Gus O’Donnell’s report deliberately omitted evidence that Werritty and Fox were scheming with British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould to prepare the diplomatic ground for a military attack on Iran.
O’Donnell listed two meetings between Fox, Werritty and Gould. But he left out a key meeting of the three, before Fox became Secretary of State for Defence, while Fox was still in opposition. The fact that the three had met before casts a whole new light on their three subsequent meetings, of which O’Donnell mentions only two.
This is what O’Donnell says of one Gould/Fox/Werritty meeting, in para 6 of his report:
This leaves a meeting between Dr Fox and Matthew Gould, the then UK Ambassador Designate to Israel in September 2010. I understand that this was a general discussion of international defence and security matters to enable Mr
Gould better to understand MOD’s perspective of the security situation in the Middle East. Mr Werritty was invited to attend as an individual with some experience in these matters. As a private citizen, however, with no official locus, it was not appropriate for Mr Werritty to have attended this meeting. Dr Fox has since acknowledged this.
It is a lie by omission for O’Donnell to leave out the fact that the three had met up before. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has refused to answer the following questions:
When and where did Gould meet Fox and Werrity while Fox was shadow Defence Secretary?
What position did Gould hold at the time?
There are very strict protocols for officials meeting and briefing opposition front bench spokesmen. Were they met?
In what capacity was Werritty there?
What was discussed and was the meeting minuted?
This is the FCO’s official response to my questions:
Mr Gould’s meeting with the Defence Secretary was arranged by his office as part of his pre-posting briefing calls. Mr Gould was not aware of likely attendance at that meeting in advance; nor does he recall the nature of any introductions made.
As noted in the Cabinet Secretary’s recent report, this was a general discussion of international defence and security matters to enable Mr Gould better to understand MoD’s perspective of the security situation in the Middle East. No classified material was discussed at this meeting.
We are not aware of any record of the meeting having been taken. This is quite normal for routine pre-posting meetings of this kind.
Mr Werritty was also present at an earlier meeting Mr Gould had with Dr Fox in the latter’s capacity as shadow Defence Secretary.
The conference which both Mr Gould and Mr Werritty attended in Israel in February this year was the latest in the series of annual Herzliya Conferences. A programme and other documents related to the conference can be found on the Herzliya Conference website. As noted in the Cabinet Secretary’s report, Mr Gould also attended a private dinner with the Defence Secretary, Mr Werritty and senior Israelis in the margins of that conference, at which there was a general discussion of international affairs.
Why were the facts in bold omitted from Gus O’Donnell’s report?
The programme is worth looking at: nobody could accuse the Herzilya conference of balance in its agenda or its participation.
But to return to the detail. The FCO is quite wrong to describe Gould’s meeting with Fox as a “routine pre-posting briefing meeting.” This is in fact another deliberate lie. Brieifngs for even the most senior Ambassadors on their pre-posting briefing tours are not normally at Secretary of State level. Liam Fox did not meet any other British Ambassadors to give them pre-posting briefing. And when an Ambassador does call on the Secretary of State for Defence, there would always be a private secretary in attendance in case any action points arise. Not only was there no private secretary, but I am told by an inside source this meeting was not in Fox’s office but in the MOD dining room.
Not a “routine pre-posting briefing meeting” at all then.
O’Donnell omits the Herzilya Conference but includes the dinner. Again, what O’Donnell says is quite extraordinary to any FCO insider:
6 February in Tel Aviv. This was a general discussion of international affairs over a private dinner with senior Israelis. The UK Ambassador was present.
The idea that the Secretary of State for Defence can have, together with the British Ambassador to a country, a “Private dinner” with officials of that country is just plain nonsense. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office refuse to say who the “Senior Israelis” with Fox, Gould and Werritty were. They also refuse to say who paid for that dinner.
My information is that the reason that dinner is characterised as “Private” is that it included senior Israeli military and Mossad representatives and that the subject of discussion was preparing the diplomatic ground for a military attack on Iran.
Matthew Gould is British Ambassador. He represents this country at all times and every utterance he makes on diplomatic or policy questions to an official of his host country is “official”. We are entitled to know:
Who paid for the dinner?
Which senior Israelis were at that dinner in Israel on 6 February 2011 with Gould, Fox and Werritty?
What was discussed?
O’Donnell omits the fact that Gould, Fox and Werritty were plotting from before Fox became Secretary of State. O’Donnell mentions only two of the four meetings between all three that we know about. He separates those two meetings by seven paragraphs, does not mention Gould by name at the second reference, and gives deliberately false characterisations of those meetings. This is misdirection on an epic scale.
Werritty visited Iran to meet opposition groups while Gould was serving in the Embassy there. Atlantic Bridge, the Fox-Werritty fake charity, was operating in the US when Gould was serving in the British Embassy in Washington with specific responsibility for US-Iranian relations.
