The death of war criminal Madeleine Albright should remind us of who it is that is now supporting ‘freedom’ in Ukraine

 Those who support sanctions against Russia should remember that in Iraq they killed ½ million children but left Saddam Hussein alone

Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, on why the death of half a million Iraqi children from sanctions was 'a price worth paying'

One of the few instances of good news in the past few weeks has been the death of war criminal and former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in the Clinton regime. To bourgeois feminists what is important is that Albright was the first woman to become Secretary of State.

Albright, a fierce anti-communist, became famous for an interview she did with CBS 60 minutes in 1996.

Veteran journalist, Lesley Stahl, interviewed Albright about sanctions on Iraq, which she said had killed half a million children, thousands of them from leukaemia, because they couldn’t import the necessary drugs under the sanctions regime. Stahl told Albright that this was more than the number of children who died at Hiroshima, the most notorious of all American massacres (along with Nagasaki).  Stahl asked whether the price of getting rid of Saddam Hussein was worth it. Without batting an eyelid Albright replied that it was a difficult choice but ‘yes, we think the price is worth it’. 

Albright trying to effect regime change in Venezuela - always in the cause of democracy of course!

Let us not forget this was not a Republican Secretary of State, no Mike Pompeo or Donald Rumsfeld. This was Clinton’s choice of Secretary of State.  You might think that such a notorious and famous interview would merit at least a mention in our ‘free press’ when she died. Obituaries are supposed to include peoples’ bad as well as good sides.

Fleeing African and Indian students face racism at Ukraine border

I know that we are not supposed to talk ill of the dead but what is more important is to tell the truth about them.  Could anyone imagine an obituary of Adolf Hitler that dwelt on the fact that he got rid of unemployment and build the autobahns without mentioning the Holocaust?

Augusto Pinochet was another of the USA's 'democrats'

Yet without exception the press omitted all mention of this interview and Albright’s role in the murder, the cruel calculated murder of half a million children because they happened to be born in a state that had invaded the West’s artificial protectorate in the Middle East, Kuwait. After all the chemical weapons that Saddam had used in Halabja, when he killed 5,000 Kurds, had first been employed in the war against Iran in the 1980s. Indeed it was Germany and other western countries that had supplied Saddam with chemical weapons.

Yet without blinking an eye obituaries in the New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, Washington Post and of course our very own voice of the British Establishment, the BBC, failed even to mention this interview. This was no accidental omission. The BBC, which as we all know, is the voice of the British Establishment, wrote:

On the world stage, Albright advocated aggressively for US and democratic interests. Perhaps aided by her all-too close familiarity with communism and fascism, she was a fierce proponent of human rights and opposition to authoritarianism on the international stage, even if it meant military intervention.

Savour that if you will. Albright was a ‘fierce proponent of human rights’.  What you might ask, about the human rights of Iraq’s half a million children?  Were they not human beings with rights? Richard Medhurst has fun with this hypocrisy in his podcast War Criminal Madeleine Albright Dies at Age 84 and I recommend you watch it.

Madeleine Albright on regime change in Cuba

What did the Guardian, NYT and all the other lie sheets emphasise?  How Albright only found out in later life that she was born Jewish but her parents converted to Catholicism to save her from the Holocaust.  Almost all the headlines concentrated on the fact that she was the first woman Secretary of State.

I sometimes think that if only the Nazis had practised positive discrimination then we might have forgiven them for their atrocities. This is the kind of coverage which passes for serious analysis in the bourgeois press. It wasn’t just one paper but all of them indulged in this feminist imperialism that elevates sex over substance.

America’s first female secretary of state has died of cancer, aged 84 shouted the Economist. CNN’s take was Madeleine Albright, first female US secretary of state, dies. The New York Times variation was Madeleine Albright, First Woman to Serve as Secretary of State, Dies at 84.  Not forgetting the ‘liberal’ Guardian’s creative approach to this war criminal.  Diplomat and scholar of international relations who served as the first female US secretary of state. Only Ahmed Twaj writing for Al Jazeera broke the melody with his piece Let’s remember Madeleine Albright for who she really was.

