THE OPPRESSED MR. BLIX

Blix: I was a target too (Ewan MacAskill, The Guardian, 28/02/04)

The United Nations spying row widened yesterday when its former weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told the Guardian he suspected both his UN office and his home in New York were bugged in the run-up to the Iraq war.

In an exclusive interview, Mr Blix said he expected to be bugged by the Iraqis, but to be spied upon by the US was a different matter. He described such behaviour as "disgusting", adding: "It feels like an intrusion into your integrity in a situation when you are actually on the same side."

He said he went to extraordinary lengths to protect his office and home, having a UN counter-surveillance team sweep both for bugs.

"If you had something sensitive to talk about you would go out into the restaurant or out into the streets," he said.

Mr Blix's darkest fears were reinforced when he was shown a set of photographs by a senior member of the Bush administration which he insists could only have been obtained through underhand means.

His accusations came after the former cabinet minster, Clare Short, claimed that US-British intelligence bugged the office of the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan.

Speaking from his home in Stockholm, Mr Blix said that what galled him most was the possibility of being bugged by a country, the US, that he had assumed was on the same side. He said that surveillance was only to be expected between enemies or in cases where serious criminal activity is being monitored.

"But here it is between people who cooperate and it is an unpleasant feeling," he said.

Mr Blix, a Swedish diplomat who was head of the UN arms inspectors for Iraq between 2000 and 2003, said he had no conclusive evidence that the US bugged him. But his suspicions were raised when he had repeated trouble with his phone connections at his New York home.

This may baffle Americans, but a Canadian understands perfectly. Of course we can assume you are engaged in dirty tricks, condemn you loudly to your enemies, thwart your security interests, accuse you of being warmongers, call your leader a moronic cowboy and blame you for all the world's ills. We're your friends. We're really on your side. Honest.

Note how the international order works. Bugging by the US is "disgusting", but no less than one would expect from the savage Iraqis, who, of course, stood as full equals to the US. Can anyone seriously believe the French or Russians would ever stoop so low?