published dossier was the work of John Scarlett, the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), the (unwarranted) implication being that, whereas a Government spin doctor might be expected to sex up a document in order to serve the Government’s purpose, as an intelligence professional, John Scarlett, would never do such a thing.

The existence of the Williams draft became public knowledge through the Hutton inquiry but, unlike later drafts which were said to be the work of John Scarlett, it wasn’t published by the Hutton inquiry. In view of this, it is difficult to believe that the Foreign Office would have resisted its publication so stubbornly for three years if it hadn’t been for the reference to Israel in the margin.

A Government dossier

A great deal of effort has been expended in trying to discover the dramatis personae involved in the drawing up of the dossier and the precise role played by each in the drafting process. To me, none of this matters much. The Government published the dossier – its title is Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government and it carried a foreword in the name of the Prime Minister. So, the Government is responsible for every word in it, no matter who wrote it, be it the Prime Minister himself, or Alistair Campbell, or John Scarlett, or the humblest civil servant.

The dossier was the Government’s responsibility – and crucially it didn’t accurately reflect the intelligence about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” at the time it was published. In other words, the Government deceived Parliament and the public.

That became clear a year later when the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published its report Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction – Intelligence and Assessments [9] on 11 September 2003. Despite being a Committee appointed by the Prime Minister and reporting to the Prime Minister, the ISC was remarkably critical of Government’s dossier (see my article The Intelligence and Security Committee Report: Dossier not justified by intelligence [10])

It is very revealing about the gaps and uncertainties in the intelligence about Iraq’s proscribed weapons, and the degree to which these gaps and uncertainties were glossed over in the dossier to paint a much more coherent and threatening picture than was justified by intelligence. Specifically, the report was critical of the way the dossier presented:

The 45-minute claim – the dossier didn’t say it referred to (unknown) battlefield weapons and, in any case, it was of no significance;
The claim that Iraq continued to produce chemical and biological weapons was based on very flimsy evidence – the intelligence services hadn’t a clue as to what agents, if any, had been produced and in what quantities, and what quantities had been put into weapons: they just thought Iraq was producing something;
The almost non-existent strategic threat from Iraq: the dossier failed to point out that the most likely use of chemical and biological agents was in battlefield weapons, rather than in strategic weapons that could hit Cyprus, or even London

A dossier which out of care for the intelligence evidence contained these doubts would never have been published – because it would have greatly diminished the case for military action.

According to the Government, the dossier was compiled by the Chairman of the JIC, John Scarlett, and approved by the JIC, and they were free from political pressure in doing so. Scarlett concurred with this proposition in evidence to the Hutton inquiry. The only possible conclusion is that he, and the JIC he chaired, was grossly incompetent – since between them they made a pig’s ear of a straightforward job of taking JIC assessments and turning them into a document that the public could understand. As a result, Parliament and the public were misinformed on very serious matters relating to peace and war.

For this service, the Government promoted Scarlett to be head of MI6.

On Saddam Hussein pretence

On 18 February 2008, The Guardian published an article by John Williams [11], in which he wrote about his part in drawing up the dossier. He said that at the time he hadn’t questioned the Government’s case for invading Iraq. One factor that convinced him was apparently the following:

“I still find it hard to understand why a dictator who had possessed and used illegal weapons should have continued pretending he still had them, up to the point when his deception cost him his job and his life.”

Did the man who was the Director of Communications at the Foreign Office from 2000 to 2006 not know that, far from pretending to have forbidden weaponry, for many years Iraq stated repeatedly (and truthfully) that it had none?

It appears that this profound ignorance existed in the highest echelons of the Foreign Office at the time when in March 2003 the UK joined the US in invading Iraq in order, we were told, to rid Iraq of its forbidden weaponry. Listen to this:

“Even after reading all the evidence detailed by the Iraq Survey Group, it is still hard to believe that any regime could behave in so self-destructive a manner as to pretend that it had forbidden weaponry, when in fact it had not.” [12]

Those are the words of Jack Straw in a statement to the House of Commons on 12 October 2004 after the Iraq Study Group had reported the absence of forbidden weaponry in Iraq. He was Foreign Secretary in March 2003.

Does the Foreign Office also believe the earth is flat?

References:

[1] www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/wmd_jul_2002.pdf
[2] www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/israelandthepalestinians.iraq
[3] www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/israelandthepalestinians.iraq1
[4] iraqdossier.com/foi/williams
[5] www.informationtribunal.gov.uk/Documents/decisions/fco_decision_website....
[6] www.david-morrison.org.uk/scrs/1981-0487.htm
[7] www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/infcirc140.pdf
[8] www.david-morrison.org.uk/india/indian-triumph.htm
[9] www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/upload/assets/
www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications/reports/isc/iwmdia.pdf
[10] www.david-morrison.org.uk/iraq/isc-report.htm
[11] www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/18/foreignpolicy.iraq
[12] www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo041012/debtext/410...

How the EU helps Israel to strangle Gaza

JamieSW — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:16:31 +0000

Since 23 January 2008, we have witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a mass breakout by Palestinians from their Gaza prison, a breakout made possible by Hamas blowing up stretches of the Israeli-built border wall between Gaza and Egypt, near Rafah, and bulldozing other stretches of it.

The breakout was a reaction to Israel’s strangulation of Gaza, which had intensified in the preceding weeks with Israel’s closure of the crossings between Israel and Gaza to the passage of people and goods, on a more or less permanent basis.

But how can Israel strangle Gaza when there is supposed to be an international crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a crossing which is not controlled by Israelis?

Certainly, that was the promise held out in the comprehensive Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) [1], signed more than two years ago, on 15 November 2005, by Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). The first of the six components of this Agreement was that there would be a crossing between Gaza and Egypt at Rafah, controlled by the PA and Egypt, on terms set out in the Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing Point (APRC) that formed part of the Agreement. At the time, this was hailed as an historic step on the road to a Palestinian state – for the first time, it was said, Palestinians would have access to the outside world free from Israeli control.

How come then that Israel is still able to strangle Gaza? The answer is that, thanks to the good offices of the EU, which has a role in managing the Rafah crossing under the Agreement, Israel has always had a veto on the opening of the crossing. As we will see, in practice, whenever Israel doesn’t want the crossing open, the EU doesn’t open it.

