The United Nations bugging row has escalated following fresh allegations of eavesdropping. Australian radio has reported that the mobile phone of UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was also tapped whenever he was in Iraq and the information was shared between the United States, Britain and their allies.
A source at the Australian intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments, claimed that Blix's mobile phone was monitored and his conversations recorded while he was in Iraq before the war last year, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"That's what I'm told, specifically each time he entered Iraq, his phone was targeted and recorded and the transcripts were then made available to the United States, Australia, Canada, the UK and also New Zealand," ABC investigative reporter Andrew Fowler said, citing his intelligence contacts. He did not say who tapped Blix's phone.
Blix, 75, who headed the UN inspectors from 2000 to mid-2003, was in Iraq for months before the war looking for evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing a weapons programme. No weapons of mass destruction have been found.
Transcripts of conversations Blix had in Iraq were made available to the Australian intelligence agency, the source told the ABC.
Australia shared intelligence with close allies Britain and the United States in the run-up to last year's invasion of Iraq and Canberra dispatched troops to take part in the war.
A spokesman for Australian attorney general Philip Ruddock, who is ultimately responsible for security and intelligence matters, said: "We don't make it a practice of commenting on what we might and might not have seen in relation to intelligence matters."
PA