Both O’Donnell and the FCO have listed only meetings at which Fox, Gould and Werritty were all three present. They have refused to say how many times Gould met Werritty without Fox, or how many telephone conversations or written or electronic communications there have been between Gould and Werritty.
I started this investigation on a tip-off. The FCO’s confirmation that Gould met Werritty and Fox while Fox was still in opposition confirms that some of what my informant says is true. An overwhelming mass of circumstantial evidence and the government’s lies, misleading statements and refusal to clarify some very simple facts, leaves me convinced that the truth has been found.
Werritty received such large amounts of Zionist lobby funding because he was, with Fox, promoting an attack on Iran – an agenda in which Matthew Gould had got himself wrapped.
Was this £1 billion deal for Lockheed Martin part of the Fox Werrity scam? What was their cut?
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25 October 2011 Last updated at 12:53
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£1bn upgrade for British army’s Warrior vehicles
The upgrade is designed to take Warrior armoured vehicles through to 2040 and beyond .
A £1bn upgrade of the British army’s Warrior armoured vehicles has been announced by the government.
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The move was revealed by Prime Minister David Cameron and Defence Secretary Philip Hammond on a visit to defence firm Lockheed Martin UK in Bedford.
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It is hoped the move will extend the service life of the military vehicles through to 2040 and beyond.
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The MoD plans to award the contract to Lockheed Martin UK, securing 600 jobs for the company and its suppliers.
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/…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15446928
So perhaps the second part of this sentence is the operative part:
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Matthew is a good man, of whom Robin Cook thought highly.
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I have been reading the report from Gus O’Donnell, not surprising it is a whitewash and as you say filled with ommissions. But not to worry the Met Police force are investigating…lol
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/mili-o25.shtml
Great to see the issue being kept alive despite the best efforts of the MSM to bury it.
“…Gould was serving in the British Embassy in Washington with specific responsibility for US-Iranian relations.”…eh? That’s worth bearing in mind.
Who appointed Gould? Brown of course.
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http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=PressR&id=21394133
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Brown outlines his strong support for Israel going back to his childhood days and the many visits he made with his father, a Church of Scotland Minister and an obvious Christian Zionist. Here he is sending a message to the UK Zionist Federation on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Israeli state, aka Al Nakba. He ends with a Shalom!
{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av6np–BYNQ}
He was deputy head of mission in Iran. How jolly useful to his tribal brethren in his current posting, what-what?
I think we can all see that the Con/Lab/Lib dem parties are really not political parties, but one large corporation with its three main protagonists/leaders fighting to be the “Managing Director”. Its all so more lucrative to be the “Managing Director”.
There has been lots of comments on the inappropriateness of Werritty being present in official discussions and getting access to privileged information and that he has been on “someones” payroll for that purpose.
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There is another possibility, his main role might not have been as much as an information collector as information _giver_, in other words to influence discussions in a certain direction.
Keep digging and panning.
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/10/funded-by-israel-lobby-insider-werritty-seems-to-have-pushed-brits-to-allow-israeli-arms-sales.html
Werrity/Israel links:
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/10/funded-by-israel-lobby-insider-werritty-seems-to-have-pushed-brits-to-allow-israeli-arms-sales.html
“Brown outlines his strong support for Israel going back to his childhood days and the many visits he made with his father, a Church of Scotland Minister and an obvious Christian Zionist.” (Mary)
Not sure about that logical leap myself. The C of S strikes me as a pretty introverted broad church. However, also worth noting that Werrity’s dad (a leading hydrologist and academic) is no stranger to the pulpit, although not as far as I can find out ordained.
…Introverted BUT broad…
It’s often assumed north of the Highland line that a minister’s son is inevitably a bit of a villain….
Omissions:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ezz1NmdQCU0
Hi Craig,
Sent you an email about Burnes interview dates.
Good sleuthing Craig. Easier counting eels in a sack than getting truth from O’Donnell et al?
I wrote this letter in March to the bald one re Gould. No reply after reminders. My local MP Stride is equally arrogant.
The Rt Honourable William J Hague 10 March 2011
This letter concerns very serious matters. I refer you to an article in the Jerusalem Post
‘Gould says UK won’t yet recognize Palestinian state’ by Greer Fay Cashman 03/09/2011
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=211377
In response to the inevitable question about the universal jurisdiction law which has prevented various Israeli dignitaries from visiting the UK for fear of arrest, Gould said: “We got ourselves into a bit of a mess because of a legal anomaly that needs to be fixed. A legal amendment to the law has been introduced, he said, and is working its way through the parliamentary process. “All three major political parties support the change.” Gould was confident that the amendment would pass into law “in months not years.”
