Never has Armando Iannucci’s description of politicians as, “Crap little people, really bad at their jobs, trying not to be found out,” been more true. The revelations coming from Wikileaks show just how much of a disconnect there is between our rulers and us poor plebs. As each day goes by there are fresh nuggets giving the game away. Today’s little gem reveals how Parliament were deceived by Foreign Office officials and the odious David Miliband about cluster bombs.
“According to leaked US embassy dispatches, David Miliband, who was Britain's foreign secretary under Labour, approved the use of a loophole to manoeuvre around the ban and allow the US to keep the munitions on British territory.
Unlike Britain, the US had refused to sign up to an international convention that bans the weapons because of the widespread injury they cause to civilians.
The US military asserted that cluster bombs were "legitimate weapons that provide a vital military capability" and wanted to carry on using British bases regardless of the ban.
Whitehall officials proposed that a specially created loophole to grant the US a free hand should be concealed from parliament in case it "complicated or muddied" the MPs' debate.
Gordon Brown, as prime minister, had swung his political weight in 2008 behind the treaty to ban the use and stockpiling of cluster bombs. Britain therefore signed it, contrary to earlier assurances made by British officials to their US counterparts.
The US had stockpiles of cluster munitions at bases on British soil and intended to keep them, regardless of the treaty. (My emphasis)
When the bill to ratify the treaty was going through parliament this year, the then Labour foreign ministers Glenys Kinnock and Chris Bryant repeatedly proclaimed that US cluster munition arsenals would be removed from British territory by the declared deadline of 2013.
But a different picture emerges from a confidential account of a meeting between UK and US officials in May last year.
It shows that the two governments concocted the "concept" of allowing US forces to store their cluster weapons as "temporary exceptions" and on a "case-by-case" basis for specific military operations.
Foreign Office officials "confirmed that the concept was accepted at highest levels of the government, as that idea had been included in the draft letter from minister [David] Miliband to secretary [of state Hillary] Clinton".
US cluster munitions are permanently stored on ships off the coast of the Diego Garcia airbase in the Indian Ocean, the cables reveal. The base is crucial for US military missions in the Middle East. Diego Garcia, still deemed British territory, has been occupied by the US military since its inhabitants were expelled in the 1960s and 1970s. (My emphasis) The British concept of a "temporary exception" to oblige the US does not appear to be envisaged in the treaty. But the British arranged that "any movement of cluster munitions from ships at Diego Garcia to planes there, temporary transit, or use from British territory ... would require the temporary exception".
Nicholas Pickard, head of the Foreign Office's security policy unit, is quoted as saying: "It would be better for the US government and HMG [the British government] not to reach final agreement on this temporary agreement understanding until after the [treaty] ratification process is completed in parliament, so that they can tell parliamentarians that they have requested the US government to remove its cluster munitions by 2013, without complicating/muddying the debate by having to indicate that this request is open to exceptions." Guardian Online 2/12/2010
So let’s get this straight. A foreign country stores weapons that we have banned on our soil. This is done with the collusion of the Foreign Secretary and Foreign Office Officials. None of this is reported to Parliament. By using the weasel words ‘temporary exceptions’ all this can be kept under wraps.
It is little wonder the Government has used every legal device to keep the Chagos Islanders from their home (Diego Garcia). It helps them keep up the pretence that we are players on the global stage. It keeps them in with the US like weak kids will be nice to bullies. People suffer so these unprincipled bastards (Blair, Straw, Miliband et al) can strut their stuff around the world.
One aspect of the Wikileaks documents is the way the US regards the rest of the world as their dominion. The ‘Special Relationship’ is a one way street.
The spineless, gutless, little willied wonders who ruled us colluded with keeping the cluster bomb arrangements secret.
What else did they collude with?
Rendition?
Torture?
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