I often ask myself what possible reason would there ever be for an authoritarian state to impose censorship in the USA or Britain when the newspapers and broadcasters fall over themselves to sing from the same songsheet? Why censor them when they are so good at self-censorship?

This is the same censorship that is currently being employed, along with a hefty dose of racism, the handmaiden of imperialism, when it comes to Ukraine and the refugee crisis.  In unison the BBC, CBS, CNN etc. praise god that the refugees are civilised like us. They are White unlike those Syrians and Afghans, who come from countries that are always at war. 

They forget to tell us that those wars only happen because we start them.  Praise for the fact that Ukrainian refugees are White is the message that comes across as Poland boasts of not allowing Muslims to enter at the same time as they find room for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.

Border guards in Poland and Ukraine are sifting out Black and non-White Ukrainians. In the case of Ukrainian border guards they are also preventing trans women from emigrating on the grounds that they are men.

Yet what does the imperialist left, from the SWP to Anti-Capitalist Resistance, have to say about this? Their answer is that self-determination is the most important issue in Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. Russia must be condemned. NATO is irrelevant. The reasons for the invasion is irrelevant. This is the poverty of much of Britain’s far-left.  Even the formation of armed neo-Nazi militias as part of Ukraine’s military is a matter for the Ukrainians alone.

It takes dissident Tory contrarians like Peter Hitchens (ex-SWP!) to point out the obvious that it isn't alright that 'only' 20% of a Ukrainian army unit consists of fully fledged Nazis. That if NATO is arming fully fledged Nazis, forget the 'neo' then what does it say about Ukrainian resistance? What I wonder has happened to the brain dead SWP/ACR/AWL/RS21?

Thank God They Are White

This points to the utter degeneration of the British left. Lowkey is absolutely right when he says in his podcast with Electronic Intifada journalist Asa Winstanley that large sections of the British left now finds itself to the right of Henry Kissinger, who argued that Ukraine should be a bridge to not a bulwark against Russia. The podcast A History of NATO and Nazis, is well worth watching.

Although I have my criticised them in the past, the only group on the left that has resisted the patriotic hysteria and national chauvinism is the small Communist  Party of Great Britain for which I penned an article this week Key issue is not Russia (despite the appalling headline!).

Below is an excellent article by Michael Arria. See also Jonathan Cook’s If Putin is a war criminal, then Madeleine Albright was no less of one

Tony Greenstein

Albright with fellow war criminal Bill Clinton

Madeleine Albright’s legacy is a reminder that Clinton’s Iraq policy was murderous too

Madeleine Albright's honest appraisal of Iraq sanctions highlighted the brutality of U.S. foreign policy

By Michael Arria March 25, 2022 

Madeleine Albright has died at the age of 84. She was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State from 1997-2001, the first woman to ever hold that position. From 1993-1997 she was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. For some the enduring legacy of Albright won’t involve anything she did during her historic political career. She will be most remembered for something she said.

Something very rare happened on May 12, 1996. That evening viewers of CBS’ 60 Minutes witnessed a thorough and critical segment about U.S. foreign policy that was based around actual reporting. The program, which would go on to win correspondent Lesley Stahl an Emmy and a duPont-Columbia journalism award, was called “Punishing Saddam” and it detailed the U.S. government’s Iraq sanctions policy.

Let’s begin by stepping back. When it comes to Iraq, some Americans might view the Clinton years as an uneventful gap between Bush 1’s Gulf War and Bush 2’s Iraq War. “Eight Years of Peace, Progress, and Prosperity” went the Democratic mantra. However, the Iraqi people certainly experienced no peace during that era. After less than six months in office (in full violation of international law of course) Clinton lobbed 23 cruise missiles into the country. Three hit residential areas, killing nine people and wounding 12. The acclaimed Iraqi painter Layla Al Attar was one of the victims. Her husband and their housekeeper were also killed. Her daughter was blinded. The bombings continued from there. Operation Desert Strike occurred later that year, then there was Operation Desert Fox in 1998. In 1998 Clinton also signed the Iraq Liberation Act, instituting an official U.S. policy of “regime change” and planting the seeds for Bush’s war crimes.