Her Majesty’s ambassador
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/37963/interview-matthew-gould-ambassador-israel
to Israel refers of course to our Geneva Conventions Act 1957. He confirms, if we did not know, that an amendment is being pressed in the Mother of Parliaments in response to requests from Tel Aviv. He did not have the courage to say that the threatened arrests of Israeli leaders came directly out of their criminal actions. It is normal and principled is it not for nations to maintain their laws rather than finding ways of accomodating the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes. But we see that Mr Gould is consistent in bending his knee before criminals.
”On the lighter side, Gould said that when he met Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni, he apologized to her for the fact that the British Mandate authorities had arrested her parents.”
I recalled a connection between Ms Livni, her father and Irgun. This from the Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/TLivni.html
Her parents both belonged to right-wing Revisionist Zeev Jabotinsky’s Betar movement, which morphed into Herut and then today’s Likud party. They were also both fighters in its Irgun undergound militia. The “little Sarah,” who figured in the words of the rousing “On the Barricades,” was actually her mother, Sarah (Rosenberg) Livni, who once, disguised as a pregnant woman, helped rob a train carrying salaries for British Mandatory officials.
Did Mr Gould ask Ms Livni how many British soldiers did her parents help kill, including those who had fought to free Europe from the Nazis in those few years before? Or how many Palestinians did they drive from their homes, their land and their living by terror and force of arms? Does the ambassador know that the parents he was jokingly forgiving had been part of the ethnic cleansing of 800,000 of the native people, that being two-thirds of the population? Does he appreciate that Ms Livni is an important cog in the genocide of the Palestinian people which has continued over the 62 years to this day? Did the Livni parents play any part in the massacre of Deir Yassin or in the many other massacres? Would or should a British representative even joke about forgiving such people?
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Read this paper I wrote at Christmas ‘The methodical shooting of boys at work in Gaza by snipers of
the Israeli Occupation Force’.
http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=2
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David Halpin FRCS
Craig
It strikes me that this account needs a proper challenge by a “doubting Thomas” as without it will be dismissed as the words of someone with an axe to grind against the FCO with doubtful sources for his information, but if true it is too important not to brought out into the open and too a much wider audience. Have you yet taken this story to one of the broadsheets who could perform such a role and would offer proper protection to your sources?
For Komodo
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But Brown’s Jewish credentials go beyond the mere “some of my best friends and advisers…” category. His sympathy for Israel is deep-rooted and authentic. His father, the Rev John Brown, was a Church of Scotland minister in the era when such men were automatic believers in the Christian strain of Zionism. Brown has often recalled his father’s slide-shows of the holy land presented to the congregants of Kirkcaldy, each image offered as evidence of the Jewish return to Zion foretold in the Bible.
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(A)favourite Brown line, a crowd-pleaser to Jewish and Scottish audiences alike, is to insist that “I knew the names of the Kings of Israel before I knew the Kings of England”.
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What’s more, Brown’s values do seem to converge with those of Jewish tradition. Now, it’s true that, strange as it may seem, this is a claim which all Britain’s leading politicians make these days. Blair used to say it, as did his self-styled heir, David Cameron, in an interview with the JC a few months back. Politicians didn’t used to talk like this. I suspect credit for the shift, as for so much else, belongs to Margaret Thatcher, who loudly identified with the Jewish ethos. Since most of our frontline politicians apparently want to claim some connection to the Iron Lady — Brown compared himself to her just last week — then it’s natural they would claim to share her philo-semitism into the bargain.
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But with Brown it rings truer than most. His emphasis on duty and hard work, on the obligations human beings have to one another and to make the world a better place, of course owe much to his Scots Presbyterianism, but there is a defiantly old-fashioned quality to them that would also chime perfectly with your average rabbinic sermon
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Jonathan Freedland
Jewish Chronicle
http://radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/britain/gordon_brown_in_jewish_chronicle.htm
My Grandad, who died in 1970, was a veteran of WW1. He sometimes called it the ‘Great War’. Other times he called it the ‘Great Betrayal’, having come home minus an arm and a leg to find the ‘land fit for heroes’ hadn’t in fact changed all that much. Even as he had fought, the rich had got richer and the poor had got poorer. In his area of NE England children had actually died of starvation (there being no proper rationing in WW1.)
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In his last days he frequently opined that the real cause for WW1 – and most subsequent conflicts – was that the common man was too stupid and jingoistic to realise he had more in common with the guy in the opposite trench than the butchers who drove them both forward.
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It may have become more involved and subtle – but nothing much changes, does it?
Stephen,
I have had the Mail on Sunday ask the questions referred to which the FCO refuses to answer. the FCO refuses to reply to the mail on Sunday either. I have now given what I have to the Guardian to take up, and I have asked a friendly MP to ask the questions too.
The FCO might say “Matthew Gould only met Adam Werritty on the listed occasions and has never had any other contact with him. He has never participated in a discussion on attacking Iran. Present at the dinner in Israel were X, X and X. It was paid for by X. Attacking Iran was not discussed.”
