Fwd: [todoscontralaguerra] Espionaje de EU a México y la ONU
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 18:32:09 -0000
Tomado de:
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.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
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.
The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose
work
is
clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance
operations 'particularly directed at... UN Security Council
Members
(minus US and GBR, of course)' to provide up-to-the-minute
intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions
of UN
members regarding the issue of Iraq.
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.
It was sent by Frank Koza, chief of staff in the 'Regional
Targets'
section of the NSA, which spies on countries that are
viewed
as
strategically important for United States interests.
Koza specifies that the information will be used for
the US's
'QRC' -
Quick Response Capability - 'against' the key delegations.
Suggesting the levels of surveillance of both the office
and
home
phones of UN delegation members, Koza also asks regional
managers to
make sure that their staff also 'pay attention to existing
non-UN
Security Council Member UN-related and domestic comms
[office
and
home telephones] for anything useful related to Security
Council
deliberations'.
Koza also addresses himself to the foreign agency,
saying:
'We'd
appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts
who
might have similar more indirect access to valuable
information from
accesses in your product lines [ie, intelligence sources].'
Koza
makes clear it is an informal request at this juncture,
but
adds: 'I
suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines
in
formal
channels.'
Disclosure of the US operation comes in the week that
Blix
will make
what many expect to be his final report to the Security
Council.
It also comes amid increasingly threatening noises from the US
towards undecided countries on the Security Council
who have
been
warned of the unpleasant economic consequences of standing
up
to the
US.
Sources in Washington familiar with the operation said
last
week that
there had been a division among Bush administration officials
over
whether to pursue such a high-intensity surveillance campaign
with
some warning of the serious consequences of discovery.
The existence of the surveillance operation, understood
to
have been
requested by President Bush's National Security Adviser,
Condoleezza
Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the middle
of
their
efforts to win over the undecided delegations.
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.
The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to
extension
6727
at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who
confirmed it
was Koza's office. However, when The Observer asked to
talk to
Koza
about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the United
Nations,
it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'.
On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza's
extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous
extension,
and hung up.
While many diplomats at the UN assume they are being
bugged,
the memo
reveals for the first time the scope and scale of US
communications
intercepts targeted against the New York-based missions.
The disclosure comes at a time when diplomats from
the
countries have
been complaining about the outright 'hostility' of US
tactics
in
recent days to persuade then to fall in line, including
threats to
economic and aid packages.
The operation appears to have been spotted by rival
organisations in
Europe. 'The Americans are being very purposeful about
this,'
said a
source at a European intelligence agency when asked about
the
US
surveillance efforts.
http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,905936,00.html