The crossing was open almost every day from 25 November 2005 to 24 June 2006, though not for 24 hours a day as intended (see, for example, [2]). However, after 24 June 2006, when an Israeli soldier was captured by Palestinians, the EU has, at Israel’s insistence, prevented it opening regularly and has kept it closed completely since 9 June 2007, after Hamas took control of Gaza.

Another point: the Agreement doesn’t provide for commercial traffic into Gaza from Egypt via the Rafah crossing, because Israel doesn’t trust Egypt and the PA to prevent the importation of arms. Theoretically, it did provide for commercial traffic out of Gaza into Egypt, but this has never occurred in practice.

Quartet: midwife of AMA

The so-called Middle East Quartet (the US, the EU, Russia and the UN) was the midwife of the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA). In April 2005, the former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, was appointed Quartet envoy with special responsibility for making arrangements for Gaza in the event of Israeli “disengagement”, which took place a few months later in August 2005. The AMA was largely his work, but Condoleeza Rice (US Secretary of State) and Javier Solana (EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy) were present to announce it publicly in Jerusalem on 15 November 2005.

Rice said that the Agreement as a whole “is intended to give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives” [3]. Of its arrangements for a crossing into Egypt, she said:

“First, for the first time since 1967, Palestinians will gain control over entry and exit from their territory. This will be through an international crossing at Rafah, whose target opening date is November 25th.”

Solana said of these arrangements:

“This is the first time that a border is opened and not controlled by the Israelis. … So as you can imagine, this is a very important step that is the first time that takes place.”

One could be forgiven for thinking that the US and the EU had made arrangements for a border crossing between Gaza and Egypt that was “not controlled by the Israelis” and that from now on Gaza couldn’t be strangled by Israel.

EU Third Party

In practice, however, the Rafah crossing has been controlled by the Israelis. Even though Israel has no personnel, military or otherwise, physically present at the crossing, it has been able to close the crossing at will, just as it can close the four crossings (Karni, Erez, Sufa and Kerem Shalom) between Gaza and Israel itself, where it has military personnel physically present.

This has come about because, under the Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing Point (APRC), a Third Party must have personnel present at the Rafah crossing before it is allowed to open. The Third Party is the EU – and the EU has always refused to man the crossing when Israel didn’t want the crossing open.

The EU personnel have the following duties at the crossing:

“The 3rd party will have the authority to ensure that the PA complies with all applicable rules and regulations concerning the Rafah crossing point and the terms of this agreement. In case of non-compliance, the 3rd party has the authority to order the re-examination and reassessment of any passenger, luggage, vehicle or goods. While the request is being processed, the person, luggage, vehicle or cargo in question will not be allowed to leave the premises of the Rafah crossing point.” [1]

For this purpose, the EU established the grandly titled EU Border Assistance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point, or EU BAM Rafah (see its website here [4]). This is a force of less than a hundred, mostly policemen, which is based in Ashkelon in Israel.

In addition to these EU monitors, who are physically present at the crossing, Israeli security forces are able monitor activity at the crossing remotely, via CCTV and other data links from the crossing, and can make a record of the individuals crossing. The Israeli monitors are based in Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza, where a “liaison office” is located (for liaison between Israel and the PA). One of the duties of the EU, as the Third Party to the APRC, is to “lead” this office:

“A liaison office, led by the 3rd party, will receive real-time video and data feed of the activities at Rafah and will meet regularly to review implementation of this agreement, resolve any disputes arising from this agreement, and perform other tasks specified in this agreement.” [1]

Israeli veto

Ridiculous as it may seem, the EU takes the view that the opening of the crossing may be disputed by Israeli representatives in the Liaison Office and that, if Israel refuses to agree to the opening of the crossing, the EU doesn’t send its monitors to the crossing, as required for its opening under the terms of the APRC. In practice, therefore, Israel has a veto over the opening of the crossing, which, according to Rice and Solana, is “not controlled by the Israelis”.

Lest you think that this is the stuff of my imagination, I invite you to go the FAQ section of the EU BAM website. There, the answer given to the question: “What is our capacity in order to reopen the border? [sic]” is:

“According to the agreements EUBAM has no executive power. EUBAM mandate is to lead the Liaison Office and actively monitor, verify and evaluate PA performance with regard to the implementation of the Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing Point [APRC]. EUBAM does therefore not have the authority to open the crossing without the agreement and cooperation of both parties. [my emphasis] What we can do, however, is to mediate between them and we have worked very hard to try and get RCP [Rafah Crossing Point] open for as many days as possible since the 25th of June 2006.” [5]

That is as plain as a pikestaff: in the opinion of the EU, the APRC gives Israel a veto on whether the crossing should open. There is absolutely nothing in the APRC to warrant such an interpretation – and it is in flat contradiction to the words of Rice and Solana that the crossing would “not be controlled by Israelis”.

In fact, the EU goes further and interprets the APRC to mean that Israeli representatives don’t even have to go the Liaison Office to prevent the crossing opening. The EU interpretation of the APRC is that, if Israel isn’t represented in the Liaison Office, then the crossing cannot open. That is clear from the answer to another FAQ: “Why the liaison office is based at Kerem Shalom? [sic]”, which is:

“The Liaison Office is at Kerem Shalom because that was agreed between the parties prior to the initial deployment of EUBAM. As the Liaison Office can only operate with the presence of both Parties and EUBAM, it makes no difference where it is, as either party could effectively close the crossing just by refusing to deploy their Liaison Officers in the Liaison Office.” [5]

So, Israeli liaison personnel have merely to stay in their beds in order to keep the crossing closed, the crossing which according to Rice and Solana is “not controlled by the Israelis”.

To reach the Rafah crossing from their base in Israel, the EU monitors have to pass through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, so Israel could, if it wished, physically prevent them taking up their station at Rafah. It has been reported that Israel has used this to prevent the opening of the Rafah crossing. However, it is clear from the foregoing that Israel has never needed to block the monitors physically, since it has been the unwavering policy of the EU never to attempt to open the Rafah crossing if Israel says it doesn’t want it open.

(The EU BAM website says that the original plan was for the EU monitors to be based inside Gaza at Rafah itself – and a base was almost complete in March 2006 – but the plan was abandoned because of the “political and security situation” [5]. The EU monitors could have been based in Egypt, making it impossible for Israel to prevent them travelling to the crossing.).