Then there were the sanctions, which a UN-commissioned study found responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. Those numbers have been challenged in subsequent years, but it’s important to remember a couple things. The “Oil-for-Food” program’s first coordinator Denis Halliday quit his position in protest of the policy in 1998, calling it “genocidal.” The respected diplomat had worked at the U.N. for 34 years.

“When I got to Iraq in 1998, the hospitals in Baghdad, and also of course in Basra and other cities, were full of children suffering from leukemia,” Halliday told The Progressive last year. “Those children, we reckon perhaps 200,000 children, died of leukemia. At the same time, Washington and London withheld some of the medicines and treatment components that leukemia requires, again, it seemed, in a genocidal manner, denying Iraqi children the right to remain alive.” Dennis Halliday, UN Coordinator ‘Oil for Food’ programme

Halliday’s successor, Hans von Sponeck, quit a couple years later for the same reasons.

“For how long should the civilian population, which is totally innocent on all this, be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?” he asked.” Hans von Sponeck, UN Coordinator Food for Oil Programme

So 26 years ago, Albright was interviewed by 60 Minutes as the Clinton administration’s spokesperson on the matter. Here was the most infamous portion of the exchange:

Stahl: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.

The striking thing about this exchange is Albright’s honesty. You almost never see a story like this in the mainstream media, but when you do the protocol is pretty consistent. We’re currently seeing it play out with pro-Israel groups and Amnesty International’s apartheid report. You smear and deflect, but you never actually acknowledge the crimes.

As I mentioned, the legacy of Albright’s comments is the compelling part. The deaths of Iraqi children were consistently cited by Osama bin Laden in interviews and recruitment videos. “A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt,” he declared about a month after the 9/11 attacks. At the time The Guardian looked into the claim and concluded that he was overstating things. However, the paper also quoted Dr Peter Pellett, a professor of nutrition at UMass, who served on multiple UN food and agriculture missions to Iraq: “All recent food and nutrition surveys have reported essentially the same story: malnourished children… increased mortality, and a general breakdown in the whole fabric of society.” When it came to Iraqi kids “Bin Laden’s propaganda may be exaggerated and one-sided. But he does perhaps have a point” the article admitted.

Even if you happened to watch and remember that 60 Minutes episode from 1996, the mainstream press certainly wasn’t acknowledging the Albright quote within the context of 9/11 after the towers fell. It’s doubtful that many Americans were reminded of it. Here’s Rahul Mahajan in FAIR from November 2001:

Albright’s quote, calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, has been much quoted in the Arabic press. It’s also been cited in the United States in alternative commentary on the September 11 attacks. But a Dow Jones search of mainstream news sources since September 11 turns up only one reference to the quote–in an op-ed in the Orange Country Register. This omission is striking, given the major role that Iraq sanctions play in the ideology of archenemy Osama bin Laden; his recruitment video features pictures of Iraqi babies wasting away from malnutrition and lack of medicine.

A couple years after Albright made those comments she was questioned by students at Ohio State during an event that was televised by CNN. Albright (by then Secretary of State) had come to the campus with Defense Secretary William Cohen national security adviser, Samuel Berger to make the case for attacking Iraq. Again, a concept with roots far deeper than 2003.

Albright fielded a question from Jon Strange, who was a 22-year-old substitute teacher at the time. Here’s that exchange:

Strange: What do you have to say about dictators in countries like Indonesia, who we sell weapons to yet they are slaughtering people in East Timor. What do you have to say about Israel, who is slaughtering Palestinians, who imposed martial law. What do you have to say about that? Those are our allies. Why do we sell weapons to these countries? Why do we support them? Why do we bomb Iraq when it commits similar problems?

(WILD APPLAUSE)

Albright: There are various examples of things that are not right in this world and the United States is trying..I am really surprised that people feel it is necessary to defend the rights of Saddam Hussein, when we what ought to be thinking about is how to make sure that he does not use weapons of mass destruction.

Strange:  I’m not defending him in the least. What I am saying is that there needs to be consistent application of U.S. foreign policy. We cannot support people who are committing the same violations because they are political allies. That is not acceptable. We cannot violate U.N. resolutions when it is not convenient to us. You’re not answering my question Madam Albright.

