[Media-watch] Fw: from Ken Coates

[Henry McCubbin]

Dear All,

I thought that you might be interested in the following exchange initiated
by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

Regards Henry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony Simpson" <ELFEURO at compuserve.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 2:12 PM
Subject: from Ken Coates


Dear Friend,

I thought you might be interested to see this exchange about the censoring
of the Iraqi Declaration on Weapons of Mass Destruction submitted in
December in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1441.

Of  course, the Declaration is central to the second UN draft resolution in
the name of the United Kingdom, United States and Spain, proposed on 24
February, which reads:  "noting that Iraq has submitted a declaration
pursuant to its resolution 1441 containing false statements and omissions."


It seems to me that many serious questions remain unresolved. Might you be
able to raise this matter in some way?

With every good wish.

Yours sincerely,

Ken Coates
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation

*****

Dossier

Letters published in the The Times from Ken Coates and Llew Smith MP

Letter from Hans von Sponeck

Exchange With Joschka Fischer, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Germany

Exchange with Anna Lindh, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sweden

***

LETTERS PUBLISHED IN THE TIMES


February 26, 2003

Implications of weapons dossier cuts
>From Professor Ken Coates


Sir, In his response to my letter published on February 13, Llew Smith, MP
(letter, February 18), throws a further interesting light on the
suppression of two thirds of the Iraqi dossier on weapons of mass
destruction which was submitted to the United Nations on December 7.
However, I have recently received more informative letters from the Swedish
Foreign Secretary and from Hans von Sponeck, the former Assistant
Secretary-General to the UN who resigned in protest at UN policy in 2000,
who is glad that this matter has now emerged into the public domain.

On December 7 the presidency of the Security Council was held by Colombia.
I understand that the United States deployed all the arts of persuasion to
ensure that Colombia yielded up the Iraqi dossier on the implausible
pretext that the Americans had superior photocopying facilities to those
which were available in the United Nations Secretariat. I still have not
been able to elicit precise information about how the suppression of so
much of the dossier was decided. But there is a more serious matter.

Both the British and Swedish Foreign Offices agree that the permanent
members of the Security Council were involved in transferring to Unmovic
and the IAEA the decision about what to excise. But the Swedish Foreign
Minister registers the opinion that the Security Council cannot risk having
an A team and a B team, one of which is informed, and the other not.

Certainly the permanent members have a special status in respect of voting,
but they have no constitutionally valid special status in terms of access
to information, or rights to withhold inconvenient information from their
colleagues.

This raises a vital principle. As Hans von Sponeck writes in his letter to
me:


It is not only a case of unacceptable differential treatment of permanent
and non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, it is also a
challenge to the neutrality of the UN Secretariat.

Yours sincerely,
KEN COATES
(Chairman),
The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation,
Russell House,
Bulwell Lane, Nottingham NG6 0BT, February 25

***

February 18, 2003

>From Mr Llew Smith, MP for Blaenau Gwent (Labour)

Sir,

Professor Ken Coates asks (letter, February 13th) who authorised the
deletion of 8,000 pages of Iraq's original declaration to the United
Nations last December, prior to its distribution to non-permanent UN
Security Council members.

I asked the Foreign Secretary about this removal of information in a
written question, to which I received the following reply from junior
Foreign Office Minister, Denis MacShane:

             The President of the UN Security Council decided that the
Iraqi
             Declaration should first be given to [permanent] members of
the
             Security Council with the expertise to assess the risks of
proliferation.
             UNMOVIC and the IAEA will judge what material needs to be
             excised before it distributes the declaration to all Security
Council
             members (Hansard, December 17, 2002, col.764W).

While I can accept the sensitivity of some of the details in the Iraqi
declaration, which could contain information on how to make certain weapons
of mass destruction, I do not accept that the diplomatic delegations of
member states of the United Nations Security Council would be unable to
keep confidential information that should remain so.

I prefer the suggestion made at the time (report, December 12) that the
Iraqi declaration named US and UK suppliers to Iraq's military programme
that our Governments did not want made public, as it would show direct
complicity in building up Saddam's weapons arsenal.

Yours sincerely,
LLEW SMITH
House of Commons
February 13.

