Weazl received a BA in Economics with an emphasis on developing countries from Yale University in the late 80's, then received his JD from Columbia Law School in the early 90's. He has practiced as both a corporate lawyer and as a criminal lawyer for nearly a decade, but currently tries to balance an interest in the esoteric with a need to decipher the moment, howling to the moon that the ship is sinking.
Gordon Brown's comments came ahead of a European summit
UK prime minister Gordon Brown has said Nato and the EU must reassess their relations with the Kremlin to prevent further "Russian aggression".
His comments came amid fears Russia could cut oil and gas flows in the row over Georgia.
Mr Brown, writing in the Observer, urged the EU to do a "root and branch" review of relations with the Kremlin.
On Saturday President Dmitry Medvedev and Mr Brown spoke by phone as Russia moved to ease tensions with Europe.
Rights and responsibilities
Mr Brown wrote in Sunday's Observer newspaper one day ahead of a summit of European heads of state to discuss the South Ossetia crisis.
The conflict in the region began on 7 August when Georgia tried to regain control of South Ossetia by force, which was followed by a Russian counter-attack deep into Georgia.
Mr Brown said: "When Russia has a grievance over an issue such as South Ossetia, it should act multilaterally by consent rather than unilaterally by force."
He went on: "My message to Russia is simple. If you want to be welcome at the top table of organisations such as the G8, OECD and WTO, you must accept that with rights come responsibilities.
"We want Russia to be a good partner in the G8 and other organisations, but it cannot pick and choose which rules to adhere to.
"That is why I will argue tomorrow that Russia should accept Georgia's territorial integrity and international mechanisms for addressing these conflicts, and withdraw troops to their previous positions.
"And, in the light of Russian actions, the EU should review - root and branch - our relationship with Russia."
He added: "We are also reflecting on the Nato response. We must re-evaluate the alliance's relationship with Russia, and intensify our support to Georgia and others who may face Russian aggression."
Mr Brown also said the summit "must add urgency to the work on Europe's energy agenda".
"We must more rapidly build relationships with other producers of oil and gas," Mr Brown said.
'Very clear message'
The prime minister said he had told Mr Medvedev to expect a "determined response" from European leaders.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said European states should resist a rush to sanctions and instead exert long-term pressure.
"It is very important for the EU now to reassess its relationship with Russia and send a very clear message," he told Sky News.
"I do not think the measures looked at tomorrow should be cheap or quick. This requires clear and united and patient firmness over a sustained period of time."
He added: "It is wrong that it is now easier for Russian citizens to get visas into European countries than it is for Georgians.
"Georgia is a transparent democracy, an open society. Russia is clearly going in the wrong direction in that respect."
Former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, said it could be dangerous to isolate Russia.
"I think we've got to make clear our displeasure about the way in which Russia has acted outrageously," he told the BBC.
"But if by doing so, in a particular way and with particular language, we drive Russia into isolation, then sulking Russia, in isolation, will be even more difficult to deal with.
"And that's why when people talk about expulsion from the G8 and things of that kind, I think they've got to understand what the possible consequences of that would be to the Russian government's attitude."
'Disregard for principles'
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said there is no excuse for the violation of international law.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: "Russia has become the aggressor - it has gone from claiming to defend Russian passport holders in regions of Georgia to seeking the break-up of the state, showing disregard for the principles of modern international relations.
"The immediate instinct of the prime minister and I was clear: to speak out against aggression, to call for respect for human rights and international law and to rally world opinion behind these principles."
During his conversation with Mr Brown, Mr Medvedev said Russia was in favour of the deployment to Georgia of additional monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
In a separate development, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke to his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
They agreed on the need to "put an end to attempts to use the situation surrounding Georgia... to raise tensions in Europe by speculating on non-existent threats concerning other post-Soviet countries", said the Russian foreign ministry.
Georgia has cut diplomatic ties with Russia after Moscow recognised the independence of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
PM announces emergency legislation to allow anonymous evidence in trials
Gordon Brown today announced that emergency legislation on the use of anonymous witnesses in criminal cases would be rushed through parliament next week.
The move follows the collapse of an Old Bailey murder trial and a warning from police that dozens of other prosecutions might now be in jeopardy.
The prime minister told MPs during Commons question time that he hoped to gain cross-party support for the measures that will be brought forward next week to rescue pending trials, including more than three terrorism cases, one of which is due to start in the autumn.
Police said yesterday there are 40 to 50 cases either going through the courts, or about to start, that could be affected by last week's Law Lords ruling. The ruling stated defendants have a right to know the identity of the witness giving evidence against them if the testimony is decisive.
The Crown Prosecution Service yesterday sought an adjournment in all cases using anonymous witnesses so the implications of the judgment can be assessed. Scores of defendants convicted on anonymous evidence may also appeal.
The justice secretary, Jack Straw, was trying to reach agreement over a way forward with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Any immediate moves might be resisted in the House of Lords because of concerns over civil liberties, and anxiety that any new legislation will be rushed.
The intense political activity was sparked when the £6m trial of two men for the murder of businessman Charles Butler, 50, was halted at the Old Bailey. Defendants Douglas Johnson and David Austin are likely to face a retrial next year.
The decision to stop the proceedings came as a direct result of the ruling last Wednesday in the case of Iain Davis, who was convicted of a double murder at the Old Bailey in 2004. The five law lords said he was denied a fair trial because the identities of three witnesses who named him as the gunman were concealed. Witnesses gave evidence from behind a screen, their voices were distorted, and lawyers were banned from asking any questions that would reveal their identities.
The judges said English common law and European human rights law require that a defendant be able to confront his accusers and cross examine them properly. Lord Bingham, the senior law lord, said Davis's counsel was required "to take blind shots at a hidden target," adding: "A trial so conducted cannot be regarded as meeting ordinary standards of fairness."
Police and prosecutors have increasingly resorted to promising anonymity in recent years to persuade frightened witnesses to testify. The device has been successful in tackling gun crime, say police.
The law lords acknowledged the public interest in bringing dangerous offenders to justice, but said it was for parliament, not judges, to deal with the problem.
Any new legislation will have to comply with the right to a fair trial guaranteed by the Human Rights Act. Finding a model which achieves this will not be easy.
Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said yesterday the damage caused by last week's ruling could be wider than feared. "It could stifle current investigations. This isn't an esoteric legal point, it effects real people."
He said that witnesses in past cases will also need to be reassured if appeals are lodged. "In an appeal, there is a possibility of anonymity being challenged by defence lawyers. We have made promises to people and are determined to keep them."
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said she saw no obstacles to fixing the issue, and Edward Garnier, the shadow justice minister said the Tories would work with the government.
"We clearly need to ensure fairness in all trials both for defendant and prosecution," he said. "But we are all acutely aware of the issues around gangland crime, intimidation of witnesses and so on. We will approach this difficult question constructively."
Dispatches reveals how key politicians at the heart of the vicious fighting in Somalia - described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis - enjoy incredibly close links to Britain. They have British or EU passports, their families live here and they commute between Somalia and homes in English cities. British taxpayers are financing them in the name of democracy - yet in Somalia they are linked to allegations of mass murder, torture, extortion and corruption.
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Our Government’s Dirty Little Secrets.
House of Commons debates - Wednesday, 11 June 2008 -
By George Galloway
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn .—[Ms Diana R. Johnson.]
Mr. Galloway: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This Adjournment debate was scheduled to begin at 7 pm and last for half an hour. I have spoken for 10 minutes, and the country—or at least those interested enough to watch on parliamentary television—will not hear the Minister reply.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood. The Adjournment debate is now starting, which means that he has so far had bonus time. This is one of the procedures, as far as the House is concerned, we have to go through.
