Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses

by Mark Curtis

  Invading Iraq will if anything increase terrorism

  At one level, it was obvious that invading Iraq would increase the likelihood of terrorism. The use of Anglo-American brute force in the occupation of Iraq, coupled with de facto support for Israeli aggression in the West Bank, was always going to provide a spur to a second generation of terrorists – in much the same way that Anglo-American covert support for the mujahidin fighters in 1980s Afghanistan helped to create the first.

  On 10 February 2003, five weeks before the invasion began, a secret JIC report stated that any terrorist threat would increase by invading Iraq:

  Al Qaeda and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest threat to Western interests and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq . . . Any collapse of the Iraq regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, including al Qaeda.59

  Over the 10 days following this assessment, 18 senior politicians were briefed by JIC chairman, John Scarlett, about Iraq.60 It seems likely that the increased threat to Britain resulting from an invasion of Iraq was known to a wide set of people; the same politicians, that is, who now pose as our saviours in protecting the country from the scourge of terrorism.

  In December 2003, the government wrote in a memorandum to the Foreign Affairs Committee that 'coalition action in Iraq, and other regional issues, has sustained and may have increased terrorist motivation', although added that 'we have no direct evidence that it has increased al Qaeda recruitment'. The Foreign Affairs Committee concluded in a report published in February 2004 that 'the war in Iraq has possibly made terrorist attacks against British nationals and British interests more likely in the short term'.61

  4

  THE NEW MINISTRY OF

  OFFENCE

  It is rarely difficult to discover plausible reasons for government actions; the invasion of Iraq is no exception. A good starting point is to ignore official explanations and the media commentary they provoke and to look at what the government is saying elsewhere. Two important documents have recently been produced by the government which help to explain possible reasons for the invasion. Both have been virtually ignored in the mainstream media. Together they offer a worrying insight into the current thinking of British foreignpolicy planners.

  Securing foreign energy supplies

  As Tony Blair, Jack Straw and others were swearing that war with Iraq could not possibly have anything to do with oil, the government published a document in February 2003, just weeks before the invasion began, showing how concerned it is with securing foreign energy supplies.

  The document is the Department of Trade and Industry's white paper called Our energy future – Creating a low carbon economy. Tony Blair's foreword to the document notes that Britain faces 'new challenges' and that 'our energy supplies will increasingly depend on imported gas and oil from Europe and beyond'. The document then outlines the central dilemma that 'as a country we have been a net exporter of energy . . . but this will change.' Britain, it says, is set to become a net importer of gas by around 2006 and of oil by around 2010:

  By 2010 we are likely to be importing around threequarters of our primary energy needs. And by that time half the world's gas and oil will be coming from countries that are currently perceived as relatively unstable, either in political or economic terms.

  Therefore, the report continues, 'moving from being largely self-sufficient to being a net importer of gas and oil requires us to take a longer term strategic international approach to energy reliability'.

  One solution emphasised strongly in the report is to diversify sources of energy and 'avoid the UK being reliant on too few international sources of oil and gas'. The key gassupplying countries and regions will be Russia, the Middle East, North and West Africa, and the Caspian Sea region. For oil, which accounts for 40 per cent of global energy consumption, the major producers will be Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, South and Central America, Africa, Russia and the Caspian region. Of particular importance to ensuring diversity of oil sources, the report notes, are non-OPEC suppliers such as Russia, the Caspian region and West Africa. Therefore, 'we will continue to promote good relations with existing and new suppliers in the Middle East, Russia, the Caspian and Africa'.

  Overall, the report states that 'we need to give greater prominence to strategic energy issues in foreign policy' across the government. 'Our aims are to maintain strong relations with exporting countries' while 'in promoting diversity we will also work to minimise the risk of disruption to supplies from regional disputes'.1

  This document goes a long way to explaining the close relationships between London and the regimes discussed in part three of this book, notably Russia, Colombia, Indonesia and Nigeria – with all of whom Britain is maintaining 'good relations', while they exterminate sections of their populations. All are important producers of oil and gas offering alternative sources of supply to the Middle East. Russia, which has the world's largest gas reserves, is especially important following the recent signing by BP and Shell of investment agreements in the Russian energy sector worth billions of pounds.

  Nor is it fanciful to suggest that a factor in the British intervention in Sierra Leone – universally described as 'humanitarian' – was to ensure regional 'stability' (i.e., pro-Western governments) partly to ensure continued access to oil in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa (see Chapter 7). As regards the Caspian, the desire to secure Western control over the region's oil and gas reserves, in rivalry with Russia, was a likely factor in the Anglo- American bombing of Afghanistan, as I argued in Web of Deceit.