EU statements

For a few weeks after 25 June 2006, when the Rafah crossing ceased opening on a regular basis, EU BAM press statements paint a picture of it trying hard to persuade Israel to allow the crossing to be opened occasionally for humanitarian purposes.

For example, a statement on 6 July 2006 [6] announces that the crossing will be open that day to enable 250 people waiting on the Egyptian side to cross – the border had been closed from 25 June 2006. It describes this as an “EU BAM initiative, with the agreement of the Israeli Government and the cooperation of the Egyptian and Palestinian authorities”.

But the Israeli Government must have withdrawn its permission, because the next press statement on 15 July 2006 [7] reports that the previous evening “two breaches were blown in the border wall not far from Rafah Crossing Point” and “hundreds of people crossed from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, and many also crossed from the Gaza Strip into Egypt”. The statement continued:

“The Rafah Border Crossing has been closed since 25th June, despite EUBAM efforts to open it for at least the hundreds of passengers stuck in the Egyptian side of the terminal whose humanitarian situation has caused concern. Until the incident yesterday these people had been in the terminal for 19 days. During the period since 25th June both EUBAM monitors and the PA officials who run RCP have been on permanent standby and ready to open the crossing at short notice.”

According to a press statement on 14 December 2006 [8], after the crossing opened that day, “the Government of Israel had requested that the crossing be closed due to the expected arrival of Prime Minister Haniyeh, who was reportedly carrying a large sum of money”. However, in a stout display of resistance to Israel, “the Head of Mission, decided to merely suspend operations in order to clarify the situation”. The press statement explained that “this decision was made after consultations with Brussels, the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Israel”.

Doubtless, the EU High Representative, Javier Solana, was party to this decision to “suspend operations” at the crossing at the request of Israel, the crossing which he said is “not controlled by Israelis”.

Restrictions on people

It is clear that, through the good offices of the EU, Israel has a veto on when the opening of Rafah crossing. It is worth noting that, in the Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing Point (APRC), Israel forced the Palestinian Authority to put restrictions on who is allowed to cross when it is open. Thus the ARPC says:

“Use of the Rafah crossing will be restricted to Palestinian ID card holders and others by exception in agreed categories with prior notification to the GoI [Government of Israel] and approval of senior PA leadership.” [1]

The PA has to notify Israel 48 hours in advance about the crossing of those in the exceptional categories (diplomats, foreign investors, foreign representatives of recognized international organizations and humanitarian cases) and, although Israel doesn’t have a veto on an individual crossing (except by closing the crossing altogether), the PA has to give Israel a reason for overriding any Israeli objection.

In addition, under the APRC, Israel is allowed to request that the PA ban nominated Palestinian ID card holders from using the crossing and the PA was obliged to consult with Israel, and the EU monitors, in the event of it refusing an Israeli request.

Other AMA components

In theory, the Agreement on Movement Access (AMA) was genuinely comprehensive. In addition to the Rafah crossing, it was concerned with, in Rice’s words:

“Second, Israel and the Palestinians will upgrade and expand other crossings for people and cargo between Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. …

“Third, Palestinians will be able to move between Gaza and the West Bank; specifically, bus convoys are to begin about a month from now and truck convoys are to start a month after that.

“Fourth, the parties will reduce obstacles to movement within the West Bank. …

“Fifth, construction of a Palestinian seaport can begin. The Rafah model will provide a basis for planned operations.

“Sixth, the parties agree on the importance of the airport. Israel recognizes that the Palestinian Authority will want to resume construction on the airport.”

Virtually nothing of this has been realised in practice either. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Occupied compiles fortnightly reports on the implementation of the AMA. Its report for 14-27 November 2007 [2] comments as follows on the implementation of points 3 to 6:

* Obstacles to movement in the West Bank number 563, which represents an increase of 185 obstacles, or 49.7%, over the baseline figure of August 2005.

* Convoys between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank: Truck convoys – implementation now 22 months overdue (since mid-January 2006); Bus convoys – implementation now 23 months overdue (since mid-December 2005).

* Ports: Seaport – awaiting GoI assurance of non-interference with seaport operation; Airport – awaiting commencement of discussions since November 2005.

What now?

If Gaza is to be immune from strangulation by Israel in future, then the Israeli veto over the opening of the Rafah crossing will have to be ended. In addition, the crossing must cater for commercial traffic into Gaza, which is banned under the present Agreement.

It’s difficult to believe that this would ever be acceptable to Israel (or the US), since it increases the chances of Hamas and other groups importing arms into Gaza. The difficulty for the US and Israel is that the present situation, with a border imperfectly policed by Egypt, and liable to be breached in a major way at any time, is even more conducive to arms reaching Gaza.

5 February 2008

Labour & Trade Union Review

POSTSCRIPT

Since the foregoing was written, EU BAM has amended the FAQ section of its website (including the text quoted above from that section). But it still maintains that, under the Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing Point (APRC), the crossing cannot be opened without the consent of the Israelis, even though, according to Javier Solana, it is “not controlled by the Israelis”.

References:

[1] See www.mfa.gov.il

[2] www.ochaopt.org/documents/AMA_53.pdf

[3] www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/56890.htm

[4] www.eubam-rafah.eu/portal/

[5] www.eubam-rafah.eu/portal/en/node/25

[6] www.eubam-rafah.eu/portal/en/node/338

[7] www.eubam-rafah.eu/portal/en/node/339

[8] www.eubam-rafah.eu/portal/en/node/345

Malloch-Brown Eats His Words

Tim Holmes — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:43:20 +0000

Lord Malloch-Brown, formerly plain Mark Malloch Brown, worked for the UN (and other international organisations) for many years. He retired from his post as Deputy General-Secretary of the UN in December 2006 at the end of Kofi Annan’s term as Secretary-General. In June 2007, Gordon Brown elevated him to the peerage and appointed him as a Minister in the Foreign Office, with a seat in the Cabinet, in his “government of all the talents”.

On 23 October 2007, Lord Malloch-Brown opened and closed a debate in the House of Lords on the Middle East and Afghanistan. In his closing remarks, he gave the definite impression that the Government was edging towards having formal contact with Hamas and Hezbollah, as recommended by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in July 2007 (see my article The Foreign Affairs Committee: Shifting ground on the Middle East [1]).