Mr. Galloway: That is truly magnificent, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I have plenty to say. Perhaps I will be able to quote Amnesty International in more detail in the time that I did not think that I would have available.
This policy is not only morally bankrupt, it is politically disastrous. Afghanistan is the perfect example, but the Ethiopian Government preside over a country where famine and mass starvation stalk the land. They are being helped militarily to invade, occupy and threaten their neighbours. What can that conceivably do for our standing in Africa, or for our credibility when we lecture the Governments of Sudan or Zimbabwe?
It would be bad enough if our difficulties in that respect were confined to Africa, but the problem is much worse. The Somalians are the tallest people on earth, but they are virtually invisible, politically, on the international stage and in this country. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of Somalians here, either because they have European Union passports or because they are refugees from the very fighting that we initiated and are now fuelling. Increasingly, young Somalis are furious, bitter and angry. They nurse their wrath as they watch—on Somali television or other Muslim channels—the carnage being wrought in their country.
Two million people in Somalia are living as refugees, out of a population of 11 million. That is almost a fifth of the total: to scale it up, in our country that would amount to 12 million people. There are another 1 million Somali refugees in neighbouring countries, and God knows how many hundreds of thousands are scattered across the EU.
In their bitter exile, the sons—and may be the daughters too—of those Somali families are being brought up bitter and furious at the role played by the west in the problems that they see on their televisions screens. We have spent hours this afternoon trying to deal with the problem of terrorism, but we cannot see how that connects with the way that we constantly infuriate young Muslim boys and girls with the double standards and injustices of our policy towards their countries and the countries from which their parents come.
We cannot see the connection between the growth of extremism and our actions. The Government are always looking for a cleric or an organisation to ban or to blame for the radicalisation of Muslim youth in Britain. But those young people do not need a cleric or an organisation to radicalise them: they just have to watch the news and see what our Government are doing in Muslim countries such as Somalia.
I know that the Minister has seen Channel 4’s “Dispatches” programme. She will not claim otherwise, even though she is answering a debate on human rights in Somalia. I hope that she will do a better job than Lord Malloch-Brown did when it comes to explaining how are taxes are being used. Among other things, that tax money could be used to help starving people in Ethiopia. It could be used to keep our pensioners warm in winter or to keep some post offices open.
I see that the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who is Under-Secretary of State for Transport and the Minister responsible for closing post offices, is standing by your Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that that counts as being in the House and that it is therefore in order for me to refer to him.
The British tax money that I have mentioned could have been used for a better purpose, but instead it is being spent on the security forces in Somalia, which Amnesty International, as well as Channel 4, accuses of widespread abuses of human rights—of torture, murder, disappearances, kidnapping, extortion and grand larceny. Why are we allowing the Interior Minister of Somalia to travel back and forth into our country unmolested when he is accused by aid agencies of purloining international aid—desperately needed emergency aid for hungry people—for himself and for political purposes for his political clan? Why are the Government not stopping him at the border and questioning him about where the money went that was put into Somalia and has disappeared?
Aid agencies will not now, by and large, set foot in Somalia, so catastrophic has the situation there become. I ask the Minister why we are supporting the President, the Interior Minister and the chief of police in Somalia, and allowing them to come and go freely without answering the charges that are being made against them? When will the Government at least condemn the human rights abuses in Somalia? Amnesty has voluminously recorded them, but not a squeak has come from the Government, which has never done roaring at Sudan or Zimbabwe. Why? Because we are deeply complicit in that. Indeed, we are paying for it; we are paying for the security services that are committing these crimes in Somalia.
The Government might think that because most Somalis in Britain do not, for one reason or another, have votes, they can be ignored—that tall as they are, they can be disregarded. However, the truth is that the Somali community in Britain’s loathing of the actions of our Government is a ticking time bomb in Britain. I, if not the Minister, am constantly exposed in my constituency, and in Birmingham and Leicester and other places, to the anger of these young Somalis. There is a disaster waiting to happen. I hope that the Minister will announce today that, in the wake of the Channel 4 revelations, she will investigate the allegations properly, and that she will report her findings to the House.
I am talking in my speech tonight about not only the current British Government’s foreign policy towards the horn of Africa and Afghanistan, but about previous Governments’ foreign policies, too. I remember being on the Opposition Benches and accusing the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, of having opened the gates to the barbarians by her support for the so-called mujaheddin in Afghanistan so many years ago. The policy that our Governments have followed of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” has proved to be fatally flawed everywhere that it has been tried, and it is now being tried all over again in Somalia.
Many Somalis will be watching our debate this evening—word is out about it in the Somali community, and it is being shown on Universal TV and other Somali channels. For their sake, I hope that the Minister will come clean about the dreadful problems that exist, and I also hope that she will say some words to the Ethiopian Government.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having secured this debate. I apologise for having arrived late for it; I was caught somewhat unawares as it began early. What is best for Somalia and its people is, of course, security. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Ethiopian Government are providing security in Somalia at present, and that they want to withdraw from Somalia at the earliest possible moment? Will he also join me in encouraging the United Nations, the African Union Mission in Somalia—AMISOM—and the African Union to ensure that troops are put back into Somalia in order to give Somalis that security, which they need? Ethiopian troops want to return to Addis Ababa.
Mr. Galloway: I do not accept that at all, and it seems that I know the Ethiopian Government rather better than the hon. Gentleman does. As I explained before he came in, I knew them when they were pro-Albanian Maoist guerrillas in the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front. I knew all the leaders—they are now the Government Ministers—and I know that they have no intention of withdrawing from Somalia unless they are forced to do so. They want to occupy Somalia because they have been paid to do so by the Government of the United States and our own Government. The Ethiopian Government are doing a job for what they imagine to be the western part of the international community. I see the Minister for closing post offices laughing. His constituency contains many Somalis, as does mine, and I hope that the camera caught him laughing.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Jim Fitzpatrick): I apologise for intervening on the hon. Gentleman, but I must point out that I did not laugh at anything that he has been saying so far.
Mr. Galloway: I shall not go further down that track. Perhaps the camera caught the verisimilitude.
The truth is that the Ethiopian Government are carrying out a service for the people who give them weapons, for the people who give them money and for the people who give them diplomatic and political support. They are having a beano in the Ethiopian embassy next week. Perhaps the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) will go to it; he will certainly get an invitation in the post following his intervention. The Ethiopian Government are having a beano in the Ethiopian embassy in London to celebrate the 17th anniversary of their coming to power, and it is going to be a very grand event.
That event comes at a time when the Ethiopian Government’s own people are starving to death. Their children are starving to death—120,000 children have a month to live—they are invading and occupying their neighbouring countries and nobody says boo about it. In fact, far from saying boo, people are saying, “Here’s some more military and financial aid to do it.” That is because the Government of President Bush, who are utterly discredited and on their way out, with virtually nowhere to go except Downing street on Sunday for one last photo call, regard the defeat of the former Islamic Government in Somalia as part of their war on terror.
That is what this is all about. Ethiopia is playing the role of hammer in the horn of Africa for the policy of the United States and its war on terror. That is what Ethiopia is doing, so it will not withdraw until a new American Government, hopefully with a Kenyan-affiliated President, tell them that actually this policy is deeply flawed. The puppet regime of British citizens imposed on Somalia by the Ethiopian invasion would not last five minutes if the Ethiopian forces withdrew—that regime would have to withdraw with them. So, any Government who come to power in Somalia in the future will be filled with hatred of Britain and the United States.