“Madeleine was always a force for goodness, grace, and decency — and for freedom,” said President Biden in a statement after her death. Last week Biden sent Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia after the country urgently requested them. On the campaign trail Biden declared that he would end U.S. support for and make Saudi Arabia a pariah, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has changed the calculus. Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with 17 million people food insecure. 2.2 million of them are children. Biden presumably views it as a very hard choice, but ultimately thinks the price is worth it.

For more examples of how the BBC is essentially a propaganda extension of NATO see Skawkbox’s excellent

Exclusive: BBC claims Ukrainian nazis are exaggerated – but shows video of Bowen with nazi unit

 

Support the Picket of Brighton Fabians and War Criminal Ivor Caplin

Say No to the pro-Israel Jewish Labour Movement and the Weaponisation of Anti-Semitism

Ivor Caplin was a Defence Minister in 2003 at the time of Blair’s war in Iraq. When the Chilcott Inquiry Report came out Caplin made it clear that he stood by an invasion that is held responsible for up to 1 million Iraqi deaths. The decision of the International Military Tribunal which presided over the trial of the Nazi war criminals at Nuremburg in 1946 made it clear that in accordance with the London Charter, to plan or instigate an aggressive war is a crime according to international law. The Iraq War was a war of aggression and Caplin was integral to the decision to go to war and therefore a war criminal.

It is surprising that Brighton Fabians has nonetheless decided to invite Caplin to speak to them on the topic “Why Anti Semitism affects Labour's Political Ambitions". Perhaps for their next meeting they could invite the Yorkshire Ripper to give a lecture on the evils of violence against women? Or perhaps Tommy Robinson could help the Fabians out with a talk on the benefits of multi-racialism?

Fabian advert for meeting next Friday

No group has done more to spread the idea that the Labour Party is an anti-Semitic party than the JLM. They have targeted Jewish anti-Zionists in particular. They have directed their spleen at the non-Zionist Jewish Voice for Labour. Not only have I been expelled but Black-Jewish activist Jackie Walker has been suspended for over two years as a result of the JLM’s false and malicious allegations.

Meanwhile the JLM MPs like Louise Ellman are in the forefront of the attack on Palestinians. Only last week Ellman moved a motion seeking to cut off British funding for Palestinian Education in the West Bank. She did so in the company of a list of parliamentary lepers such as Tory Theresa Villiers, Stephen Crabb, John Howell, Andrew Percy, Guto Bebb and Bob Blackman. Bringing up the rear was Jim Shannon from the sectarian Protestant Democratic Unionist Party. Ellman is an officer of the JLM.

Historically the Fabians supported imperialism and racism, the British Empire in particular. In their 1900 pamphlet Fabianism and the Empire edited by George Bernard Shaw, the Introduction, made their position clear in the light of the forthcoming General Election.

... it is important that voters should make up their minds what Imperialism means. ... if it means a well-considered policy to be pursued by a Commonwealth of the communities flying the British flag, then it is as worthy and as weighty an issue as an election could turn on.   

Compare this with the policy of communists and socialists for the independence of the colonies. In 1929, Fabian architect, Sydney Webb (Lord Passfield) became Colonial Secretary. Zionism was an integral part of the British Empire. It is therefore no surprise that Fabians today should invite the anti-Corbyn JLM as a speaker. When Owen Smith challenged JC for the leadership, no less than 92% of the JLM voted for Smith and a mere 4% voted for Corbyn.

The JLM describes itself as the sister party of the Israeli Labour Party. The ILP was a party of government in Israel for the first 30 years in Israel (&today is almost irrelevant in Israeli politics) was responsible for organising the ethnic cleansing of over ¾ million Palestinians in 1948. Without the removal of the Palestinians there could be no Jewish state.

Today the ILP advocates segregation between Jew and Arab.  It believes in a Jewish state with as large a Jewish majority as possible. It is part of a national consensus that opposes the presence of non-Jews. That is why the ILP supported Netanyahu’s attempts to physically deport Black African asylum seekers back to Africa.

