THE INCIDENTAL SECRETARY GENERAL:

It wasn't Kofi we were bugging, Clare, it was Tariq: In the run-up to last year's Iraq war, there was one conversation that everyone wanted to hear: that between Kofi Annan and the Iraqi deputy prime minister. (Con Coughlin, 29/02/2004, Sunday Telegraph)

As Mr Blair was quick to stress in the immediate aftermath of Ms Short's UN allegations, all of Britain's intelligence and security organisations are required to work within the law - both domestic and international - and while their main priority is to protect the security of the realm, no one in the intelligence community would undertake to spy on the UN secretary-general without the specific authorisation of their political masters.

In the majority of cases, targets are selected on the basis that they are considered to constitute a threat to the interests of the United Kingdom. But even though the energies of MI6, MI5 and GCHQ are primarily directed against what they call "the bad guys", there are occasions where, often inadvertently, they find themselves monitoring those who are regarded as friends and allies.

For example, in the build-up to last year's war, GCHQ would have been failing in its duty had it not monitored Tariq Aziz, Iraq's then deputy prime minister, who was Saddam's trusted confidant in international affairs and was in almost daily contact with UN officials in New York as part of his desperate attempt to avert war. If Mr Aziz were then to have had a discussion with Kofi Annan, a transcript of that conversation would have been made available to British officials, even though the main target of the espionage exercise was Mr Aziz, not Mr Annan.

The subtleties of how British intelligence works in reality are, unfortunately, lost on the likes of Ms Short who, although she had limited access to intelligence reports, was never senior - or trusted - enough in the Cabinet to have an understanding of the context in which certain operations were being conducted.

The same can be said for Katharine Gun, the junior GCHQ employee whose prosecution under the Official Secrets Act was dropped last week after she admitted leaking an email about an American request asking Britain to spy on the six countries that would decide the fate of the second UN security council resolution. As a low-grade translator of Mandarin, Mrs Gun was hardly in a position to know how the British authorities dealt with the request, or even if they acted upon it.

Ms Short was similarly out of the loop about the precise nature of Britain's espionage in the build-up to the war. Although she is correct when she says that her department had access to intelligence reports on Iraq to help her plan for humanitarian relief after the war, her access was strictly limited, and the material she was given was provided on a strict "need-to-know" basis. Even when she held Cabinet rank, she was regarded with some suspicion by the intelligence service both because of her previous outspoken support for the IRA and the obvious sympathy she displayed for the anti-war movement. For this reason, she would not have had access to the high-grade intelligence reports that were being circulated to the Prime Minister and his inner circle.

If - as is perfectly feasible - transcripts of Mr Annan's conversations had found their way to Whitehall as a result of British attempts to spy on Tariq Aziz, Ms Short would have been presented with only the bare facts of what Mr Annan had said, not how the information had been obtained.

The Left wants both to criticize the failure and the attempt to gather good intelligence.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 28, 2004 9:27 PM