That is the problem that we keep making everywhere; we intervene either to prop up tyrants or to support tyrants because we do not like the tyrants that they are fighting against, and we generate still more problems for ourselves. We wonder why that is, and we agonisingly debate anti-terrorism laws. We wonder why so many people in the Muslim world want to hurt us. We wonder why so many young people in the Muslim world are so bitter and angry about us that they want to hurt us. Is it any wonder? Can it be any wonder to any sane person? I beg the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to believe me when I say that it is because of the kinds of policies that I have described. I talk to Somalis all the time, and I know that the rage the Somali community both in Britain and around the world feels about Britain and America’s role in their country generates terrorists. As the right hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley), who saved the Government’s bacon earlier this evening, is in his place and as we spent so many hours discussing anti-terrorism, let me spell it out: we are making new terrorists in Britain with our policy towards Somalia, with our double standards and with our hypocrisy.
Mark Pritchard: While the Government of Ethiopia are not perfect—indeed, there are Governments closer to home who are not perfect—it is right that human rights abuses by the Somali security services are fully investigated. Nevertheless, does the hon. Gentleman accept that if Ethiopian troops withdrew, it would create a security vacuum in which terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, would create mayhem in the horn of Africa, which is a key strategic location, and that would come back to haunt us?
Mr. Galloway: I said in this House when it was recalled a few days after the atrocity of 9/11 that if we handled it the wrong way we would make 10,000 new bin Ladens. We have handled it the wrong way, and we have made 10,000 new bin Ladens. The problem of al-Qaeda in Somalia has been made worse by the western intervention and the Ethiopian invasion. Far more people have been recruited to a narrow, fundamentalist, separatist, violent Islamism by our policy than ever would have been if that policy had never been formed.
The hon. Gentleman obviously has not read the Amnesty International document. The Ethiopian forces are not providing security: they are providing mass murder and terror in occupied Somalia. The refugee camps are full with 2 million people. No one can walk on the streets of Mogadishu. Channel 4’s reporters were almost killed making their programme. Some of the team on the same vehicle with them were shot dead live on television—
Mark Pritchard: By Somalis.
Mr. Galloway: I do not know if they were shot by Somalis or Ethiopians. The point is that the country has been plunged into utter lawlessness, and to pretend that the Ethiopian Government are providing security is completely ridiculous. The words Somalia and security should not even be mentioned in the same sentence.
There may be a need for African Union forces or Arab League forces. This conflict will go on and I hope that the Minister will not claim that the deal reached this week is any kind of solution to the problem. The people who are doing the fighting are not involved in the deal. It is like a peace process in the north of Ireland that excluded the people who were doing the fighting. That is what has happened in relation to Somalia in the past few days.
I am grateful for the extra time that I had for this debate, and I apologise for my churlish point of order, which turned out to be entirely misconceived. I hope for some answers from the Minister this evening.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Meg Munn): I welcome the opportunity to reply to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) in this debate. I see this as an excellent chance to highlight how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seeks to address a number of issues relating to Somalia.
As my noble Friend Lord Malloch-Brown, the Minister for Africa, said in his statement this afternoon, we congratulate the Somali transitional federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia on reaching agreement on the cessation of violence. That agreement was signed by both parties in Djibouti on Monday and witnessed by members of the international community. I wish to thank the UN Secretary-General’s special representative, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, on his continued efforts to mediate in the talks between the parties which resulted in the agreement. This is a positive step and we look forward to all parties fulfilling their commitment to cease armed confrontation. We are committed to working with the UN to support this process.
Human rights issues in Somalia are longstanding and complex. They cannot be attributed to any one cause, and there are no easy or obvious solutions. Somalia is not like other countries. Serious violence, lack of governance structures and the deteriorating humanitarian situation have been ongoing for 17 years. Many in Somali society have been brutalised by years of violence. It is therefore often individuals, not answerable to any particular group or commander, who carry out abuses on their own initiative. That makes it even more difficult to prevent further abuses and to bring those responsible to justice.
Given that complexity and the insecurity in Somalia, there is little opportunity to monitor the situation reliably or gather and verify facts or allegations. Reporting is often biased and may be exaggerated to exert influence on the international community. The only sustainable way to address human rights in the long term is to engage in effective state building, concentrating on developing institutions, parliamentary accountability, an inclusive security sector and delivery of basic services. Short-term fixes that do not focus on state building will mean we return to the issue year after year, prolonging the suffering of the Somali people.
Reports of incidents and accusations of human rights abuses by Ethiopian troops are difficult to corroborate and have been categorically denied by the Ethiopian Government. Ethiopian troops in Somalia are carrying out a role that security providers in Somalia do not have the capacity for. Many critics forget that fighting between militias went on for 15 years before Ethiopia intervened, at the invitation of Somalia’s transitional federal Government.
African Union member nations have not yet committed to contributing sufficient troops to allow for full deployment of the African Union mission in Somalia, which currently has only 2,400 of the 8,000 troops mandated. Further planning for a possible UN mission was called for by UN Security Council resolution 1814, although that is unlikely to be mandated soon. Evidence from other Ethiopian peacekeeping deployments indicates that they make a positive contribution to missions. Ethiopian troops are likely to form the largest contingent of the UN-African Union mission in Darfur.
We regularly engage with human rights organisations, listen to their views and appreciate their efforts to gather information and evidence on human rights. We and they fully acknowledge that allegations of abuse are made against all parties to the conflict in Somalia. We sponsored an Arria meeting at the United Nations in New York on 31 March to enable Governments and the non-governmental organisation community freely to discuss human rights and humanitarian issues and to exchange views on how to achieve progress in Somalia.
The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow might be interested to know that in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), I said:
“We unreservedly condemn all proven incidents of human rights abuse and expect those responsible to face justice.”—[ Official Report, 3 June 2008; Vol. 476, c. 832W.]
My noble Friend the Minister for Africa, Lord Malloch-Brown, raised the issue of human rights in Somalia with the Ethiopian Prime Minister in late January 2008. Our ambassador to Ethiopia regularly raises the issue of respect for human rights in Somalia at senior levels of the Ethiopian Government. Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials in London and at the UN have also raised the issue with their Ethiopian counterparts.
Ethiopia has told us that it intends to withdraw from Somalia and that it has reduced force numbers by more than half since late February 2007. The Ethiopian Government are extremely positive about the newly signed peace agreement, which includes a strategy for their withdrawal from Somalia. Until Ethiopia withdraws its troops completely, we urge them to use only appropriate force, adhere to international humanitarian law and respect human rights. However, for Ethiopia to withdraw from Somalia before an effective alternative force has been established would risk creating a dangerous security vacuum. Somalis would suffer the most from such a development.
The UK is a leading contributor to world efforts to rebuild the Somali state. We support the efforts of the UN Secretary General’s special representative for Somalia to engage with civil society and to help bring about social and political reconciliation that will lead to greater respect for human rights and religious freedoms for all Somalis. Through helping to shape UN Security Council policy, and our membership of the EU and the international contact group, we press for greater focus on human rights in Somalia. We asked the UN to enhance its capacity to monitor and report on the human rights situation in Somalia and 11 Jun 2008 : Column 434 Council resolution 1814, unanimously adopted on 15 May, and the EU General Assembly and External Relations Council conclusions, adopted on 26 May, support the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, including the independent expert for Somalia, and encourage them to undertake a fact-finding and assessment mission to Somalia to address the human rights situation.