***
February 13, 2003

Weapons declaration

>From Professor Ken Coates

Sir, Jack Straw claims that Iraq's declaration about its weapons of mass
destruction, submitted to the United Nations in December, "was neither
full, accurate, nor complete" (Comment, February 5).

The elected members of the United Nations Security Council will have to
take Mr Straw's word for it, since we understand that more than 8,000 of
the declaration's 11,800 pages were omitted when it was circulated to them.


The full dossier was given to the United Nations and transported to New
York, where by some mechanism it came into the hands of the United States
Administration, which promised to copy it for members of the Security
Council. In the event, two thirds of the declaration were withheld from the
ten non-permanent members. I wrote to these members asking whether British
press reports on these
matters were true (an inquiry to the office of the Secretary-General had
produced no response).

The current President of the Security Council, Joschka Fischer, confirmed
these facts. In a letter dated Monday, February 3, his office writes:

"The facts of the case as you present them are correct. In fact the Iraqi
statement of around 12,000 pages of 8th December was given in full only to
the five permanent members of the Security Council."

Who authorised this substantial deletion?

Yours sincerely,

KEN COATES
(Chairman),
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation,

*******

LETTER FROM HANS VON SPONECK

 Dear Professor Coates,

The seriousness of the 'dossier incident' indeed has been overlooked by
media and others because of the speed with which the Iraq crisis is
evolving. It remains nevertheless a most serious issue which is unique in
the history of relations between the UN Secretariat and an individual
member government. It is not only a case of unacceptable differential
treatment of permanent and non-permanent members of the UN Security
Council, it is also a challenge to the neutrality of the UN Secretariat.
When the broader issue is about war or peace the behaviour of the US
Government becomes even more unacceptable. One government insists on a
privileged position through premature acquisition of a key document. This
in fact reduces the UN to being a tool to a member state.
I am grateful that you are raising this matter,

 Yours, Hans von Sponeck


*****

EXCHANGE WITH JOSCHKA FISCHER, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, GERMANY

31 December 2002

Dear Foreign Minister,

As was widely reported in the press, The Iraqi Government prepared an
11800 page dossier on its role in relation to weapons of mass destruction.
We understand that this dossier was given to the UN and transported to New
York, where by some mechanism on which we are not completely clear, it came
into the hands of the United States administration, which promised to copy
it for members of the Security Council.

It has been reported in the British p ress that in fact the non! -permanent
members of the Security Council were given more than 8000 pages fewer than
the number which were submitted originally by the Iraqi Government. Is this
true? Can you tell us what explanation has been offered for the decision to
furnish less than full information about the operation of resolution 1441
to members of the Security Council? How is it expected that you can play a
full part in the deliberations which are to come, if you are not in
possession of all the evidence?

Since questions of peace and war will be at stake, do you not think that it
is obligatory that all members of the Security Council should, by right,
receive all relevant information on the subjects to be decided?

Yours sincerely,

Ken Coates

***
Dear Professor Coates

Many thanks for your letter of 31st December to the Federal German Foreign
Minister Herr Joschka Fischer who has asked me to reply to you,

The facts of the case as you pres ent them are correct. In ! fact the Iraqi
statement of around 12,000 pages of 8th December was given in full only to
the 5 permanent members of the Security Council. At this point in time the
Federal Republic of Germany was not a member of the security council.

As you know, our temporary membership (of the security council) began on
the 1st January. The circumstances of the distribution of documents to the
15 members of the Security Council was a decision of the former chair of
the security council, Columbia. I can imagine that the Columbian diplomatic
representatives at the United Nations in New York are in a better position
to answer your, in my opinion, very valid question, in regard to the
reasons for the particular modality of document distribution that took
place at that time.

Once again, many thanks for your letter. I ask for your understanding that
I've replied in German.

With friendly greetings and best wishes for your work

Writing as instructed

Dr Ingo Winkelmann
******

EXCHANGE WITH ANNA LINDH, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SWEDEN

5 February 2003

Dear Professor Coates,

You are indeed correct in assuming that Iraq has taken much of my time
these
last few months. Iraq remains an issue high on the EU agenda, an! d it is
of
course also an important issue on the Swedish domestic political scene. As
for the latter, I am glad to note the political support my Government has
received from most other Swedish parties for our position which, as you
know, emphasizes the need for a peaceful solution to the conflict, letting
the inspectors fulfil their mandate, and keeping the UN Security Council in
control of the process.

