from Sunday Herald, 14 February 2010
The Foreign Office is coming under mounting pressure to tell the truth about how the British island of Diego Garcia is used by the US to launch attacks on countries in the Middle East.
Leading opposition politicians are demanding answers from UK ministers on the role played by the Indian Ocean atoll in previous attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, and in any future strikes against Iran.
Last week, the Sunday Herald revealed that 387 bunker buster bombs were being shipped to Diego Garcia by the US. Some experts suggested that the move could be in preparation for a possible strike against Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities.
Although the island is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is used by the US as a military base under an agreement made in 1971. The agreement led to 2,000 native islanders being forcibly evicted to the Seychelles and Mauritius.
US air strikes against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and against Afghanistan since 2001 have come from Diego Garcia. The island has also been used for the extraordinary rendition of suspected terrorists, and was the base for an ill-starred US attempt to rescue American hostages in the Tehran embassy in 1980.
Military relations between the US and the UK have come under scrutiny by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, which quizzed ministers recently on Diego Garcia. Its report, expected to be published in the next few weeks, is likely to be critical.
“The use of British sovereign territory without restriction is clearly something which causes great concern,” said Sir Menzies Campbell MP, a member of the committee and a former Liberal Democrat leader.
“The government has in the past been reluctant to give specific details about the nature of the agreement which governs US occupation. More transparency is unquestionably required.”
The LibDem foreign spokesman, Edward Davey MP, called on the foreign secretary, David Miliband, to make clear whether Diego Garcia was being used by the US to prepare for military action against Iran. “The events relating to this island of shame have damaged Britain's international reputation,” he said.
According to the Scottish National Party’s defence spokesman, Angus Robertson MP, the use of Diego Garcia by the US was of “massive concern”. He has tabled a series of parliamentary questions asking ministers to shed light on recent events.
Evidence to the Chilcot inquiry on the Iraq war from senior Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office officials had revealed “unaccountable backroom deals between the UK Labour government and the US,” Robertson said.
“This chain of events led to the worst foreign policy disaster in modern times and simply cannot be repeated. The UK Government must be totally transparent about its dealings with the US Government regarding Diego Garcia.”
Ian Davis, director of the new think tank, NATO Watch, described Diego Garcia as a British colony which had been colonised by the US. “It is high time that the British parliament got to grips with this sorry saga of deceit, duplicity and human rights violations,” he said.
“The 50-year rent-free lease expires in 2016. The British and US governments should refuse to renew it by mutual consent, drawdown the military base, arrange for the return of the Chagos islanders and refer the question of the island’s disputed sovereignty to international arbitration.”
The Foreign Office did not respond to a request for comment yesterday.
Last weekend’s Sunday Herald story about the shipment of US bunker busters to Diego Garcia was followed up by scores of media outlets across the world, in the US, Russia, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
One report, from the World Tribune in the US, said that the shipment had been originally destined for US bases in Israel. Quoting Congressional sources, it suggested that the bunker busters had been diverted to Diego Garcia by President Obama as part of an unacknowledged embargo on military equipment for Israel.
According to UK observers, that was plausible. “But it could be an official leak to further undermine Obama’s strategy of putting pressure on Israel over the settlements in Palestine, which is more hardline than many right-wingers in Washington would like,” said one. “It’s all guesswork.”
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