Here is what he said:

bq. “I come to Hamas and Hezbollah and whether the British Government, or indeed the UN, should deal with them. In the case of Hamas, there have been contacts with both and British diplomats have been heavily engaged with negotiating the release of hostages such as Alan Johnston. They have been heavily involved in humanitarian discussions, as were UN officials under both this and the last secretary-general.

bq. “The line has been drawn at formal political contacts at a time when Hamas refuses to recognise a sovereign member-state nation of the United Nations, Israel. However, I think that everyone agrees that while that political recognition must be withheld, in terms of negotiations with Hamas at the formal political level, contacts are vital. Over time, they must grow into full political contacts because, ultimately, Hamas must be a party to a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

bq. “Many of the same arguments apply to Hezbollah. We can abhor—as we all do—the tactics of both organisations and the use of violence and terrorism. Ultimately, as has been said, it is indeed British history—and that of the United Nations—that you often have to talk to people that you do not like very much.” [2]

When one hears a Minister say that contacts with Hamas “must grow into full political contacts” (and “the same arguments apply to Hezbollah”) then it is reasonable to assume that policy is in the process of evolution towards formal contact with both.

(Defense Secretary, Des Browne, told a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference on 24 September 2007 that the Taliban would have to be talked to as well. According to The Guardian, he said:

bq. “In Afghanistan, at some stage, the Taliban will need to be involved in the peace process because they are not going away, any more than I suspect Hamas are going away from Palestine.” [3])

Malloch-Brown eats his words

However, two days after Malloch-Brown made his remarks about Hamas and Hezbollah, he was forced to make a written statement to the House of Lords, clarifying that there had been no policy change. Here is what he wrote:

bq. “Following my closing speech at the debate on the Middle East and Afghanistan on 23 October, (Official Report, col. 1068), I would like to clarify to the House the Government's policy on contacts with Hamas and Hezbollah.

bq. “Our policy on Hamas has not changed. We do not have a political dialogue with Hamas. We continue to expect it to adhere to the quartet principles of January 2006. These principles remain the fundamental conditions for a viable peace process. We hope that Hamas will accept the principles and grasp the opportunity for dialogue and progress. We had contact with Hamas following the kidnapping of Alan Johnston. The contact was purely on the kidnapping and fulfilled our consular responsibility to do all we could for Alan.

bq. “Currently we have no contact with Hezbollah. Our objective remains to encourage it to participate in Lebanese politics as a fully democratic political party. We also want Hezbollah to comply with relevant UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs), including UNSCRs 1559, 1680 and 1701, which call for the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon. The UK's policy on contacts with Hezbollah’s political wing has been based on our assessment of its behaviour, and our judgment of whether such contacts would encourage it to move away from violence and play a constructive role in Lebanese politics. We continue to call on Hezbollah to end terrorist activity, abandon its status as an armed group and participate in the democratic process on the same terms as other political parties.” [4]

There is little doubt that this clarification was the result of intervention from the Prime Minister’s office.

Lord Malloch-Brown can count himself lucky compared with Admiral Alan West, another outsider imported by Brown (to be a Minister in the Home Office responsible for security). When, on the morning of 15 November 2007, he expressed scepticism about the need for an increase in the 28-day detention period for terrorist suspects on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he was forced to eat his words before television cameras within the hour. By contrast, Malloch-Brown was allowed to do it quietly by way of a written answer, which went unreported.

No discernable shift

When Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007, his spin doctors gave the impression that he wanted to adopt a stance in foreign affairs that was more independent of the US than his predecessor. This was to be one of the distinguishing marks of the new regime.

While working for the UN, Mark Malloch Brown gained a reputation for opposition to the present US administration. In a speech on 7 June 2006 [5], he criticised the US for a lack of commitment to the UN, which produced a fierce riposte from the US administration, including a threat to cut off US funding for the UN if an apology was not forthcoming.

It was easy, therefore, for Brown’s spin doctors to present Malloch Brown’s appointment as a signal of a coming shift in foreign policy away from subservience to the US. However, no discernable shift has occurred. On occasions, ministers have made noises that sounded like a shift (and have been trailed to the press as a shift) but on each occasion the Prime Minister’s office has taken steps to deny that a shift had taken place. The denial that policy had shifted with regard to Hamas and Hezbollah is the latest – and the most important since it was about a concrete policy issue.

Alexander’s rebuke to the US

First, there was a speech by Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development (and Brown’s close friend and would be election organiser) to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on 12 July 2007. This was trailed as criticism of US foreign policy and produced banner headlines to that effect in The Guardian the next day. The following remarks from Alexander’s speech were said to be a Brownite rebuke to the US for its post-9/11 foreign policy:

bq. “In the 20th century a country’s might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st, strength should be measured by what we can build together. …

bq. “We need to demonstrate by our word and our actions that we are: internationalist not isolationist; multilateralist not unilateralist; active not passive; and driven by core values consistently applied, not special interests. …

bq. “Just as we need the rule of law at home to have civilization so we need rules abroad to ensure global civilization.” [6]

Nothing new

But no sooner were the words out of Alexander’s mouth than the Prime Minister’s spokesman declared in his briefing on 13 July 2007:

bq. “This was not a particularly startling new insight, nor anything one would have expected to be any different from either this Prime Minister or the previous Prime Minister or for that matter, the President of the US.” [7]

Most of the briefing was taken up with countering the interpretation of Alexander’s words that had previously been fed to journalists by some other part of the government machine, presumably the Foreign Office. And Brown went on BBC Radio 5 that morning to emphasise that there had been no change in policy:

bq. “We will not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges that we face around the world.

bq. “I think people have got to remember that the relationship between Britain and America and between a British prime minister and an American president is built on the things that we share, the same enduring values about the importance of liberty, opportunity, the dignity of the individual.

bq. “I will continue to work, as Tony Blair did, very closely with the America administration.” [8]

Malloch-Brown interview

But it is clear that Alexander’s speech was part of an effort – by the Foreign Office, presumably – to give the impression that under Brown Britain was going to act more independently of the US in foreign policy.

In an extraordinary interview with the Sunday Telegraph published two days later [9], Lord Malloch-Brown declared unequivocally that “Britain’s approach to foreign policy is about to change radically” and that “Brown will not be cosying up to Mr Bush quite as much on the sofa”. He continued:

bq. “Events determine relationships. For better of worse, it is very unlikely that the Brown/Bush relationship is going to go through the baptism of fire and therefore be joined together at the hip like the Blair/Bush relationship was.”