We co-chair the donors group and are the second largest bilateral humanitarian and development donor. We are also the second largest bilateral donor, after the US, for the African Union mission to Somalia. We are a key donor to the UN Development Programme effort to develop a full justice system, including improving the police force and the judiciary and penal systems to an internationally acceptable standard. I understand that the hon. Gentleman thought that that issue was a matter for the Department for International Development, but I can confirm that it is a policy area of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
We value human rights highly. No other states are as active as the UK on human rights issues in Somalia. We urge other states to join our efforts and encourage international human rights organisations to concentrate their advocacy activities on pressing other less active states for support, too.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Seven o’clock.
Peter Oborne accompanies the UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, as he travels across Iraq, meeting the main players who will determine the future of the country; from the US Commanding General David Petraeus, to militiamen fighting to protect their homes, to parliamentarians holed up in Baghdad's Green Zone, Oborne discovers that Iraq seems to have reverted to a violent feudalism.
Meanwhile America has lost the trust and respect of the world and there are chilling consequences of the war for ordinary people back on the streets of Britain.
Muslim man who sold DVDs glorifying the 9/11 atrocities jailed under new terror laws
Bilal Mohammed was sentenced under the terrorism act for possessing videos in support of 9/11
A Muslim who possessed DVDs glorifying the 9/11 atrocities has become one of the first people to be jailed under a section of the Terrorism Act.
Bilal Mohammed, 27, was sentenced under Section 2 of the 2006 Act but his case is the first time the section has been used independently.
A court heard how he possessed nine videos and CDs in support of 9/11 and the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
He routinely took trips around the country to set up stalls where he sold some of his material including in London, Manchester, Leeds, Huddersfield and Halifax.
He admitted one count of possessing terrorist publications with a view to selling or distributing them. The items were found to glorify the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism and were likely to encourage people to engage in terrorist acts.
He was sentenced to three years but after serving 14 months in custody following a raid on his home last January, he could be out in as little as three months.
Leeds Crown Court heard on Wednesday how Mohammed, of Halifax, was born in his hometown and is a British citizen.
Judge James Stewart QC said: "All of the material was designed, in my judgement, to induce young British Muslims to be recruited to the terrorist cause, the purpose being to destroy the very fabric of the society in which they have thrived."
The court heard how a covert surveillance on Mohammed and accomplice Rizwan Ditta, 29, found that he had travelled nationwide to sell the "recruiting agents"
Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp said the one that was sold was called "21st Century Crusaders", which effectively exhorted Muslims to take up jihad.
Mr Sharp, who said conversations between Mohammed and Ditta had been bugged, said: "They talk about the Middle East and agree a desire to see the end of Israel.
"They also talked about robbing drug dealers to obtain cash for 'the cause'."
The court was shown excerpts from some of the DVDs he disseminated, including "The Manhattan Raid", "19 Martyrs" and "Hamas training and ideology".
The Manhattan Raid was produced by the media production house of al-Qaeda and was released in September 2006 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the atrocities.
One shocking detail of the video showed Muslims at a training camp using cardboard cut-outs as human victims with the Christian crucifix as the target.
The 19 Martyrs goes into detail about the lives of the hijackers and in some of the material distributed, Osama bin Laden and training camps are depicted.
Mr Sharp said: "All the material is broadly in two parts with the first showing what some might say a partisan history and the problems besetting Muslims. "The second part invariably features bin Laden and training camps, implicitly saying that this is a good thing for the committed young male Muslim to be doing and explicitly calls for young men to join up."
James Ward, defending Mohammed, said that he was not a jihadist and meant to educate people in both sides of the debate of whether Britain and the US should have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.
He added that Mohammed was against the occupation of those countries but was reckless as to whether the material he distributed could have encouraged people to commit terrorist acts.
Judge Stewart told Mohammed: "Many in the UK and elsewhere were and are opposed to the British and American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
"But when extremist views are disseminated against our own government's policy, society says enough is enough.
"But many young minds have been affected by this, we will never know."
His accomplice Ditta was jailed for four years in December after admitting to owning a publication which showed how to make a suicide vest, contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act.
Hi-tech 'satellite' tagging planned in order to create more space in jails Civil rights groups and probation officers furious at 'degrading' scheme
By Brian Brady, Whitehall Editor
Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.
Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.
But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record.
The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are already used around the world to keep track of dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor offenders in the community. The chips are also being considered as a method of helping to keep order within prisons.
A senior Ministry of Justice official last night confirmed that the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles. "All the options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue," the source added.
The move is in line with a proposal from Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders in order to track them more easily. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is seen as the favoured method of monitoring such offenders to prevent them going near "forbidden" zones such as primary schools.
"We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area," a senior minister said last night. "We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it's time has come."
The Government has been forced to review sentencing policy amid serious overcrowding in the nation's jails, after the prison population soared from 60,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today. The crisis meant the number of prisoners held in police cells rose 13-fold last year, with police stations housing offenders more than 60,000 times in 2007, up from 4,617 the previous year. The UK has the highest prison population per capita in western Europe, and the Government is planning for an extra 20,000 places at a cost of £3.8bn – including three gigantic new "superjails" – in the next six years.
More than 17,000 individuals, including criminals and suspects released on bail, are subject to electronic monitoring at any one time, under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. But official figures reveal that almost 2,000 offenders a year escape monitoring by tampering with ankle tags or tearing them off. Curfew breaches rose from 11,435 in 2005 to 43,843 in 2006 – up 283 per cent. The monitoring system, which relies on mobile-phone technology, can fail if the network crashes.
A multimillion-pound pilot of satellite monitoring of offenders was shelved last year after a report revealed many criminals simply ditched the ankle tag and separate portable tracking unit issued to them. The "prison without bars" project also failed to track offenders when they were in the shadow of tall buildings.
The Independent on Sunday has now established that ministers have been assessing the merits of cutting-edge technology that would make it virtually impossible for individuals to remove their electronic tags.
The tags, injected into the back of the arm with a hypodermic needle, consist of a toughened glass capsule holding a computer chip, a copper antenna and a "capacitor" that transmits data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.
But details of the dramatic option for tightening controls over Britain's criminals provoked an angry response from probation officers and civil-rights groups. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "If the Home Office doesn't understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they don't need a human-rights lawyer; they need a common-sense bypass.
"Degrading offenders in this way will do nothing for their rehabilitation and nothing for our safety, as some will inevitably find a way round this new technology."
Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said the proposal would not make his members' lives easier and would degrade their clients. He added: "I have heard about this suggestion, but we feel the system works well enough as it is. Knowing where offenders like paedophiles are does not mean you know what they are doing.
"This is the sort of daft idea that comes up from the department every now and then, but tagging people in the same way we tag our pets cannot be the way ahead. Treating people like pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement in the system to me."
The US market leader VeriChip Corp, whose parent company has been selling radio tags for animals for more than a decade, has sold 7,000 RFID microchips worldwide, of which about 2,000 have been implanted in humans. The company claims its VeriChips are used in more than 5,000 installations, crossing healthcare, security, government and industrial markets, but they have also been used to verify VIP membership in nightclubs, automatically gaining the carrier entry – and deducting the price of their drinks from a pre-paid account.
The possible value of the technology to the UK's justice system was first highlighted 18 months ago, when Acpo's Mr Jones suggested the chips could be implanted into sex offenders. The implants would be tracked by satellite, enabling authorities to set up "zones", including schools, playgrounds and former victims' homes, from which individuals would be barred.
