The _resident and the
shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair...There is
no where for them to go politically...
"Out, out damn spot!"
Andrew Grice, Independent/UK: Labour MPs will press
the Prime Minister about a claim in a new biography
which says he received "snippets of the French
President's private conversations" when France and
Britain were in dispute over the prospect of military
action. Mr Blair accused President Chirac of
scuppering a second United Nations resolution
authorising a war.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=495996&host=3&dir=62
British intelligence gave Blair 'snippets of Chirac's private conversations'
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
28 February 2004
Tony Blair will be challenged next week over
allegations that he received British intelligence
reports about the private conversations of Jacques
Chirac in the approach to the Iraq war.
Labour MPs will press the Prime Minister about a claim
in a new biography which says he received "snippets of
the French President's private conversations" when
France and Britain were in dispute over the prospect
of military action. Mr Blair accused President Chirac
of scuppering a second United Nations resolution
authorising a war.
Philip Stephens, a political columnist at The
Financial Times, says in his book: "Blair came to
believe, partly on the basis of reports from British
intelligence, that the dispute over Iraq was, in fact,
a proxy for a much more serious contest.
"Chirac, these reports said, had decided that Blair
had usurped his own position as the natural leader of
Europe. It was time for the French President to
reassert himself and clip the wings of perfidious
Albion. In other words, this feud was personal as well
as political."
The claim has added to the controversy over Clare
Short's allegation on Thursday that British
intelligence spied on Kofi Annan, the United Nations
secretary general. If the claim is true, it suggests
the British operation went beyond the UN headquarters
in New York.
John McDonnell, the Labour MP for Hayes and
Harlington, said: "It would cause me and large numbers
of Labour MPs immense anxiety if the Government has
authorised this kind of spying operation against the
French President."
He added: "We need clarity from the Prime Minister. We
need to know the extent of these operations, so we can
ask on what grounds they were conducted and whether
they were appropriate.
"It does demonstrate the level of obsession, or almost
panic, to ensure the UN adopted a second resolution to
justify the case for war." Mr McDonnell and fellow
members of the left-wing Campaign Group of Labour MPs
will table written Commons questions to the Prime
Minister next week on the spying allegations.
They have put down a Commons motion urging him to make
a statement about the scale of the "eavesdropping
operation" and to clarify whether it included Mr
Annan, permanent members of the UN Security Council,
other countries, organisations opposed to the war and
MPs.
In his book, Tony Blair - The Making of a World
Leader, published in America last month, Mr Stephens
says the Prime Minister believed President Chirac was
"out to get him".
The French government is not planning any diplomatic
protest over the allegation. French sources have
denied the French President was motivated by a desire
to stop the Prime Minister becoming the leading figure
in the European Union. They insist he was anxious to
prevent a premature war.
There is little sign that other parties will let the
matter drop. Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish
National Party at Westminster, said: "Last year Tony
Blair was lying, this year he's spying. Just when you
thought Tony Blair couldn't sink any lower, he manages
to plumb new depths of conduct. He has lost his moral
compass."
Mr Salmond said the Crown Prosecution Service should
be investigating Ms Short's allegation of illegal
spying operations and uncovering who approved them.