The Observer: Britain spied on UN allies over war vote.

[homelandpunk]

Totally implicates the US/Bush administration as complicit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1143572,00.html

Britain spied on UN allies over war vote

Security Council members 'illegally targeted' by GCHQ after plea from US security agency

Martin Bright and Peter Beaumont
Sunday February 8, 2004
The Observer

Britain helped America to conduct a secret and potentially illegal spying operation at the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war, The Observer can reveal.
The operation, which targeted at least one permanent member of the UN Security Council, was almost certainly in breach of the Vienna conventions on diplomatic relations, which strictly outlaw espionage at the UN missions in New York.

Translators and analysts at the Government's top-secret surveillance centre GCHQ were ordered to co-operate with an American espionage 'surge' on Security Council delegations after a request from the US National Security Agency at the end of January 2003. This was designed to help smooth the way for a second UN resolution authorising war in Iraq.

The information was intended for US Secretary of State Colin Powell before his presentation on weapons of mass destruction to the Security Council on 5 February.

Sources close to the intelligence services have now confirmed that the request from the security agency was 'acted on' by the British authorities. It is also known that the operation caused significant disquiet in the intelligence community on both sides of the Atlantic.

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