"If we are prepared to track cars, why don't we track people?" Mr Jones said. "You could put surgical chips into those of the most dangerous sex offenders who are willing to be controlled."
The case for: 'We track cars, so why not people?'
The Government is struggling to keep track of thousands of offenders in the community and is troubled by an overcrowded prison system close to bursting. Internal tagging offers a solution that could impose curfews more effectively than at present, and extend the system by keeping sex offenders out of "forbidden areas". "If we are prepared to track cars, why don't we track people?" said Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo).
Officials argue that the internal tags enable the authorities to enforce thousands of court orders by ensuring offenders remain within their own walls during curfew hours – and allow the immediate verification of ID details when challenged.
The internal tags also have a use in maintaining order within prisons. In the United States, they are used to track the movement of gang members within jails.
Offenders themselves would prefer a tag they can forget about, instead of the bulky kit carried around on the ankle.
The case against: 'The rest of us could be next'
Professionals in the criminal justice system maintain that the present system is 95 per cent effective. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is unproven. The technology is actually more invasive, and carries more information about the host. The devices have been dubbed "spychips" by critics who warn that they would transmit data about the movements of other people without their knowledge.
Consumer privacy expert Liz McIntyre said a colleague had already proved he could "clone" a chip. "He can bump into a chipped person and siphon the chip's unique signal in a matter of seconds," she said.
One company plans deeper implants that could vibrate, electroshock the implantee, broadcast a message, or serve as a microphone to transmit conversations. "Some folks might foolishly discount all of these downsides and futuristic nightmares since the tagging is proposed for criminals like rapists and murderers," Ms McIntyre said. "The rest of us could be next."
Broke Britain: millions face struggle to stay afloat as financial crisis hits home
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Debt experts are predicting a record number of personal insolvencies this year as excessive Christmas shopping, rising mortgage payments and soaring food and fuel costs force thousands of people over the financial edge and into bankruptcy.
More than nine million individuals in Britain are now believed to be struggling to pay credit card bills and mortgages, with the average owed by problem debtors hitting £30,000.
In alarming figures to be released tomorrow, the accountancy firm Grant Thornton predicts the total number of personal insolvencies will jump to at least 120,000 this year, almost triple the equivalent figure in 2004, when just under 47,000 people went bankrupt.
Insolvency experts say people have been readily loading large amounts of debt on to credit cards and personal loans, despite the economic slowdown.
High-street shops and online retailers reported higher-than-forecast takings in December, while the new year sales have also been busier than expected. One commentator described the Christmas shopping spree as one last hurrah before a tougher 12 months ahead.
Although the economy is still vibrant and employment plentiful, the supply of cheap and easy credit that has revved the economy for years is being turned off as a result of the sub-prime lending crisis in the United States. Fewer mortgages are being granted to people in Britain with poor credit records. Credit card limits are being lowered and personal loans are becoming harder to obtain.
According to a poll conducted by Uswitch.com in November, 38 per cent of new applicants for credit cards and 19 per cent of applicants for new personal loans were rejected, while 6 per cent have had their credit card limit cut. With food and fuel prices also set to rise in the new year, levels of disposable income are likely to drop, deepening the difficulties of those attempting to repay debts.
Those already in debt will find themselves at the mercy of collection agencies more determined than ever to recoup money for clients. According to one industry journal, the coming crisis means that "debt collection agencies will need to adopt more sophisticated methods in order to deliver value back to their clients".
The latest figures indicate that 23 per cent of people – 9.5 million adults – were finding their current level of debt "unmanageable". Although the Bank of England cut the base rate of interest last month, an estimated 1.4 million people will still have to pay more for their home loans when their fixed-rate deals come to an end this year, costing an extra £150 to £250 a month.
Tomorrow, Grant Thornton will forecast that 10,000 individuals will hit the financial wall each month in 2008, with 28,000 individuals sliding into insolvency in the first quarter. As many as one third of bankruptcies in the first three months of the year will be caused by "excessive Christmas spending".
Mike Gerrard, the head of Grant Thornton's personal insolvency practice, said: "Sadly, many individuals spend up on credit at Christmas and pay no heed to the financial warning bells. Come January, they find themselves in a situation where previous financial woes are compounded by the bills arriving from the festive season and in these situations insolvency becomes the only way out."
Mike Naylor, a personal finance expert at uSwitch.com, remarked: "People have enjoyed easy access to cheap credit for quite some time, but for some, the party really could be over." He said those with a poor credit record would experience a particularly tough time.
In a survey last month, the Bank of England found that more than one fifth of those whose mortgage deals had come to an end last year struggled to meet higher payments.
Experts predict a rise in Individual Voluntary Agreements (IVAs), a less stringent form of bankruptcy, because banks are once again accepting them after quibbling with their terms last year. Bankruptcies are also expected to be more readily accepted by individuals because they have become so commonplace and so their stigma has fallen.
Malcolm Hurlston, the chairman of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS), predicted there would be a small rise in IVAs and a "quite substantial" rise in bankruptcies.
When individuals are declared bankrupt their debts are written off, but they are often credit- blacklisted for years and may have difficulty finding a job.
Debt agencies said they had been busy during December, which is usually a quiet time.
On average, people approaching the CCCS have debts of £30,000. About 45 per cent of that is from personal loans, 40 per cent from credit cards and 5 per cent from store cards and other lending. The organisation estimates that 7 per cent of the adult population is experiencing serious debt problems, which would represent about 3.3 million people in the UK.
"Nearly all of them have lost control," said Mr Hurlston. "Some of them can sort their finances out but some of them need some kind of solution, which might be making voluntary payments; it could be IVAs or it might be bankruptcy."
Steady increases in the cost of living are expected to tighten the screw. In only 12 months, Grant Thornton said the cost of filling up a vehicle with unleaded petrol had increased by 16 per cent, which meant the public was having to find an extra £155 a year to fill up the car.
Mr Gerrard said: "Coupled with rapidly increasing gas and electricity prices, which are forecast to jump by more than 10 per cent early this year, it's easy to see how those already struggling to pay off credit, particularly those servicing mortgages, are caving in to the pressure." He warned: "I believe personal insolvency numbers will move forward at a much faster pace than anticipated."
Howard Archer, the chief UK economist at Global Insight, suggested that in general people would have to be more frugal this year. "Household purchasing power is likely to be dented by higher energy and food prices over the coming months, while many home owners face having to re-fix their mortgages at significantly higher rates.
"Furthermore, increasing concerns about the economic outlook are likely to further encourage consumers to tighten their belts," he said.
The British Bankers' Association urged people to check their finances carefully and to get in touch with lenders as soon as they got into difficulty.
Political Assassination: Media Disinformation regarding the Death of Dr. David Kelly UK Physicians respond to The Guardian
Global Research, December 16, 2007
Global Research editor's note
The following letter by Drs. C Stephen Frost, David Halpin and Christopher J Burns-Cox was sent to The Guardian in response to a review of Norman Baker's recently published book The Strange Death of David Kelly.
The article by Richard Norton-Taylor suggests in no uncertain terms that the Hon. Norman Baker is a "conspiracy theorist".
The authors of the letter are prominent physicians who have analysed the causes of Dr. Kelly's death in several Global Research Articles.
Dear Sir
Richard Norton-Taylor struggles mightily to discredit Norman Baker and his recently published book The Strange Death of David Kelly, in his review of that book (Guardian, 1 December 2007). The struggle is all the more confusing because Norton-Taylor does concede that "the inquiry [the Hutton Inquiry] into the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death, which also became a quasi-inquest, shed a bright light on the way Downing Street, with the help of intelligence chiefs who should have known better, conspired to draw up the disgraceful Iraqi weapons dossier."