I do agree when you, in your letter, state that the administrative conduct
of the United Nations should be beyond reproach. I do not, however, agree
with your description of how the Iraqi declaration was handled by the
Security Council, UNMOVIC and the IAEA. The Iraqi declaration was addressed
to UNMOVIC and the IAEA, and they received one original set each. After
Council consultations it was decided that the five permanent members should
receive a copy of the declaration in full, in order to be able to advise
UNMOVIC and the IAEA on what parts could possibly be e! dited out of the
declaration. For logistical reasons, the permanent five agreed to let the
copying be done by the USA.

UNMOVIC then received advice and suggestions from the permanent five, but
the final edited version of the declaration is the work of UNMOVIC itself.
I understand there were no differences between UNMOVIC, the IAEA and the
permanent five on what parts should be taken out. The 8,000 pages that were
taken out are supportive documents, containing technical information, which
Iraq at earlier stages had already submitted to the inspectors and to the
Council. These 8,000 pages are available on request to the non-permanent
members of the Council (I understand that no such request has yet been made
to UNMOVIC or the IAEA).

I am therefore satisfied that the handling of the declaration was made in a
way that ensured that UNMOVIC and the IAEA had unrestricted and
uncontrolled access to the declaration. That is, in this case, the most
important aspect of the process.

Not having taken part of the declaration myself, I cannot comment on the
need to edit it. I have, however, for the sake of non-proliferation, an
understanding of the need not to unnecessarily circulate information that
could be used by others in order to gain information, for example,
technical
information about nuclear weaponry.

As for the handling of the declaration in the Council, we are concerned by
the criticism made by Norway and others, that it showed that the Council
risked being divided into an 'A-team' and a 'B-team'. This is serious, and
we should make sure that the Iraqi declaration is a unique case, and does
not set a precedent.

Yours sincerely,

Anna Lindh
***

Mrs Anna Lindh
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Sweden

13th February, 2003

Dear Mrs Lindh,

I am very grateful for the trouble you have taken to respond to my e nquiry
about the handling of the Iraqi declaration by the Security Council,
UNMOVIC and the IAEA. Yours is the most detailed description of events that
I have been able to elicit, and I do very much appreciate your kindness in
spelling it out. I had previously received a letter from the German Foreign
Ministry, on the instructions of Joschka Fischer, which confirmed "the
facts of the case as you present them are correct".

As you will see, I quoted this in my recent letter to The Times,
publication
of which was slightly delayed whilst they made their own independent
enquiries. But your letter presents the matter in a different light. Of
course, Germany only joined the Security Council after these events had
already taken place, and so it is understandable that some
misunderstandings
could arise, especially in a complex case like this one. However, at least
part of the difficulty arises from the letter of the Permanent Mission of
the Republic of Iraq to the United Nations, dated 7th Decemb! er 2002. This
letter is addressed to Mr. Alfonso Valdivisco, the Colombian UN Ambassador,
who was President of the Security Council at the time. I enclose a copy,
which, I am sorry to say, is not very readable. It says that the
declarations required of Iraq are "contained in" the letter. Does this mean
that there were, in fact, two copies, one of which went to the Colombian
President, and the other of which was split between the two relevant
inspectorates? I ask you this question because we received a journalistic
account of various alleged pressures which were said to have been brought
to
bear on Colombia by the Americans.

Of course, I would like to set the record straight, and to inform The Times
newspaper about what you have said, and also, as a courtesy, to inform
Joschka Fischer.

It has been precisely because I agree with you and the Norwegians that an
"A-team" and "B-team" are incompatible with good governance that I have
bee n anxious to get to the b! ottom of this affair. It is my understanding
that the Irish Government shares this conviction. I am very pleased that
you
uphold an identical view.

I very much fear that war may break out whatever happens in the Security
Council, although of course I hope that wiser counsels will prevail. It
seems to me that a very large majority of Europe's peoples would refer to
take the Swedish road, had they only got the opportunity so to do.

With my respect and very good wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Ken Coates
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation

*******