Mobile phone of Blix was bugged, says reports
The mobile phone of United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was tapped whenever he was in Iraq and the information shared between the United States, Britain and their allies, Australian radio reported today.
The latest bugging accusation follows yesterday’s claim by former British cabinet minister Clare Short that Britain spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the build-up to the Iraq war.
She said she had read transcripts of Annan’s conversations while she was a member of the government.
The United Nations said any bugging of Annan’s office would be illegal and should end immediately.
Today, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said a source at Australian intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, claimed that Blix’s mobile phone was monitored and his conversations recorded while he was in Iraq before the war last year.
“That’s what I’m told, specifically each time he entered Iraq, his phone was targeted and recorded and the transcripts were then made available to the United States, Australia, Canada, the UK and also New Zealand,” ABC investigative reporter Andrew Fowler said, citing his intelligence contacts.
He did not say who tapped Blix’s phone.
Australia is a close ally of Britain and the United States and the three countries shared intelligence in the run-up to last year’s invasion of Iraq.
Canberra also dispatched troops to take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Steve Ingram, a spokesman for Australian attorney general Philip Ruddock, ultimately responsible for security and intelligence matters, refused to comment.
“We don’t make it a practice of commenting on what we might and might not have seen in relation to intelligence matters,” he told The Associated Press.
Blix, aged 75, who headed the UN inspectors from 2000 to mid-2003, was in Iraq for months before the war looking for evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing a weapons programme.
No weapons of mass destruction have been found.
Transcripts of conversations Blix had in Iraq were made available to the Australian intelligence agency, the source told the ABC.
