| Letters to Ambrose Merton # 17, 1999

The following extracts are from The Diary column, edited by Matthew Norman, and published in The Guardian newspaper.

17 March 1999

I am distressed by Tam Dalyell’s wilful refusal to… stop being beastly to poor Robin Cook. By way of justifying bombing Iraq… Cookie cited a boy – now aged 16 – who has been in prison since the age of five for throwing a stone at a mural portrait of Saddam… However, when asked for details, such as the boy’s name and that of the prison, Cookie became vague, merely insisting his source was reliable. Cynical old Tam was unconvinced by this, and tabled a parliamentary question asking for the source of this heart-rending tale. After prevaricating for weeks, the written answer finally came on Monday. That impeccable source, said Robin, was the Defence Secretary… Tam has now tabled a question to George Robertson…

19 March 1999

Mr Robertson responded, “I will reply” he said, in a written reply, “answer shortly”. Take your time, George. There’s no hurry at all.

24 March 1999

Here, then is George’s written reply. “The information came to me from my noble friend the Minister for Defence Procurement [Lord Gilbert…] who was told of the case at a private occasion by a reliable source who had been in Baghdad at the time.” George’s answer continues: “I am withholding further details under Section 12 of the Code of Practice on Access to Government relating to the privacy of an individual.” Presumably, in other words, the informant was a spook. “The account is consistent with other accounts of the repressive brutality of Saddam’s regime. For example, the Iraqi National Accord [an anti-Saddam outfit funded by the CIA and MI6] a six-year old boy was accused together with his father of participating in an uprising against Saddam. He and his father were shot.” Amnesty International’s Iraq specialist was yesterday unable to find any record of this new case, or other the other one with which George concludes his reply – that of a 12-year-old boy imprisoned for three months because his father had opposed Saddam. Having received his reply, Tam Dalyell yesterday went to the Commons’s Tabling Office to put down a follow-up question requesting from George the names of these two new boys… the Tabling Office refused permission, citing the same source-protecting Section 12…