Those remarks contradict his boss’s remarks two days earlier on Radio 5 that Britain and America were going to continue to be joined at the hip. How did he survive such apparently blatant insubordination? Most likely, his interview with the Sunday Telegraph was done before Brown decided, for whatever reason, to quash any notion that under him British foreign policy was going to be more independent of the US.

(Malloch-Brown is an extraordinarily arrogant person. In his Sunday Telegraph interview, he portrayed himself as “the wise [53-year-old] eminence behind the young [42-year-old] Foreign Secretary”, David Miliband. He went on to say that “he wants to contribute … his less conventional, internationalist views”:

bq. “I am not steeped in the British way of doing things. My whole career has been spent trying to get China or France or the international rescue committee to back me on some quixotic intervention on anything from child mortality to an ugly little civil war somewhere. I think in a more lateral, out-of-the-box way.”

That such a self-important person was made to eat his words cannot but be an occasion for rejoicing.)

* * * * *

When Brown succeeded Blair in June 2007, his political strategy was to look different from Blair and it was clearly signalled that foreign policy was an area where a difference would be apparent. His appointment of Mark Malloch Brown made this signal credible.

But every time ministers have said things on foreign policy to give substance to this appearance, he has slapped them down. Most recently, he forced his Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to alter a speech on the EU after parts of it had been released to the press (see Times report Another Bruges speech stirs up controversy as Brown weighs in [10] of 14 November 2007). It’s an absurd way to run a government.

References

[1] www.david-morrison.org.uk/lebanon/fac-middle-east.htm

[2] www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/71023-0014.htm

[3] politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2007/story/0,,2176882,00.html

[4] www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/71025-wms0002.h...

[5] www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/dsgsm287.doc.htm

[6] www.dfid.gov.uk/News/files/Speeches/council-foreign-relations.asp

[7] www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page12466.asp

[8] news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6896797.stm

[9] www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/14/nforeign214.xml

[10] www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2879884.ece

The FAC: Shifting Ground on the Middle East

Tim Holmes — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:03:12 +0000

bq. “We conclude that the Government’s decision not to call for a mutual and immediate cessation of hostilities early on in the Lebanon war has done significant damage to the UK’s reputation in much of the world. As the Minister [Kim Howells] admitted to us, the option of a dual track diplomatic strategy could have succeeded. We believe that such an approach could have led to reduced casualties amongst both Israeli and Lebanese civilians whilst still working towards a long-term solution to the crisis.”

These words are taken from a report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) published on 25 July 2007 (1). The report, entitled Global Security: The Middle East, is surprisingly critical of recent British foreign policy towards the region, especially with regard to Lebanon but also Palestine. It is also very critical of Israel.

Its criticism of the Government’s failure to call for an immediate ceasefire at the start of Israel’s war on Lebanon is quoted above. It is also critical of the Government’s support for the continued collective punishment of Palestinians by the EU after the formation of the Hamas/Fatah National Unity Government in March 2007. More fundamentally, it recognises that Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine are part of the political fabric and are not going to go away. It recommends that the Government talk to both – which is a radical departure from the Committee’s previous stance.

All-party committee

The FAC is a 14-member all-party committee (8 Labour including its chairman, Mike Gapes, 4 Conservative and 2 Liberal Democrat). In all probability, therefore, the views expressed in this report would be acceptable to the House of Commons as a whole.

The FAC is supposed to scrutinise the Government’s actions in foreign affairs. I have read many of its reports in recent years and none of them would have given the Government any reason for anxiety. This was especially true of its report on The Decision to go to War in Iraq (2), which in July 2003 performed the impossible feat of exonerating the Government for misleading Parliament on the intelligence about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”, even though the Government denied it access to the intelligence about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”. (See my subsequent evidence to the Committee (3) & (4)).

But this FAC report is a different kettle of fish. For the first time in my experience, the FAC has been seriously critical of important foreign policy decisions. And in the course of doing so, the Committee made Kim Howells, the Foreign Office Minister responsible for the Middle East, look very foolish. (Howells was appointed to this post by Blair after the 2005 General Election and was retained by Brown when he succeeded Blair in June 2007).

Of course, the Committee was not reporting on the foreign policy actions of the present Brown government but of the previous Blair government. Criticising a past government, which cannot exact revenge, is easier than criticising the current one. It’s possible that Brown let it be known that criticism of his predecessor’s actions in foreign affairs would not be unwelcome. It may be that he and his new ministerial team in the Foreign Office have a mind to shift ground on the Middle East – if so, being advised to do so by the all-party FAC would be an advantage. The Government is constitutionally obliged to give a formal response to Select Committee reports and reply to questions posed by the Committee. The Government’s response to this report will be worth studying.

In the following, I will examine the FAC’s criticism of foreign policy towards Lebanon and Palestine.

Part I Lebanon

Paragraphs 84 to 120 of the FAC report are concerned with policy towards Lebanon.

bq. “It is tragic that so many innocent lives, Lebanese and Israeli, have been lost over the past weeks. … The hostilities on both sides should cease immediately …” (5)

Those were Prime Minister Blair’s words on 12 August 2006 in a statement after the Security Council passed resolution 1701. He had waited a month to make this call, a month in which “many innocent lives” were lost.

The Foreign Affairs Committee interrogated Kim Howells about this delay on 13 September 2006. Chairman, Mike Gapes, asked him if he still believed “the Government was right not to call for an immediate ceasefire” (6). He replied:

bq. “Yes, I do, Chairman. I was out there in the middle of the conflict and I saw for myself the appalling consequences both of the bombing of Lebanon and the rockets that were being fired into northern Israel. It was very distressing and there were a lot of people, in my view, being killed needlessly and a lot of infrastructure being damaged.”

which, one might have thought, made an irresistible case for the Government calling for an immediate ceasefire. Nevertheless, Howells continued:

bq. “However, I also saw very clearly that the only way that this could be stopped was by a UN resolution, and there had to be some real teeth behind any ceasefire that would occur. I believe that was the right decision. … What we needed was a permanent ceasefire.”