Yet the FCO refuses to say that – they will only say “No comment”. Why do you think that is?
Craig
Thanks, I’m glad the Press is involved – the Guardian can be like a dog with a bone until they get to the bottom of a story. I wouldn’t read too much into the “no comment” response at this stage – as all Govt’s give rather a lot of these initially while they try to work out their line/the supplemenatry questions and the responses thereto, so it may be more driven by caution on their part. My guess is that they are getting rather a lot of queries about Fox’s and Werrity past activities at present – and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are all being managed by No. 10 at present.
Stephen,
The FCO have had these questions for well over a week, and they are quite simple. The question, for example, of how many other times Gould met or communicated with Werritty is only difficult to answer if the answer is not “nil”.
Iran is on the list of countries to be attacked by the US (NATO). This is an important video, especially in the wake of the awful unlawful killing of Gaddafi. It starts off sounding like a Methodist rally, but is still relevant and I urge people to persevere. The serious stuff starts about 1.5 minutes into the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm4UEBade0E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm4UEBade0E
Thanks, Mary. My comment was more about the present stance of the C of S than about Brown. (Whose Presbyterian financial prudence was shown up for the sham it was years ago….he’s a son of the manse, and that’s not a compliment, however right-on a zionist his dad was)
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You say this:
“What’s more, Brown’s values do seem to converge with those of Jewish tradition. Now, it’s true that, strange as it may seem, this is a claim which all Britain’s leading politicians make these days. Blair used to say it, as did his self-styled heir, David Cameron, in an interview with the JC a few months back. Politicians didn’t used to talk like this. I suspect credit for the shift, as for so much else, belongs to Margaret Thatcher, who loudly identified with the Jewish ethos. Since most of our frontline politicians apparently want to claim some connection to the Iron Lady — Brown compared himself to her just last week — then it’s natural they would claim to share her philo-semitism into the bargain.”
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No, I don’t think that’s the reason. Look across the Atlantic to see the model. There, campaign funds are augmented by friendly businessmen loosely connected with AIPAC if the candidate makes the right noises. This applies even to Presidential candidates. And it is no coincidence. AIPAC is hands-off. It does not donate directly; it lobbies. But its imprimatur is essential to securing the funds necessary to participate in the US’s travesty of a democratic process. It knows people. Rich people. It connects naturally with the Christian Right -heirs to the Zionist Puritans who thankfully left these shores centuries ago, with nebulous networks and thinktanks like the Heritage Foundation, like ALEC – Atlantic Bridge’s American friends. Follow the money. Our leaders do. Zion pays.
Thatcher was the first PM to boast an array of wealthy and influential British Jews in her Cabinet. This was because, in her terms, they were both able and well-connected…in the then wholly new sense that did not require the connection to be landed aristocracy.
And I see Rifkind (chair, Intelligence and Security Committee, 2010, his cousin Leon Brittan (appointed trade advisor, 2010) and Michael Howard (rumoured to be in the running for Ken Clark’s job, and sometime chair of Diligence Europe : http://www.diligence.com/about-us.html )
are still lending their kindly advice to the Cameroons. Another of Rifkind’s relatives is allegedly the ex-fraudster Gerald Ronson. Ironically or not, he was a major donor to Ken Livingstone…subversion sans ideology?
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Call this bollocks if you must. But at least think about it.
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Komodo
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“What’s more, Brown’s values do seem to converge with those of Jewish tradition. Now, it’s true that, strange as it may seem, this is a claim which all Britain’s leading politicians make these days. Blair used to say it, as did his self-styled heir, David Cameron, in an interview with the JC a few months back. Politicians didn’t used to talk like this. I suspect credit for the shift, as for so much else, belongs to Margaret Thatcher, who loudly identified with the Jewish ethos. Since most of our frontline politicians apparently want to claim some connection to the Iron Lady — Brown compared himself to her just last week — then it’s natural they would claim to share her philo-semitism into the bargain.”
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was a quote from Jonathan Freedland in the JC.
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I agree with your analysis. Perhaps the Grantham grocer’s daughter was subjected to some Zionist influences in her childhood! A lot of the stuff is spewed from the pulpit of course.
I see Alfred Roberts was a Methodist preacher, as well as being a groper, a grocer and a mayor!
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/thatchers-dad-mayor-preacher-groper-1257249.html
Sociology isn’t my field, but I am wondering if the prominence of Jewish merchants in (say) Leeds and Manchester was also a feature of life in Grantham during Thatcher’s childhood? To some an object of resentment, to a tightwad grocer with a yen for power they would have been role-models. Get close to that network and you’d be in.
Mary,
Actually, despite Jonathan Freedland in the Jewish Chronicle, I don’t recall Thatcher as being rabidly pro-Israel – certainly not in the way that our leading politicans are now.