The JLM has assiduously waged a scurrilous campaign in the Labour Party painting the Left as ‘anti-Semitic’. What it and the Zionist meant by this was made clear when they made the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism a cardinal principle. The IHRA is based upon 11 illustrations of ‘anti-Semitism’ 7 of which relate to Israel. Calling Israel a racist state is defined as anti-Semitism. 

Traditionally anti-Semitism was understood as hatred of Jews not a state. In the words of the Oxford English Dictionary, anti-Semitism was ‘hostility to or prejudice against Jews’.  That is still how the vast majority of people understand it but the Zionists are not concerned with traditional anti-Semitism but with defending Israel.

That is why a group of us, Labour Party and Palestine solidarity supporters and members are calling on people to demonstrate their opposition to both Ivor Caplin, the JLM and Fabian imperialism.

I should add as a personal note that the late Riad el-Taher, an Iraqi anti-war activist who was elected to the Executive of Hove Labour Party was fingered by Caplin (like many other members) for expulsion from the Labour Party. Riad was ‘administratively’ expelled i.e. without the right of appeal, by Iain McNicol. Riad was gaoled for 10 months in 2011 for having breached British sanctions against Iraq in the 1990’s.  Sanctions which led to the death of an estimated half a million Iraqi children. When confronted with this, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright breezily declared of these deaths that ‘we think the price is worth it.’

This is the kind of man that the Fabians have invited to speak to them.

Tony Greenstein

Riad El-Taher - Expelled from the Labour Party for Trying to Mitigate Sanctions Against Iraq

Ivor Caplin – War Criminal and Junior  Defence Minister under Tony Blair Personally Fingered Riad

On March 8th, Riad El-Taher received a letter out of the blue (as one does!) from a Sam Matthews at Labour Party Headquarters.  It notified Riad that he had been auto-expelled (i.e. with no rights of appeal or representation) because in 2010 he had been imprisoned for ten months for trying to relieve the effects of sanctions on Iraq by paying a bribe for importing oil for food.

A reminder of the deadly nature of the Iraq sanctions that war criminals like Ivor Caplin supported

To understand the context of Riad’s actions, for which he paid a very heavy penalty, for what was a humanitarian endeavour, one needs to recollect the words of the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.  John Pilger described, in the Guardian on 4^th March 2000, how when he was in Washington

 ‘I interviewed James Rubin, an under secretary of state who speaks for Madeleine Albright. When asked on US television if she thought that the death of half a million Iraqi children was a price worth paying, Albright replied: "This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it." 

Riad

When I questioned Rubin about this, he claimed Albright's words were taken out of context. He then questioned the "methodology" of a report by the UN's World Health Organisation, which had estimated half a million deaths. Advising me against being "too idealistic", he said: "In making policy, one has to choose between two bad choices . . . and unfortunately the effect of sanctions has been more than we would have hoped." He referred me to the "real world" where "real choices have to be made". In mitigation, he said, "Our sense is that prior to sanctions, there was serious poverty and health problems in Iraq." The opposite was true, as Unicef's data on Iraq before 1990, makes clear.’

Ivor Caplin, War Criminal and former MP for Hove and a dedicated Zionist member of the Jewish Labour Movement. Caplin was a junior Defence Minister at the time of the Iraq War 

This is the background to Riad’s outrageous expulsion by dictat.  An expulsion by an unelected official, a nobody who has never lifted a finger in his life to campaign against war, famine or injustice.

The real reason for Riad’s expulsion lies in what took place less than two weeks previously.  Despite all the manipulation and gerry mandering over the past 9 months, all the failed attempts at vote-fixing  by Labour's officials and NEC members like Ann Black, attempts which led to the suspension of the Brighton and Hove District Labour Party on July 2^nd last year [Brighton & Hove Labour Party Suspended by National Labour Party, The Lies of Warren Morgan & Kyle Rebound on Them] Hove Labour Party voted in a complete slate of Momentum officers and Executive members, which included Riad.  This was very bad news for the local Progress MP Peter Kyle, who had been hoping that his supporters would take control.