One doesn’t need to be a genius to recognise that it was possible to call for an immediate ceasefire and, at the same time, work for permanent arrangements. This point was put to Howells by Conservative MP, Sir John Stanley:

bq. “Minister, in answer to the Chairman’s initial question you seemed to be taking the view that the calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities and, at the same time, working for a satisfactory UN resolution were two mutually incompatible policies. Surely, a very much better foreign policy position for the British Government would have been to combine the two; to say that we were wanting an immediate cessation of hostilities and, at the same time, working for an effective UN resolution. Has there not been a foreign policy misjudgement in that by not calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities the British Government gave the clear impression that it was actively supporting the Israeli operations against the whole of Lebanon?”

Howells replied categorically:

bq. “I do not agree with you, Sir John, about the possibility for a dual track diplomatic progress at that time.”

However, pressed shortly afterwards by Labour MP, Ken Purchase, who asked:

bq. “A short period of ceasefire, you say, may just have resulted in people rearming. Could I say that in even a day of a ceasefire hundreds of lives would have been saved?”

Howells “appeared to change his mind” (in the words of the FAC report) and said:

bq. “I am not saying … that a dual approach might not have worked. I am not saying that and I am not dismissing that at all. Maybe it would have worked.”

The FAC sets out Howells’ contradictory positions in paragraph 97. I don’t recall the Committee doing such a hatchet job on a Foreign Office minister before.

Bolton tells it as it was

Worse was to follow. In paragraph 100, the FAC says:

bq. “At the time of the conflict, many believed the United States was obstructing calls for an immediate ceasefire to give Israel a chance to defeat overwhelmingly Hezbollah’s militia.”

The FAC then quoted the words of John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN in July 2006, in an interview with Ed Stourton in a BBC Radio 4 programme broadcast on 22 March 2007. Stourton asked him if the US had been “deliberately obstructing diplomatic attempts” to bring an end to the war so that “Israel could have its head.” Mr Bolton asked “what’s wrong with that?” and added that he was “damn proud of what we did”. (For details of this revealing conversation, see the BBC press statement about the programme (7)).

The FAC wrote to Kim Howells to ask him about John Bolton’s comments. In his reply, Howells stated (see report, Ev 126):

bq. “The UK was certainly not involved in collusion with either the US or Israel to support the continuation of hostilities or to block a ceasefire. Whilst I cannot speak for the US position [on] this matter, I do not believe they acted differently.”

The FAC commented (paragraph 101):

bq. “There are three possible explanations for this discrepancy. The first is that Mr Bolton misled the BBC journalist by suggesting that the US blocked diplomacy at the UN because it wanted to give Israel the opportunity to destroy Hezbollah when in fact this was not the case. The second is that the US did indeed block attempts to find a quick diplomatic solution to bring about a ceasefire, but that the UK, even though it is a permanent member of the Security Council and a close ally of the US, was not brought into or made aware of this collusion with Israel. The third alternative … is that the UK was in fact brought into, or at least aware of, the efforts to obstruct the diplomatic process. Based on the evidence provided to the Committee, we are unable to rule any of these possibilities out.”

In addition, the FAC asked (paragraph 102) that in its response to the report the Government

bq. “clarify on what date the first draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire or cessation of hostilities was presented to members of the Security Council, and what the Government’s response to this draft was.”

Government responses to select committee reports are not known for providing straight answers, but it is difficult to see how the Government can avoid giving straight answers in this case.

(The Security Council had a formal meeting on 14 July 2006 two days after hostilities began and at that meeting a number of states, including France, called for an immediate ceasefire. The French Ambassador to the UN, Jean-Marc De La Sablière, said:

bq. “France, as solemnly stated by President Chirac today, calls upon the parties to immediately cease hostilities, which is the only way to give a chance to mediation efforts.” (8)

Whether by then this sentiment had been expressed in a draft resolution that was presented to members of the Council informally is not known.)

The FAC concluded (paragraph 102) that the Government’s decision not to call for an immediate ceasefire was a mistake:

bq. “We conclude that the Government’s decision not to call for a mutual and immediate cessation of hostilities early on in the Lebanon war has done significant damage to the UK’s reputation in much of the world. As the Minister admitted to us, the option of a dual track diplomatic strategy could have succeeded. We believe that such an approach could have led to reduced casualties amongst both Israeli and Lebanese civilians whilst still working towards a long-term solution to the crisis.”

It is difficult to argue against that. And it’s possible that the Brown Government won’t bother to argue, preferring that the decision not to call for a ceasefire be categorized as a Blairite mistake.

(As far as Blair personally is concerned, it was definitely a mistake since it shortened his stay in 10 Downing Street by at least a year. His failure to call for an immediate ceasefire produced a minor revolt in the Parliamentary Labour Party and, to contain it, he had to announce that he would be stepping down within a year to make way for Brown.)

Israeli action disproportionate

Unusually for a report emanating from the House of Commons, the FAC report is very critical of Israel. Whilst nearly every other state in this world (and the Conservative opposition in Britain) was prepared to use the word “disproportionate” to describe aspects of Israeli military action against Lebanon, Britain wasn’t. The FAC is.

Kim Howells was in Lebanon on 22 July 2006 during the war. While he was there, he strongly criticised Israeli actions, saying:

bq. “I very much hope that the Americans understand what’s happening to Lebanon. The destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes. And it’s very difficult, I think, to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know, if they’re chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation.” (9)

Despite having said this, Howells refused to characterise Israeli actions as “disproportionate” when interviewed by the FAC on 13 September 2006. By contrast, the FAC itself was prepared to apply the word, especially to Israel’s use of cluster bombs. In paragraph 108, the FAC says:

bq. “… we conclude that elements of Israel’s military action in Lebanon were indiscriminate and disproportionate. In particular, the numerous attacks on UN observers and the dropping of over three and a half million cluster bombs (90% of the total) in the 72 hours after the Security Council passed Resolution 1701 were not acceptable.”

And it goes on to ask the Government to “explicitly state whether it believes that, in the light of information now available, Israel’s use of cluster bombs was proportionate”.

(The Committee wrote to the Israeli Ambassador in London, asking (see report, Ev 136):

bq. “What was the intended military purpose of using a large number of cluster munitions in south Lebanon at a late stage of the war last summer?”

In his reply, the Ambassador failed to deal with the issue of timing.)

The FAC report also criticised Israel for its continued violations of Lebanese sovereignty since the war (paragraph 112) and for its refusal to provide the UN with full information about where it dropped cluster bombs (paragraph 112).

