Leaked cables show US, UK quarrel on spy flights
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}British officials complained to U.S. diplomats about secret American spy flights using foreign U.K. airbases, fearing that the data collected during those missions could implicate their country in potential human rights violations, according to secret diplomatic memos released by WikiLeaks.
The British officials demanded from American diplomats that all such flights in the future be cleared by London, according to the cables sent by U.S. Embassy in London in 2008, and which were released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday.
American officials dismissed the British concerns and demands as burdensome and obstructive to counterterrorism efforts, the cables showed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}At the heart of the dispute were U.S. spy flights flown over Turkey, northern Iraq and Lebanon that used the British airbase in Cyprus. The planes collected intelligence that was passed on to third party governments including Lebanon. American diplomats wrote that the British feared that the U.K. could unwittingly aid torture because of that.
British officials pressed U.S. diplomats to ensure that no detainee captured as a result of the intelligence gathered during those flights were tortured. The cables did not say what kind of intelligence the spy planes gathered, or whether anyone was tortured as a result.
The British officials also demanded that all future spy flights using British territories be cleared by London.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It is important for us to be satisfied that HMG (her majesty's government) is not indirectly aiding the commission of unlawful acts by those governments on the basis of the information gathered through the assistance we provide to the U.S.," Will Jessett, then the British director of counter-terrorism at the Defense Ministry, wrote in a letter to the American Embassy.
But Richard LeBaron, a U.S. diplomat, wrote to his colleagues in Washington that the demands were "burdensome" and "unrealistic."
"Embassy London ... recommend that DOD (Department of Defense) and State (Department) officials raise with U.K. counterparts the concern that excessive conditions such as described above will hinder, if not obstruct, our cooperative counterterrorism efforts," he wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"While we share HMG's concerns that human rights not be sacrificed for the sake of CT (counterterrorism), we cannot take a risk-avoidance approach to CT in which the fear of potentially violating human rights allows terrorism to proliferate in Lebanon" LeBaron was quoted as saying.
Maura Connelly, another American diplomat, commented in an April 2008 cable that the demands for political approval — rather than through military channels — added up to "an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy."
A third cable showed how a British Foreign Office official had to smooth relations as a result of the clash. The American side relented slightly, saying they would provide more detailed reports on the spy flights — but only as a matter of courtesy, not a precedent for future reports.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The documents were part of more than 250,000 cables from hundreds of U.S. embassies around the world obtained by WikiLeaks, and posted on its website. The trove of secret material has been published by newspapers worldwide, embarrassing the U.S. government and numerous foreign leaders.
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Online:
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}— http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2008/05/08LONDON1412.html
— http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2008/05/08LONDON1350.html
— http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2008/04/08LONDON1115.html