Iraq bugging U.N. phones, report says - Agents said to be monitoring offices, concealing documents

Associated Press ^ | February 5, 2003 | Associated Press Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Iraq bugging U.N. phones, report says

Agents said to be monitoring offices, concealing documents

02/05/2003

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS - Iraqi security agents have bugged every room and telephone of the U.N. weapons inspectors based in Baghdad and have hidden documents in Iraqi hospitals, mosques and homes, a new British report says.

The intelligence officers outnumber the inspectors 20,000 to 108 and are "engaged in disrupting their inspections," said the 18-page British government report released here on Monday.

The British dossier follows U.S. and British claims that Iraq has failed to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors and has hidden weapons of mass destruction. It draws on intelligence and other sources but does not contain any supporting documentation to back its claims.

In November, when the new inspection teams arrived, they spent several days "debugging" and sweeping their offices for other surveillance equipment.

Iraq maintains that it is cooperating with the inspectors. In a Canadian Broadcasting Corp interview last week, Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, said Iraq would continue to do so in the future. "All other aspects of cooperation have been met and we promise to be more forthcoming in the future replying to all their needs in [a] way that will satisfy them," he said.

Nevertheless, top U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council in a report last week that Iraq has failed to fully cooperate. He said that Iraq was good on access but weak on substance.

The British report said that the Iraqis have installed surveillance equipment in the hotels and offices used by the experts. "All their meetings are monitored, their relationships observed, their conversations listened to."

Iraqi officials, the dossier said, had hidden prohibited items and documents in homes and beneath hospitals and mosques.

From the moment the U.N. experts enter Iraq, their every movement is monitored, the report said.

"They are escorted by seemingly helpful security guards and almost all of them are members of the al-Mukhabarat [intelligence agency]. If the driver is an Iraqi, he is al-Mukhabarat, too."

Journeys to suspected weapons sites are monitored by security officers along the route, and any change of destination is telephoned or radioed ahead - "so that arrival is anticipated," the dossier said.

Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer with the inspectors, conceded there can be friction.

"The inspection process has been carried out sometimes in a way that is almost aggressive and has sometimes led to the freezing of the movement of people or vehicles," Gen. Amin said.

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/world/stories/020503dnintiraqspy.b2ae9.html

[Fitzcarraldo]

The United States is bugging everyone's phones. LOL!

[RLK]

UNITED NATIONS - Iraqi security agents have bugged every room and telephone of the U.N. weapons inspectors based in Baghdad and have hidden documents in Iraqi hospitals, mosques and homes, a new British report says.

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What the hell kind of documents could the be supposedly hiding. The complete instructions for making an atom bomb would tale 100 pages. The entire Iraqi weapons program could be documented in three moderate sized books. We act as if we expect to find the library of congress hidden somewhere.

[Redleg Duke]

I'm shocked, I tell you! Shocked!