  US strategy could hardly be clearer. In 2003 the Pentagon announced that it was moving 5,000-6,000 troops from bases in Germany to new bases in various countries in Africa. The express purpose was to protect US oil interests in Nigeria, which in future could account for 25 per cent of US oil imports. Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner, had previously said that African oil 'has become a national security strategic interest'. The Bush administration's national energy policy, released in May 2001, predicted that West Africa would become 'one of the fastest growing sources of oil and gas for the American market'. Currently the region supplies around 12 per cent of US crude-oil imports; the US National Intelligence Council estimates that this share will rise to 25 per cent by 2015.2

  US officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have recently visited African oil-producing countries such as Gabon, Sao Tome and Angola while the US has stepped up military ties to Nigeria at the same time as pressing it to pull out of OPEC. The political advantage of these states to the US (and also to Britain) is that none of them, apart from Nigeria, belongs to OPEC. As Robert Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company has noted, 'there is a long term strategy from the US government to weaken OPEC's hold on the market and one way to do that is to peel off certain countries'. US oil companies were set to invest around £10 billion in African oil in 2003.3

  Documents leaked to the Guardian in late 2003 provided further evidence of a joint Anglo-American strategy to 'secure African oil'. A US report to the President and Prime Minister noted that:

  We have identified a number of key oil and gas producers in the West Africa area on which our two governments and major oil and gas companies could cooperate to improve investment conditions, good governance, social and political stability, and thus underpin long term security of supply.

  These areas included Nigeria, Sao Tome, Equatorial Guinea and Angola. British officials were charged with developing 'investment issues facing Africa that could be ripe for US-UK coordinated attention'.

  The report also stated that Britain and the US 'have noted the huge energy potential of Russia, Central Asia and the Caspian' and that 'in our discussions on how to move forward in approaching Russia and the Caspian/Central Asian countries, we have concluded that we have similar political, economic, social and energy obje
ctives'.4

  Many post-war British interventions and policies are rooted in the need to exercise continued control over, or access to, energy supplies. The recent government documents signify a new phase in the ongoing policy defined in the declassified British files.

  The issue of control of oil, rather than simply access, is more clearly the motivation for the US, which currently satisfies three-quarters of its energy demand from domestic sources. But control of oil has also been a critical factor for Whitehall, particularly given British companies' huge role in the international oil industry and their vast investments in many countries. As Foreign Secretary Rab Butler told the Prime Minister in April 1964:

  It is not that we are frightened of oil being cut off by unfriendly local governments, but the profitability of the oil companies' operations and the supply of oil to consumer countries including our own on acceptable terms, is most important for our economy and our balance of payments. This depends in part on the diversity of political control of the main sources of oil (eg, if Iraq controlled Kuwait, we might all be held to ransom). This would be especially dangerous for the UK for we draw 60% of our oil requirements from the area.5

  Similarly, the Treasury noted in 1956 that, given Britain's dependence on oil:

  It is highly desirable that we should not have to rely on oil which is increasingly controlled by other powers, including even the USA, whose interests are not necessarily identical with our own. Further, the large investments of British companies in the Western hemisphere provide a partial insurance against the interruption of supplies from the Middle East.6

  A Cabinet Office report of 1960 noted that 'there is a particular United Kingdom interest at stake' in the Middle East, namely 'the profits made by the United Kingdom oil companies from their operations in the area'. The overall strategy was therefore to be 'continued control of sources of oil with consequential profits to United Kingdom' [sic].7

  The files show the huge profits made in the past by British oil companies in the Middle East. The Treasury noted in 1956 that the benefit to the British balance of payments generated by British oil companies was around £200 million a year in recent years. In 1964 the Foreign Office similarly noted that 'our balance of payments depends significantly on oil operations' in the region. It calculated that British oil companies continued to earn the balance of payments £200 million per year 'and might be much more'. No wonder that the British strategy was 'to preserve as long as possible the advantageous arrangements under which we obtain our oil from the Middle East'.8

  The Foreign Office noted in March 1967 that oil supplied 40 per cent of the world's energy needs and that the international trade in oil was controlled by eight companies, two of which, Shell and BP, were British. It stated that 'the United Kingdom has a stake in the international oil industry second only to that of the United States'. The overseas book value of British investments was £2,000 million. Also:

  From our massive stake in the international oil industry, we enjoy two major advantages for the balance of payments: our oil costs a good deal less in overseas payments than it would if we bought it all from foreign companies; we get large invisible earnings from the business of producing and selling oil in other countries.