Norton-Taylor entirely misses, and one has to wonder whether he does so deliberately, the central point made by the many reasonable people who are concerned that Dr David Kelly has been denied a proper inquest: that due process of law has not been followed, indeed it has been comprehensively subverted.
These two articles point unerringly to a Government cover-up. The importance of such a cover-up (in the context of the investigation of the suspicious death of the world expert on biological and chemical weapons who, at the time of his death, was perceived to be blowing the whistle on the Government which had taken the country to illegal war on a pack of lies) cannot be over-emphasised. That is the end of the argument. Richard Norton-Taylor (and others in his position) should be pressing for a proper investigation of Kelly's death, ie a proper inquest, rather than wasting his time attempting to rubbish Norman Baker's book, while claiming the moral high ground. Otherwise, there is a risk that he and other apparent apologists for the dreadful Blair and Brown governments are seen in the future as the shameless enablers that perhaps they are.
Yours faithfully
Dr C Stephen Frost BSc MBChB Specialist in Diagnostic Radiology (Stockholm, Sweden) Drws-y-Coed, 78 Pen-y-Bryn Road, Colwyn Bay, North Wales LL29 6AL 07919 677138 (daytime) 01492 532352 (home)
David Halpin FRCS Kiln Shotts, Haytor, Newton Abbot, Devon TQ13 9XR 01364 661115
Dr Christopher J Burns-Cox FRCP MD Southend Farm, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucs. GL12 7PB 01453 842243
British troops withdrew to a base on the outskirts of Basra in September
More than 85% of the residents of Basra believe British troops have had a negative effect on the Iraqi province since 2003, an opinion poll suggests.
The survey for BBC Newsnight of nearly 1,000 people also suggests that 56% believe their presence has increased the overall level of militia violence.
Two-thirds think security will improve when the British hand back control of the province to Iraqi forces on Sunday.
The 4,500 British troops in Iraq will then focus on training Iraqi forces.
The move to Provincial Iraqi Control will eventually pave the way for UK troop numbers to be reduced to 2,500 from the spring.
Basra is the ninth of Iraq's 18 provinces to resume responsibility for its own security and the fourth to be handed over by British forces after Muthanna, Najaf and Dhi Qar.
Improvement expected
The Public Attitudes in Basra survey carried out for Newsnight by the UK-based polling agency, Opinion Research Business (ORB), interviewed a random sample of 922 adults across the southern city of Basra between 3 and 8 December.
The survey's results suggest that only 2% of Basra residents believe that British troops have had a positive effect on the province since they helped the US overthrow Saddam Hussein in March 2003.
An overwhelming majority of 86% felt British troops had had a negative effect.
More than half felt the troops' presence had actually increased the overall level of militia violence over the past four years, while 14% said they believed the British forces had made no difference at all.
Looking to the future, a total of 83% of those surveyed said they wanted British troops to leave Iraq, including 63% who wanted them to leave the Middle East altogether.
However, nearly a tenth disagreed and said they would like the troops to remain in a camp on the outskirts of Basra, where they could be called upon in a time of crisis.
The majority of those questioned felt that once provincial control was handed over to local Iraqi security forces, the security situation would begin to improve.
Two-thirds felt security would improve in the short term, while 72% said it would improve in the long term. Only 5% said security would deteriorate following the withdrawal.
Correspondents say British troops have had a relatively minor influence on the security situation in Basra since they withdrew to a base at the airport outside the city in September.
'Women targeted'
BBC correspondent Andrew North said that, since the withdrawal, the militia has been orchestrating a campaign of violence against women.
He said most people believed the militia were responsible for the deaths of more than 40 women killed in the past few months.
But in a rare interview, Ali Al Saedi, of the Mehdi Army, denied targeting women.
"If this is true, this violence exists everywhere in America and Britain as well. Nobody can blame any block or movement for any of these crimes," he told BBC News.
Our correspondent also said the British base in Basra was still coming under attack from mortar fire.
Major Mike Shearer, a military spokesman in Basra, said: "It's about managing the security here.
"We never professed to be handing over a white-picketed Basra that resembled something out of the Stepford Wives."
More than 170 British servicemen and women have died while serving in Iraq since 2003.
Do you feel that once British troops hand over control to Iraqi forces in Basra, the security will improve, deteriorate or stay the same?
DAMASCUS - When then-US secretary of state James Baker suspended talks with the Palestinian Liberation Organization on June 20, 1990, he famously said, "Our telephone number is 202-456-1414. When you are serious about peace, call us."
This is what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown should have said to Iraqi leaders while visiting southern Iraq last week. After all, thanks to the indifference of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and a completely paralyzed central government in Baghdad, the British-controlled city of Basra has become a hotbed for militants and Islamic fundamentalists.
Instead, Brown chose to speak to his own countrymen - downplaying unquestionable failure in Iraq - saying, "Your war is over. We have managed now to get Iraq into a far better position." Brown's statement was far more realistic than the 2003 speech of President George W Bush, in which he said, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
Brown did not say, however, that the British had succeeded. He literally could not say that because it would have been factually incorrect - very incorrect. He also did not say, however, that they had failed. British troops will remain in Basra, he claimed, training and assisting Iraqi authorities, until the spring of 2008. Their military role is over, however, as of mid-December.
Maliki had recommended a rapid two-week transfer of local authority in Basra, and Brown - eager to rid himself of the Iraqi burden - immediately said yes. Brown acknowledged, "Not that violence has ended, but we are able to move to provincial Iraqi control and that's thanks to everything you [British soldiers] have achieved."
Let's take a closer look at what all of this means for Brown, Bush and Iraq. Brown is effectively ending a three-year military operation that has cost the lives of over 170 British personnel. It has become very unpopular in Great Britain. Brown never endorsed the Iraqi adventure, but was always too afraid to strongly oppose it, but since coming to power in June has wants to bring it to an abrupt end.
What he has done is drop British forces in Iraq to about 2,500. Good news for the British - bad news for the White House. Shortly before the British announcement, Australia and Poland also said their forces will be leaving Iraq in 2008. Some in Washington are distressed, claiming they are being abandoned by their closest ally in Iraq. They see that Brown's announcement is a de facto defeat for Great Britain and coalition forces in the war-torn country.
It makes it very difficult for Bush to tell the American public, "Wait and see, I was right on Iraq." What makes life a little easier for the US president is that if the US loses Britain, it still has France. Tony Blair's departure from the premiership coincided with the rise of Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who is willing to bury all previous animosity between his predecessor Jacques Chirac and the White House.
But France is not an active player in Iraq. It does not have troops stationed in Iraq, and apart from a recent visit by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to the country, the French have been absent from Iraqi affairs since 2003. And although a staunch ally of Washington, Sarkozy has already parted with the US on a variety of issues, primarily in his willingness to engage with Hezbollah (which the US claims is a "terrorist" organization) to advance presidential elections in Lebanon.
Brown hopes that any tension in British-US relations will be resolved when the Bush team leaves the White House in January 2009, almost certain that post-Bush America will be ruled by the Democrats, who are more opposed to the military adventure in Iraq. Additionally, Brown will now be able to call for early elections in 2009, without having the headache of explaining what British troops are doing and why they are dying in relatively large numbers in a war that according to most people in Britain does not concern them.
