Ex-Official - British spied on U.N. leader Kofi Annan

Friday, February 27, 2004

LONDON -- Britain spied on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the build up to the Iraq war, a former Cabinet minister said Thursday, triggering yet another postwar crisis for Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair refused to confirm or deny the accusation and branded his former international development secretary, Clare Short, "deeply irresponsible" for commenting on sensitive security issues. For Blair, the allegation is another potentially damaging aftershock of the Iraq invasion, following controversies over Britain's prewar intelligence dossiers, the death of a weapons scientist, the coalition's failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the collapse of a court case on alleged U.S.-British bugging of the United Nations.

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