Shi’as under-represented

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the FAC report as regards Lebanon is the understanding shown of the Lebanese political system, and the fact that the Shi’a community is under-represented within the system (paragraphs 89 & 90). The report describes accurately the question at issue between the March 14 coalition, which dominates the present Lebanese Government, and the opposition led by Hezbollah, which withdrew its ministers from the Government last November and has since been engaged in a protest in the centre of Beirut (paragraph 91):

bq. “Hezbollah and its allies have been demanding the creation of what is sometimes referred to as a ‘1/3 +1’ Government. Under this system, they would return to Prime Minister Siniora’s Government, but with enough Cabinet seats to be able to veto proposals within Cabinet. This solution has been bitterly opposed by the ‘March 14’ coalition.”

The Committee ignored Kim Howells’ crude characterisation of the opposition protests as “trying to subvert the democratic process” in Lebanon.

On 30 May 2007, the Security Council passed resolution 1757 to set up an international tribunal to try individuals accused of the murder of Rafik Hariri, overriding the internal political processes of Lebanon (see my article The Security Council interferes in Lebanon - again (10)). Remarkably, the Committee questions this “bypassing of Lebanon’s state institutions” suggesting that this “only serves to undermine them and thus increase the potential for civil conflict” (paragraph 115).

In paragraph 94, the FAC concludes that

bq. “the tribunal process has brought to the surface important questions regarding the under-representation of the Shi’a population in Lebanon’s political system”

and recommends that

bq. “the Government work with its international allies to help the Lebanese parties find consensus on a more representative and democratic political system”.

Talk to Hezbollah

In paragraph 120, the report describes Hezbollah as “undeniably an important element in Lebanon’s politics” (albeit with the qualification that “its influence, along with Iran’s and Syria’s, continues to be a malign one”). The FAC continues:

bq. “We further conclude that, as the movement will realistically only be disarmed through a political process, the Government should encourage Hezbollah to play a part in Lebanon’s mainstream politics. We recommend that the Government should engage directly with moderate Hezbollah Parliamentarians.”

This would be a major change in policy for Britain. In making a case for such a change, the Committee reported (paragraph 119):

bq. “On our visit, we asked a range of Lebanese politicians whether the British Government should engage directly with the group. No one, including bitter opponents of Hezbollah, told us that the current Government approach was the correct one.”

The FAC made Kim Howells look foolish on this issue as well - see paragraph 118. There, he is quoted as voicing the following opinion to the Committee about engagement with Hezbollah:

bq. “I am not going to go out of my way to talk to people who are trying to subvert the democratic process so that they can enhance the standing and position of an extremist Islamist organisation that does not value democracy at all.”

Paragraph 118 continues:

bq. “However, this apparently clear-cut position was muddied somewhat when, in the same evidence session, Dr Howells told the Committee he believed he had met someone who was ‘essentially Hezbollah’.”

Part II Palestine

Paragraphs 10 to 83 of the FAC report are concerned with policy towards Palestine.

The last FAC report that examined policy towards Palestine was Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism, published in July 2006 (11). In it, the Committee endorsed unequivocally the Government’s refusal to deal directly with Hamas, saying (paragraph 192):

bq. “We recommend that, until Hamas accepts the existence of Israel and commits itself to both a two-state solution and exclusively peaceful means of achieving its goals, the Government should continue to refuse to deal with it directly.”

What is more, the Committee endorsed the Government’s policy of applying collective punishment to Palestinians because a bare majority of them voted for Hamas in January 2006 (paragraph 197):

bq. “We conclude that the Government was right to refuse to channel its aid through a Palestinian administration led by Hamas … .”

A year later, the Committee has changed its stance dramatically. True, it cannot quite bring itself to accept the legitimacy of the Palestinian Governments formed after the Hamas victory in the elections of January 2006, that is, the Government formed by Hamas on its own in March 2006 (because, pressurised by the US, Fatah refused to join with Hamas in a National Unity Government) and the National Unity Government formed in March 2007 after the Mecca Agreement. Both of these were legitimate governments, having been duly endorsed by the Palestinian Legislative Council in accordance with Article 67 of the Palestinian constitution, aka the Basic Law (unlike the present “government” headed by Salam Fayyad, which hasn’t).

However, the Committee has belatedly come to the conclusion that the establishment of a National Unity Government was a good thing, which should have been established earlier (and without US interference would have been established earlier) and should have been supported by Britain. It concludes (paragraph 41) that

bq. “the unwillingness of the EU to modify the financial boycott of the Palestinian Authority following the Mecca agreement was very damaging”

and (paragraph 50) that

bq. “the decision to boycott Hamas despite the Mecca agreement and the continued suspension of aid to the national unity Government meant that this Government was highly likely to collapse”.

To its credit, the FAC does not repeat the lie broadcast in Britain’s name by the Quartet in a statement on 16 June 2007 (12) that the present “government” was duly established “under Palestinian law”.

It recommends (paragraph 60) that

bq. “the Government urge President Abbas to come to a negotiated settlement with Hamas with a view to re-establishing a national unity Government across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

And, in a radical departure from its previous stance, it recommends that the Government talk to Hamas (paragraph 60):

bq. “Given the failure of the boycott to deliver results, we recommend that the Government should urgently consider ways of engaging politically with moderate elements within Hamas as a way of encouraging it to meet the three Quartet principles.”

And it recommends that former Prime Minister Blair do likewise (paragraph 67). Since he is a Quartet envoy, that is, essentially a US envoy, it is unlikely that Washington will let him.

www.david-morrison.org.uk

References:

(1) www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmfaff/363/363.pdf

(2) www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmfaff/81/3120218.ht...

(3) www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmfaff/81/3120218.ht...

(4) www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmfaff/81/3120219.ht...

(5) www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page9982.asp

(6) www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmfaff/1583/6091301....

(7) www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/03_march/22/lebanon...

(8) daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/PRO/N06/429/93/PDF/N0642993.pdf

(9) news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5205658.stm

(10) www.david-morrison.org.uk/lebanon/lebanon-tribunal.htm

(11) www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmfaff/573/573.pdf

(12) See www.fco.gov.uk

Iraq - Campbell Reveals Little

Tim Holmes — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:33:39 +0000

Duty compelled me to skim through Book Three of Alastair Campbell’s diary extracts in case he had failed to delete something incriminating about our military intervention in Iraq. There is, unfortunately, very little. Here is the little I found.