When Blair ordered 46,000 troops to Iraq in 2003 (one third of the army's land forces) many wondered whether these soldiers even knew where they were heading. Operation Telic, as it was called, was the largest operation of the British army since World War II. With time, it became increasingly difficult to justify what the British were doing. Saddam Hussein was arrested; it was clear that he had no weapons of mass destruction and was not cooperating with al-Qaeda. And territories under British control were not becoming a haven for democracy, as Bush and Blair had been saying since 2003.
The British will not part with the Americans completely, however, keeping a large number of civilian personnel in Iraq, hoping to transfer their mission from a military one into an economic and developmental one that can serve bilateral British-Iraqi relations. The fact that Iraqi forces in Basra are unable - by their own account - to take over from the British seems to mean little to Brown. General Jalil Khalaf, the police commander of Basra, confirmed that his men cannot deal with the security vacuum that will be left by the British, noting that recently 40 women were killed in Basra by Islamic fundamentalists for not adhering to Islamic dress code.
Their bodies were mutilated - and this while the British were there - shedding light on what will likely happen to Basra the minute the British leave. Even at the House of Commons in London, the Defense Select Committee expressed doubt over Brown's decision to pull out, fearing that a post-British Basra will become a city swarming with violence, "dominated by criminals and Shi'ite militias".
Brown promised a phased withdrawal on reaching 10 Downing Street this summer. In October, he announced that the 5,000 troops in Basra would be dramatically reduced by mid-2008, and completely returned by Christmas 2008. That was simultaneous with (and regardless of) relative US success in arming Sunni militias to combat al-Qaeda in al-Anbar province. Brown wants to portray himself as a patriot who is gravely concerned about the wellbeing of British troops in Iraq.
He reads polls well - and realizes that for the first time in 20 years the opposition Conservative Party is 11 points ahead of the Brown government. Earlier, Brown had been accused by British servicemen in Iraq of showing "contempt" for the British war effort, failing to provide his men with needed equipment and funds while serving as minister of finance. General Lord Guthrie, the former chief of defense staff, claimed that a success story in Basra "could have been made available earlier if adequate funding had been found sooner" adding, "Brown must take most of the blame." Simultaneously, Anthony Seldon, in his biography of Blair, The Blair Effect, confirmed that when Brown was arguing with Blair over the 2004 budget, he said, "You're giving away too much and being outrun by those military bastards!" By simply evacuating his troops from Iraq, with little regard to consequences, Brown hopes that this chapter of his career will be turned - for good.
But let's go back to when Blair started this phased withdrawal from Basra in February. He had been hinting at troop withdrawal since visiting Baghdad in May 2006. The US insisted then - and now - that this does not mean a change of strategy, nor does it spell failure for the international coalition in Iraq. American statesmen repeated that eventual withdrawal was what the West had in mind for Iraq ever since they got there in 2003.
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe downplayed the importance of Blair's words at the time, saying they were not failure, but rather a "sign of success". Then, Blair commented on phased withdrawal, saying, "What all of this means is not that Basra is how we want it to be. But it does mean that the next chapter in Basra's history can be written by the Iraqis."
Let's try to imagine a post British-Basra; the second-largest city in Iraq with over 2.5 million inhabitants. Blair said that it was safer than Baghdad because the Iraqi capital was witnessing at the time what he labeled "an orgy of terrorism". True, the British in Basra did help reopen schools, equip hospitals, improve waterworks and secure oil platforms. Blair said that in Basra, there is "no Sunni insurgency, no al-Qaeda base, little Sunni or Shi'ite violence".
This is where both Blair and Brown made and are making a huge mistake. Blair purposely ignored all the violence that had taken place in Basra in 2006. Brown continues to deny the horrific situation there, claiming that the city - healed or not - will have to deal with its own affairs after the American and British messed it up in 2003.
The Basra that Brown wants to leave is one dominated by Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. His pictures are plastered on the walls and monuments of Basra, showing how powerful he really is. Alcohol is banned and veiling is becoming a must; those who refuse are arrested or beaten by religious militias who act as morality police squads. Merchants who sell alcohol have been beaten by the fundamentalists. Some have been even executed.
On April 21, 2004, a series of bombs ripped through the British-controlled city, killing several Sunnis, including a university professor. Armed men also stormed a police station, killing 11 policemen, and burning down two buildings. Sunnis have migrated en mass from Basra, fearing for their lives, and the British have been unable to protect them. A report by the US Department of State in 2006 on Basra described it saying, "Smuggling and criminal activity [continue] unabated. Intimidation attacks and assassination are common. Unemployment is high and economic development is hindered by weak government."
Supporters of the British prime minister point to a six-month truce pledged by Muqtada, saying there will be no violence in Basra. They claim that Muqtada is currently busy purging the Mahdi Army of devious and sectarian people who infiltrated because of their anti-US credentials since 2003. The new Mahdi Army will be one based on principle and character, where membership is based on strict criteria and recommendations of an earlier member in good standing. That is what Muqtada wants the world to believe, and it is very true - but for different reasons. Muqtada is conducting a facelift to make himself look nicer in Iraq. He is doing it to restructure, organize and empower himself to take over Basra.
Just because it is not carrying out military operations does not mean that the Mahdi Army is gone - or has become peaceful. On November 15 it reminded the world of how strong it is with a massive demonstration in Najaf, attended by tens of thousands of Sadrist supporters, commemorating the death of their master's father, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr.
The young cleric made a statement which was music to the ears of his supporters, saying: "I tell the evil Bush, leave our land, we do not need you or your armies. I tell the occupiers, you have your democracy and we have our Islam: get out of our land." He then unleashed a fiery war of words against everybody cooperating with the Americans, including Maliki, his Da'awa party and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the pro-Iranian and yet pro-American Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC).
Some analysts in Washington and Europe claim that Muqtada's "new vision" is being funded by Iran. They want to transform the Mahdi Army into another Hezbollah. These speculations surfaced in late 2006, published in The New Yorker by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. He wrote that the Bush White House had pressured Israel to wage its war on Hezbollah because he was afraid of repeating the Hezbollah model in failed states like Iraq.
All conditions that enabled Hezbollah to emerge and remain independent of US policy since the 1980s can be found today in Iraq. That is why Bush was seemingly very interested in wiping out the Lebanese group during the Israeli war - a target that was never achieved. The Lebanese military group, after all, has been a tremendous success in Lebanese politics and has managed to uplift and protect the Shi'ites of Lebanon since its inception in 1982.
The situation in Iraq is very similar to that of the Lebanese civil war. There is chaos, anger, occupation, arms - plenty of them - indoctrination, Shi'ite loyalties, and a strong patron like Iran. Riad Kahwaji, an expert on Iranian affairs, said, "Iran is definitely interested in having its own proxy political and military forces in Iraq, just like Lebanon. All the indicators so far are that Iran has invested a great deal in the Mahdi Army."
A source close to the SIIC's Hakim, who in turn is very close to Iran, confirms that the Shi'ite leader received assurances from Tehran, at the highest level, that the Islamic Republic would not abandon the SIIC in favor of the Mahdi Army. Hakim and Muqtada have been at odds for generations over control of the Iraqi Shi'ite community. Muqtada's spokesman Salah al-Obeidi, based in Najaf, denied these rumors, saying that although Muqtada admires Hezbollah, he does not plan to transform his army into a mirror image of the Lebanese group.
AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.
A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.
The admission will alarm the British business community after the case of the so-called NatWest Three, bankers who were extradited to America on fraud charges. More than a dozen other British executives, including senior managers at British Airways and BAE Systems, are under investigation by the US authorities and could face criminal charges in America.
Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the “extraordinary rendition” of terrorist suspects.