Riad's expulsion is about protecting this man - Peter Kyle Progress MP for Hove

This was the cue for Ivor Caplin, a close personal friend of Kyle and the previous MP as well as Junior Defence Minister under Blair at the time of the Iraq War, to finger Riad for his humanitarian efforts during the sustained US and UK bombing of Iraq and the sanctions levied against that country which preceded the war itself.  People often forget these sanctions but they led to the death of an estimated half a million children.  Sanctions, which are 'anti-Semitic' if imposed on Israel, were perfectly fine when imposed on Iraq.  The sanctions caused a modern state with an up to the date health system to turn into a third world relic.  This is what is commonly known as imperialism and the Ivor Caplins of this world are its bloody practitioners.

Riad was caught up in the UN’s oil for food programme and as part of getting food into Iraq he was involved in paying a financial surcharge to the Iraqi regime.  Since he was one of many doing the same thing and given that there was no personal financial motive, his prosecution and gaoling can be seen as a calculated and vindictive measure by the Blair government  which engaged in illegal extra-ordinary rendition and collusion in torture.

The real criminals in this are not Riad, but the Ivor Caplins and Tony Blairs who should be prosecuted for the deaths during the sanctions regime and  the war itself.

Jeremy Corbyn came to power because, at least in part, due to his record in opposing the attacks on Iraq.  It is shameful that as Leader he has not so much as lifted his lifted his little finger to countermand the expulsion by Sam Matthews and the other apparatchiks at Labour Party HQ.

Tony Greenstein

From: Sam Matthews <sam_matthews@labour.org.uk>
To: Riad El-taher <riadeltaher@ymail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 14 March 2017, 15:51
Subject: RE: your letter 9.03.2017

Dear Mr El-Taher,

Thank you for your letter.

As outlined in our letter to you on the 9^th March , being convicted of four accounts of Making funds available to Iraq except under the authority of a licence granted by the Treasury is a serious crime, for which you served a custodial sentence.

You remain ineligible for membership of the Labour Party. There is no right to appeal an auto-exclusion.

The Labour Party considers this matter closed and will not consider an application to re-join until the 9^th March 2022. We will not be responding further on this matter.

Regards

Sam Matthews

Head of Disputes

Governance and Legal Unit

The Labour Party

Southside, 105 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QT

                                                                                     

11^th March 2017

Mr S Matthews

Head of Disputes

The Labour Party

Southside

105 Victoria Street

London SWIE 6QE

Your Ref: A644374

Dear Mr Matthews,

Thank you for your letter of 9^th March informing me that I have been expelled from the Labour Party.

I note that sub-section iii of Chapter 2.1.4.D in the Labour Party rules, which you quote, is the third and most severe of three options under that Clause 1.4.D. which reads: ‘where a member has been convicted of a serious criminal offence the NEC shall have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary action from the following options.’ The other options are suspension and referral of a disciplinary case to the NCC.

The phrase ‘serious criminal offence’ might suggest murder, war crimes or bank robbery, not paying an Iraqi surcharge on oil-for-food transactions that were designed to relieve the desperate plight of the Iraqi people. Madeline Albright may have considered the death of half a million Iraqi children a price worth paying in order to achieve regime change but I took a different view and acted accordingly. Is that a serious criminal offence?

There is now widespread agreement, both within and beyond the Labour Party, that the policies pursued by the Blair and Bush administrations were profoundly mistaken and that they caused incalculable suffering to the Iraqi people and resulted in the subsequent disastrous destabilisation of the country. In view of this, would it not have been more appropriate to refer my case to the NEC to consider the whole matter in more depth? Were those who made the decision to expel me fully conversant with the political situation seventeen years ago and are they now, in retrospect, untroubled by the actions of the British and American governments of that time?

The fact that you chose the most severe option in disciplining me and decided against investigating the matter further, suggests that pressure was brought to bear from some undisclosed quarter and that there is no likelihood the NEC would consider there were ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying the relaxation of the ‘five year’ exclusion.

I left the Labour Party as a result of the war in Iraq, my country of birth, and re-joined following Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader believing it to be a compassionate organisation, concerned with the welfare not only of the British people but of others across the globe. My membership of the Labour Party is, compared with these greater realities; of minor consequence but it is a cause for concern that you, as a representative of a party with equality and justice at its heart should act in this way. If the purpose of removing me from the Labour Party is to purge its membership of disreputable members I could suggest rather more suitable candidates for removal.