  The Foreign Office estimated that the 'earnings' for the balance of payments in the second category alone were £142 million in 1961, £179 million in 1962, £201 million in 1963, £115 million in 1964 and £158 million in 1965. It also stated in this secret report that 'this information has never been officially published and the calculations and estimates are highly confidential'.9

  The level of secrecy is unsurprising: these profits resulted from British control of local resources, and were thus a form of plunder of poverty-stricken populations. This was recognised by foreign-policy planners, as was the need to continue the state of affairs. Explicit British policy was to oppose any suggestion that oil resources be used primarily for the benefit of local populations; the threat of nationalism has always been regarded as the most dangerous one in the Middle East.

  Control over Middle Eastern oil was (and is) to be secured through close relations with the repressive feudal families of the Gulf sheikhdoms, in turn aided by British arms exports and military training. Then as now, policy was 'to ensure the maintenance of our oil supplies by defending the rulers of the oil states, particularly Kuwait', as the Cabinet Secretary said in 1963.10 The 'energy future' document recently produced by the Blair government is merely the latest attempt to promote these basic British goals.

  Iraq as mission one

  In December 2003 the government produced another extraordinary public document, this time outlining its military strategy. It counts as one of the most worrying pieces of government literature I have ever seen, even including the declassified files. Nine months after the invasion of Iraq, the New Labour government delivered a very clear message: from now on, it will be more of the same.

  The document is a Defence white paper, entitled Delivering security in a changing world – a formulation worthy of Orwell. It surpasses the military strategy outlined in the government's Strategic Defence Review (SDR) produced in 1998, which stated that the priority in future will be 'force projection' and that 'in the post cold war world we must be prepared to go to the crisis rather than have the crisis come to us'. This involved plans to buy two larger aircraft carriers 'to power more flexibly [sic] around the world'.

  Other new weapons systems would be a new generation of attack helicopters, submarines equipped with cruise missiles, and fighter and bomber aircraft. It stated that 'for the next decade at least' the air defence of Britain would be a low priority but long-range air attack will continue to be important both as an integral part of warfighting and as a coercive instrument to support political objectives'. A key aspect was the government's retention of nuclear weapons with which Britain should be 'retaining an option for a limited strike' and which would be able 'to deter any threat to our vital interests'.11

  A new chapter added to the SDR in July 2002 noted 'the emphasis on expeditionary operations', and the need for 'rapidly deployable intervention forces' and 'force projection and strike capabilities'. Noting that the government spending review in 2002 envisaged 'the biggest sustained real increase in defence spending plans for 20 years', the report states that:

  Experience since 1998, and since the 11 September attacks, suggests that we may need to deploy forces further afield than Europe, the Gulf and the Mediterranean (which the SDR identified as the primary focus of our interests) more often than we had envisaged.

  In this, 'we wish to work more closely with our most important ally, the US'. Out of the spending increase, around £1 billion was intended for equipment and capabilities for the 'additional challenges'.

  One especially revealing passage demonstrates very clearly the utility of the 'war against terrorism' for achieving these British military goals:

  The capability priorities which have emerged from our work on countering international terrorism are entirely consistent with the requirements generated by other likely demands on our forces. They reinforce the thrust of our existing plans. Extra strategic lift and communications, for example, have much wider utility across a range of operations beyond counter terrorism. So it makes sense to think of these as components of all rapid reaction forces, rather than as dedicated counterterrorism capabilities.

  Translated: the new intervention capabilities we say are needed for the 'war against terrorism' can be used for the wider need to intervene.12

  This strategy was applied in the invasion of Iraq. The MoD report, Operations in Iraq: Lessons for the future, states that:

  The operation in Iraq demonstrated the extent to which the UK armed forces have evolved successfully to deliver the expeditionary capabilities envisaged in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review and the 2002 New Chapter.13

  The latest document, the December 2003 white paper, says that British intervention capability needs to go beyond even that envisaged in these two earli
er documents. It states that 'we must extend our ability to project force further afield than the SDR envisaged' including in 'crises occurring across sub- Saharan Africa and South Asia' and arising from 'the wider threat from international terrorism'. 'The threat from inter- national terrorism', it notes, 'now requires the capability to deliver a military response globally'. It calls for the British military to conduct 'expeditionary operations' while 'rapidly deployable forces' are needed for 'a range of environments across the world'. 'Priority must be given to meeting a wider range of expeditionary tasks, at greater range from the United Kingdom and with ever-increasing strategic, operational and tactical tempo'.