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.