An investigation has disclosed that British secret intelligence agents worked as part of the United Nations teams of arms inspectors (UNSCOM) in Iraq.
According to sources in Whitehall and at the UN headquarters in New York, British MI6 officers first infiltrated UNSCOM in 1991. Sources said that "a number of officers were asked if they were interested in the posting--one officer joined for a period," and that additional officers were thought to have rotated through the teams. Spies were drawn from the intelligence services in Britain, as well as the US and Israel.
Acting on the disclosures, Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker was to table a series of questions on MI6 involvement in UNSCOM to Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Defence Secretary George Robertson. Baker said that he would be "very, very angry if the independence and integrity of the UNSCOM was compromised in this way. To include MI6 and Ministry of Defence intelligence staff deliberately in the UN teams is to undermine the UN itself." The Foreign Office, which selects British members for UNSCOM, has so far refused to comment on the disclosures. It also refused to make available a list of the British weapons inspectors, claiming that such a list was not available. |