On "Regime Change", broadly speaking, the diary extracts back up the thesis established by the leaked official documents from March 2002 that, by then, Blair had taken the decision to give the US military assistance to change the regime in Iraq (see my pamphlet Iraq: How regime change was dressed up as disarmament).

Remember that one of the leaked documents was a memo, dated 14 March 2002, to Blair from his then Foreign Policy adviser, Sir David Manning. In it, Manning reported on a conversation with Condoleezza Rice, who was Bush’s National Security adviser at the time, in which he told her that Blair “would not budge in [his] support for regime change”.

There are occasional titbits in Campbell’s diary extracts that back up the view that regime change, and not just disarmament, was Blair’s settled position by the time he went to meet Bush in Crawford, Texas on 6/7 April 2002.

For example, on 2 April 2002, Campbell writes:“We discussed whether the central aim was WMD or regime change. ... TB felt it was regime change in part because of WMD but more broadly because of the threat to the region and the world.”

This is weak confirmation compared with that provided by Christopher Meyer, who was British Ambassador in Washington at the time, in his book DC Confidential. Writing about the period leading up to the Crawford meeting, Meyer states bluntly: “By this stage, Tony Blair had already taken the decision to support regime change, though he was discreet about saying so in public.” (p 241)

Indeed he was.

Later, for 23 July 2002, the diary extracts say: “TB saw regime change as the route to dealing with WMD.”

This was the day “TB chaired a big Iraq meeting”. The minutes of this “big Iraq meeting” were also leaked. These record Blair hoping against hope that Saddam Hussein would refuse to admit weapons inspectors, and by so doing provide an excuse for military action to effect regime change: “… it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. … If the political context were right, people would support regime change.”

Later, for 31 August 2002, Campbell writes: “Blair was a lot steelier than when we went on holiday. Clear that getting Saddam was the right thing to do.”

And for 23 September 2002: “TB … really believed in getting rid of bad people like Saddam.”

All of this should be contrasted with his clear statement to the House of Commons on 25 February 2003 that his sole objective was the disarmament of Iraq: “I detest his [Saddam Hussein’s] regime – I hope most people do – but even now, he could save it by complying with the UN's demand. Even now, we are prepared to go the extra step to achieve disarmament peacefully.”

Links with al-Qaida

The most interesting piece I found on Iraq is for 27 February 2003. There, Campbell explains how Downing Street concocted a way of justifying military intervention Iraq as a means of combating al-Qaida – even though they knew there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The extract for 27 February 2003 says:

bq. “TB felt we had to be pushing two main arguments – the moral case [is that Saddam Hussein was a bad person – DM] and the reason why the threat was real and current, not because he could whack missiles off at London but because he could tie up with terrorists and others with a vested interest in damaging our interests. But we should understate rather than overstate … . The Americans’ saying there was a direct link was counterproductive. Far better to be saying there was a possibility and one that we were determined to ensure never came about.”

This shows that Downing Street was concerned that the US administration’s propaganda line that Saddam Hussein’s regime had a connection with al-Qaida was unsustainable in Britain – since there was no evidence for it – and therefore its use could be counterproductive in making the case for military action.

So, an alternative line was manufactured, which did not postulate an existing connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, but speculated about a future connection. (And this non-existent connection was why the threat from Saddam Hussein was “real and current”, writes Campbell !!)

This line about a possible future connection featured strongly in Blair’s speech to the House of Commons on 18 March 2003 when he was trying to persuade the House of Commons to vote to take military action against Iraq. Here is an extract:

bq. “The key today is stability and order. The threat is chaos and disorder – and there are two begetters of chaos: tyrannical regimes with weapons of mass destruction and extreme terrorist groups who profess a perverted and false view of Islam…

bq. “Those two threats have, of course, different motives and different origins, but they share one basic common view: they detest the freedom, democracy and tolerance that are the hallmarks of our way of life. At the moment, I accept fully that the association between the two is loose—but it is hardening. The possibility of the two coming together – of terrorist groups in possession of weapons of mass destruction or even of a so-called dirty radiological bomb – is now, in my judgment, a real and present danger to Britain and its national security.”

Of course, neither Campbell nor Blair felt the need to tell the British Parliament or people that the British intelligence services had warned them that the threat from al-Qaida would be increased by taking military action against Iraq, as would the risk of Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” falling into the hands of al-Qaida. We know this from the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction – Intelligence and Assessments published in September 2003, Paragraphs 125-128 of which are concerned with terrorism.

On 10 February 2003, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) produced an assessment entitled International Terrorism: War with Iraq, in which, according to the ISC report, it “assessed that al-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to Western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq.”

The JIC also “assessed that any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, not necessarily al-Qaida.”

Blair didn’t tell the House of Commons about either of these warnings on 18 March 2003, lest its enthusiasm for military action against Iraq be dampened.

Robin Cook

If Campbell’s diary extracts can be believed, Robin Cook became an opponent of the invasion very late in the day. The extract for 16 January 2003 includes the following in an account of a Cabinet meeting:

bq. “Robin C said we were in a tremendous position on the UN, ‘thanks to you’, he said to TB. He said the prospect of getting a second resolution was stronger if we do not rule out saying we may do it without one.”

That indicates that in mid-January he was in favour of military action as long as a second UN resolution was passed and perhaps even without one. And remember the draft second resolution that failed to get the support of the Security Council did not authorise military action against Iraq – it merely said that Iraq was in breach of its disarmament obligations as set down in Security Council resolutions (see my pamphlet The Attorney-General's legal advice was sound).

Cook willingness to contemplate military action against Iraq without explicit Security Council authorisation is not surprising, since as Foreign Secretary he justified military action against Iraq in December 1998 and against Yugoslavia in March 1999 without Security Council authorisation.

Cook’s anti-war credentials are greatly exaggerated. In the Commons debate on the Hutton Report on 20 July 2004, Cook described the Government’s dossier on Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” as “one-sided, dogmatic and unqualified”. As a leading member of the Government which published that dossier, he bore collective responsibility for it, but he remained in that Government for the next six months as the dossier was used to frighten the British Parliament into supporting military action with disastrous consequences, resigning at the last moment when it was too late to stop the military action.