I am attaching to this letter a brief account of the events surrounding my payment of the surcharge. The recently deceased Tam Dalyell, Labour MP and Father of the House of Commons, was fully aware of the situation in which I found myself at that time and commented on my subsequent conviction and imprisonment as follows: ‘That Riad El Taher should land up in Wandsworth gaol was, in my opinion, a process of nasty, political vengeance.’

Yours sincerely,

Riad El-Taher.

cc Governance and Legal Unit

cc South East Labour Party

The circumstances surrounding Riad El-Taher’s payment of the surcharge

Following a visit to Iraq in 1993, Tam Dalyell, whom I had invited to accompany me, suggested I set up an organisation, Friendship Across Frontiers (FAF), to campaign against the sanctions regime. FAF had Tam Dalyell as Patron and following his retirement, Harry Cohen and was supported by many Members of Parliament.

In 1996, following widespread concern at the level of human suffering caused by the sanctions the UN introduced the oil-for-food programme that had been agreed in principle in 1991. The programme required oil to be sold within a six month period and to ensure that this was achieved I was approached by the Iraqi government, due to my experience and expertise in the oil industry, to ensure the oil was sold in a timely manner; every oil allocation in my name was approved by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), Foreign Office (FO) and the UK Mission at the UN.

The fund was paid into a UN escrow account and its use depended on the agreement of the 661 Committee that oversaw the oil-for-food programme. This system failed to deliver the benefits intended due to an extremely restricted interpretation of what Iraq could use the funds for and even for goods that were agreed, there was a time-lapse from order to delivery of around six months. The fact that the Iraqi government was unable to directly purchase locally produced food and medicines or use any of the money it had earned from the sale of oil meant it was unable to satisfy the urgent needs of its people in the easiest, speediest and cheapest way possible.

The US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, interviewed about the effect of sanctions indicated that the death of half million children was a price worth paying. Worldwide public opinion was outraged and it became clear that action should be taken immediately to avert the disaster that was unfolding. A recommendation was eventually made to the 661 Committee that a cash component of $600 million per six-month phase should be paid directly to the Iraqi government. However, in 1999 this proposal, which was supported by the thirteen other members of the 661 Committee, was vetoed by the US and UK representatives.

At this stage the Iraqi government decided to compensate for the lack of money it was expecting the 661 Committee to approve by introducing a surcharge on all oil-for-food transactions. The US and UK governments were fully aware that all approved oil lifters had to pay the surcharge and yet they took no action against them and issued no warnings. I concluded that these governments were deliberately turning a blind eye to these payments. Moreover, I was in sympathy with the position of the Iraqi government on this issue even though I did not approve of its policies in many other respects.

My purpose was to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people and not, as alleged, for personal gain. I was an engineer, not an oil trader. Circumstances simply put me in a position to assist. Any profits made were used to campaign on behalf of the Iraqi people. The irony is that Saddam eventually decided to end the surcharge because he realised he was making far more money through the illegal trafficking of oil through Turkey and the Gulf under the watch of the US and UK authorities; a trade which the West clearly had no desire to impede.

To my knowledge no one has ever been prosecuted for payment of the surcharge and yet I, who was conducting transactions approved by HMG, was prosecuted a decade later because I paid the surcharge. The Serious Fraud Office, which brought the case against me, indicated that after me there would be countless further prosecutions worldwide, eighty of them in the UK alone. In fact, not a single further case was brought. The US authorities had ensured that of all the Iraqi institutions only the Ministry of Oil documentation was protected from looting and yet even the new regime in Iraq decided not to proceed with the prosecutions these documents would have facilitated.

In 2004 the UN Secretary General set up the Volker Committee to investigate alleged corruption and fraud in the oil-for-food programme and the following year I was interviewed as part of that investigation. I was the only one who admitted to the payment of the surcharge and yet when the report was published shortly after I was only mentioned briefly in a footnote. Clearly, I was regarded as inconsequential.