The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.
Legal experts confirmed this weekend that America viewed extradition as just one way of getting foreign suspects back to face trial. Rendition, or kidnapping, dates back to 19th-century bounty hunting and Washington believes it is still legitimate.
The US government’s view emerged during a hearing involving Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club and a friend of Baroness Thatcher, and his wife Beatrice.
The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts.
During a hearing last month Lord Justice Moses, one of the Court of Appeal judges, asked Alun Jones QC, representing the US government, about its treatment of Gavin, Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005.
Jones replied that it was acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they were wanted for offences in America. “The United States does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared,” he said.
He said that if a person was kidnapped by the US authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no US court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him: “If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse — it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860s.”
Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged Jones to be “honest about [his] position”.
Jones replied: “That is United States law.”
He cited the case of Humberto Alvarez Machain, a suspect who was abducted by the US government at his medical office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990. He was flown by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Texas for criminal prosecution.
Although there was an extradition treaty in place between America and Mexico at the time — as there currently is between the United States and Britain — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the Mexican had no legal remedy because of his abduction.
In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.
An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded Canadian officials to detain him. He wanted the Canadians to drive Tollman to the border to be handed over. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.
A Canadian judge ordered his release, ruling that the US Justice Department had set a “sinister trap” and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman returned to Britain.
Legal sources said that under traditional American justice, rendition meant capturing wanted people abroad and bringing them to the United States. The term “extraordinary rendition” was coined in the 1990s for the kidnapping of terror suspects from one foreign country to another for interrogation.
There was concern this weekend from Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP, who said: “The very idea of kidnapping is repugnant to us and we must handle these cases with extreme caution and a thorough understanding of the implications in American law.”
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said: “This law may date back to bounty hunting days, but they should sort it out if they claim to be a civilised nation.”
Lost in the post: the personal details of 25 million people
Who decided to post two discs with personal and financial details of 25 million people by unregistered delivery? What has become of the missing discs and could they have fallen into the hands of fraudsters? Why did the Government wait 10 days before telling the public what had happened? Where will the buck stop after the revenue chief's resignation? When can the British people be sure once again that their money is safe in their bank accounts?
By Colin Brown and Ben Russell
Seven million families are having to make urgent checks on their bank accounts today after the biggest security blunder in history led to the personal details of 25 million fathers, mothers and children being lost by the Whitehall department responsible for all tax and benefits.
The head of HM Revenue and Customs, Paul Gray – one of the country's most highly paid civil servants – resigned his £198,000-a-year post as the scale of the fiasco became clear.
But the Prime Minister and his embattled Chancellor, Alistair Darling, were counting the cost to their own reputations last night as the disaster left them looking accident-prone and open to opposition charges of incompetence.
The news that a package containing the personal details of every family in Britain with a child under 16 had gone missing in the post was greeted with astonishment and anger when it was revealed to MPs by the Chancellor.
It could not have come at a worse time for Mr Darling, who just 24 hours earlier had come under sustained attack from the opposition after admitting that taxpayers' money could be at risk in the £24bn rescue of Northern Rock.
Damaging as that crisis has been for the Government, the political fallout from the loss of millions of families' personal data could prove even more far-reaching. Gleeful Tories, urging the Chancellor in the starkest of language to "get a grip", were comparing it to John Major's hapless last days in power.
There was an audible intake of breath in the Commons as Mr Darling told MPs that two discs containing the details of all child benefit recipients, records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families, had been lost.
The records included the recipient's name and those of their children, their addresses and dates of birth, child benefit numbers, national insurance numbers and, where relevant, bank or building society account details – all the facts that fraudsters need to illegally remove money from banks.
They are the details that families are regularly being warned by the Government not to reveal to potential fraudsters. And they would be worth a fortune on the black market.
A junior official from HM Revenue and Customs had sent the discs to the National Audit Office at the NAO's request on 18 October by the HMRC's internal post, run by the courier firm TNT, even though it was in clear breach of the department's rules governing the release of such sensitive information and may have been in breach of data protection regulations.
The NAO, realising it had not received the data, ordered a further copy to be sent by HMRC. This time it was sent by registered post and did arrive.
It was only on 8 November, almost three weeks after the first discs were posted, that senior HMRC officials were told they were missing. They informed the Chancellor on 10 November, a Saturday. Hardly believing his ears, the Chancellor ordered "comprehensive searches to be carried out of all premises where the missing data might be found". He decided that the breach of security was so grave that he had to tell the Prime Minister immediately.
On 12 November, Mr Gray told Mr Darling that evidence might have been found of the route taken by the data and that the discs were likely to be recovered. However, two days later, those hopes were dashed when the HMRC chairman admitted that the internal searches had failed to trace the discs. The Chancellor ordered Mr Gray immediately to call in the Metropolitan Police to conduct a full investigation to find the missing package.
That inquiry was still under way yesterday. The police say they are confident no crime was involved.
Mr Darling told the Commons: "Our priority is to find this data. Searches continue to be carried out, including of the HMRC and NAO premises. Staff are being interviewed but so far the missing data has not been found."
It is not the first time that data has gone missing from the HMRC. The Information Commissioner was already investigating two earlier breaches by the department. In September, an HMRC employee reported that his laptop had been stolen from his car. The laptop contained customer details from about 15 financial institutions. The information was encrypted but the computer bag contained print-outs of some individuals' data.
And in October, the HMRC sent a CD via courier to Standard Life but the disc was lost en route. The CD was not encrypted and contained details of 15,000 Standard Life customers, including names and national insurance numbers.
For 10 days, the Government has been sitting on the news, knowing that when it came out there would be outrage mixed with deep anxiety. Last week, major clearing banks were secretly warned by the Government that there was a potential security breach. They were asked to make sure there had been no sudden surge in raids on personal bank accounts, evidence that the nightmare scenario – the discs falling into the hands of organised crime syndicates – had happened. On Monday, the Chancellor was told by the banks that they had found no trace of accounts being raided. That was the assurance he needed before a public announcement could be made.
George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, urged Mr Darling to take control of the crisis. "Never mind the lack of vision; just get a grip," he said. "Let us be clear about the scale of this catastrophic mistake – half the country will be very anxious about the safety of their family and the security, and the whole country will be wondering how on earth the Government allowed this to happen."
Fall from grace of a dependable civil servant
Bearded and bespectacled, sober and sensible, Paul Gray was known throughout the Civil Service as trustworthy and dependable. But that reputation was dealt a huge blow when he was held responsible for the biggest blunder in British data protection history. Although many MPs believe he has been made the "fall guy" for the incompetence of others, there was little doubt that the head of the chairman of HM Revenue and Customs would have to be the first to roll. Mr Gray, 59, who is married with two sons, was one of the 300 highest-paid civil servants, earning £198,000 a year. It is likely he will keep his pension but the Cabinet Office said yesterday he would not receive a special resignation package. Mr Gray joined the Treasury in 1969 and rose steadily through the ranks to become the economic affairs private secretary to the Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. When she quit in 1990, he returned to the Treasury to work on monetary policy. He then became head of personnel and central services. In 1998, Mr Gray joined the Department of Social Security as head of policy, before becoming second permanent secretary for pensions and disability in the Department for Work and Pensions. He oversaw the merger of the former DSS, the Employment Service and parts of the Department for Education and Employment, which made him the ideal choice to head the merged Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise departments when the HMRC was established by Gordon Brown in 2004.
Mr Gray, a Leicester City football fan, keeps a small flock of Wensleydale sheep. He will now have a lot more time to tend them.
