Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/After_domestic_spying_reports_U.S._spying_1227.html

Rice authorized National Security Agency to spy on UN Security Council
in run-up to war, former officials say

Jason Leopold

December 27, 2005

President Bush and other top officials in his administration used the
National Security Agency to secretly wiretap the home and office
telephones and monitor private email accounts of members of the United
Nations Security Council in early 2003 to determine how foreign
delegates would vote on a U.N. resolution that paved the way for the
U.S.-led war in Iraq, NSA documents show.

Two former NSA officials familiar with the agency's campaign to spy on
U.N. members say then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
authorized the plan at the request of President Bush, who wanted to know
how delegates were going to vote. Rice did not immediately return a call
for comment.

The former officials said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also
participated in discussions about the plan, which involved "stepping up"
efforts to eavesdrop on diplomats.
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A spokeswoman at the White House who refused to give her name also would
not comment, and pointed to a March 3, 2003 press briefing by former
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer when questions about U.N.
spying were first raised.

"As a matter of long-standing policy, the administration never comments
on anything involving any people involved in intelligence," Fleischer
said. "So I'm not saying yes and I'm not saying no."

Disclosure of the wiretaps and the monitoring of U.N. members' email
came on the eve of the Iraq war in the British-based Observer. The leak
-- which the paper acquired in the form of an email via a British
translator -- came amid a U.S. push urging U.N. members to vote in favor
of a resolution that said Iraq was in violation of U.N. resolution 1441,
asserting that it had failed to rid the country of weapons of mass
destruction.

News of the NSA spying on the U.N. received scant coverage in U.S.
newspapers at the time. But with the explosive domestic spying report
published in the New York Times last week, a closer examination of
pre-war spying may shed light on whether the Bush administration has
used the NSA for its own political purposes, as opposed to tracking down
communications regarding potential terrorist threats against the U.S.

The leaked NSA email detailing the agency's spy tactics against the U.N.
was written Jan. 31, 2003 by Chief of Staff for Regional Targets Frank
Koza. In the email, Koza asked an undisclosed number of NSA and British
intelligence officials to "pay attention to existing non-UN Security
Council Member UN-related and domestic comms (home and office
telephones) for anything useful related to Security Council deliberations."

One intelligence source who spoke to RAW STORY said top White House
officials and some Republican members of Congress had debated in
December 2002 whether to step up the surveillance of U.N. officials to
include eavesdropping on home telephone and personal email accounts.
Some feared that in the event it was discovered, it would further erode
relations between the U.S. and the U.N.

The source added that U.S. spying on the U.N. isn't new.

"It's part of the job," the intelligence source said. "Everyone knows
it's being done."

Eavesdropping on U.N. diplomats is authorized under the U.S. Foreign
Intelligence Services Act. However, it's still considered a violation of
the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which says that "The
receiving state shall permit and protect free communication on the part
of the mission for all official purposes... The official correspondence
of the mission shall be inviolable."

According to one former official, "The administration pushed the
envelope by tapping their home phones."

Koza's email, a copy of which is included at the end of this report,
says the "Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN
Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for
insights as to how to membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE:
Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/
negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies,
etc."

"The whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge
in obtaining results favorable to U.S. goals or to head off surprises.
In RT, that means a QRC surge effort to revive/ create efforts against
UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, as well as
extra focus on Pakistan UN matters."

Koza's email was sent out to NSA and British intelligence officials
through a top secret surveillance network set up by the NSA, the British
Government Communication Headquarters and similar intelligence agencies
based in Australia, New Zealand and Canada known as Echelon.

Moreover, the email was distributed just four days after Hans Blix filed
his Iraq weapons report with the U.N.

It was leaked to a handful of media outlets in the U.S. and U.K. by
Katharine Tersea Gun, a former translator for British intelligence. Gun
was arrested in November 2003 and charged with violating her country's
Official Secrets Act. She said she felt compelled to leak the memo
because she believed the U.S. and Britain were about to launch an
illegal war.

"Any disclosures that may have been made were justified on the following
grounds: because they exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the
part of the U.S. Government who attempted to subvert our own security
services and, to prevent wide-scale death and casualties among ordinary
Iraqi people and UK forces in the course of an illegal war," she said in
a statement at the time.

In his book "Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward, deputy managing editor of
the Washington Post, said the administration was also spying on Hans
Blix, the U.N. weapons inspector sent to Iraq to look for WMDs.

"One of the things that's gone unnoticed is national intelligence assets
spying on Hans Blix," Woodward told the Council on Foreign Relations on
June 9, 2004 "And Bush was getting these reports and felt that there was
incongruity between what Blix was saying publicly and what he was
actually doing. It makes it very clear we were wiretapping Hans Blix."

In an article for Counterpunch, media critic Norman Solomon noted that
the U.S. media barely covered the U.N. spying.

"Nearly 96 hours after the Observer had reported it, I called Times
deputy foreign editor Alison Smale and asked why not," Solomon writes.
"'We would normally expect to do our own intelligence reporting,' Smale
replied. She added that 'we could get no confirmation or comment.' In
other words, U.S. intelligence officials refused to confirm or discuss
the memo -- so the Times did not see fit to report on it."

The Washington Post printed a 514-word article on a back page with the
headline "Spying Report No Shock to U.N," while the Los Angeles Times
emphasized from the outset that U.S. spy activities at the United
Nations are "long-standing," Solomon wrote.

Solomon says his research turned up only one story which took the spying
seriously -- a Mar. 4, 2003 piece in the Baltimore Sun.

The leaked NSA email which revealed the spying follows.
#

To: [Recipients withheld] From: FRANK KOZA, Def Chief of Staff (Regional
Targets) CIV/NSA Sent on Jan 31 2003 0:16 Subject: Reflections of Iraq
Debate/Votes at UN-RT Actions + Potential for Related Contributions
Importance: HIGH Top Secret//COMINT//X1 All, As you've likely heard by
now, the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN
Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for
insights as to how to membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE:
Iraq, plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/
negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies,
etc - the whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an
edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off
surprises. In RT, that means a QRC surge effort to revive/ create
efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and
Guinea, as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters. We've also asked
ALL RT topi's to emphasize and make sure they pay attention to existing
non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful
related to the UNSC deliberations/ debates/ votes. We have a lot of
special UN-related diplomatic coverage (various UN delegations) from
countries not sitting on the UNSC right now that could contribute
related perspectives/ insights/ whatever. We recognize that we can't
afford to ignore this possible source. We'd appreciate your support in
getting the word to your analysts who might have similar, more in-direct
access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines. I
suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels
- especially as this effort will probably peak (at least for this
specific focus) in the middle of next week, following the SecState's
presentation to the UNSC. Thanks for your help