Declassified UK - INTEL. Issue 97 Week to 23 March 2023

Posted: 23rd March 2023

DCUK-INTEL

Weekly public intelligence brief on UK foreign & security policies:

For members of Declassified UK only

Issue 97 – Week to 23 March 2023

EUROPE

Russia/Ukraine

• Declassified broke the story that British tanks gifted to Ukraine will come equipped with depleted uranium rounds. Such rounds are controversial as they have been linked to cancer and birth defects long after conflicts have ended.
• The Russian government responded to news of depleted uranium rounds being sent to Ukraine by ratcheting up the rhetoric. Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Russia “will respond” while defence minister Sergei Shoigu said that there are “fewer and fewer” steps to “nuclear collision”.
• The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) responded to the Russian government’s statements, saying that depleted uranium “has nothing to do with nuclear weapons and capabilities”, adding that it was “a standard component” used by militaries.
• UN spokesperson Farhan Haq mentioned “the concerns we’ve expressed over the years about any use of depleted uranium, given the consequences of such usage, and those would apply to anyone who provides such armaments”.
• A spokesperson for the Pentagon stated the US armed forces “are not” sending munitions with depleted uranium to Ukraine, suggesting that the UK is the only country doing so.
• The UK signed a “pivotal trade deal” with Ukraine which “will support the country’s economy and greatly enhance… trade and investment”. This will include future reconstruction projects in Ukraine and the removal of tariffs on all Ukrainian products until March 2024.
• UK justice secretary Dominic Raab said that the arrest warrant issued by the ICC for Putin was a “historic moment”. He added that the UK will consider backing a special tribunal into Russian war crimes.

Northern Ireland

• Declassified reported how the MoD “knew metal end-caps fitted to plastic bullets could remain attached on firing, potentially ‘lodging in the skulls’ of anyone they hit”. Despite this, plastic bullets were authorised for continued use in Northern Ireland, with 120,000 rounds being fired between 1968 and 1998. Such weapons were never deployed in England, Scotland, or Wales.

MIDDLE EAST

Iraq

• This week marked the 20-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a crime for which no UK officials have been indicted.
• Declassified revealed that BP extracted Iraqi oil worth £15bn after the invasion in 2003. Britain’s other oil “supermajor” Shell also won an Iraq contract in 2009 as lead operator developing the “super-giant” Majnoon oil field.
• It was revealed that multiple civilian deaths can be linked to UK airstrikes in Iraq during 2016-17, in the context of the war against ISIS.
• It was found that British soldier Chris Roberts “was promoted and awarded an OBE for ‘services to army boxing’” even after an official inquiry labelled him “shameful” for his involvement in assaulting Iraqi detainees in Basra in 2003.

Iran

• The UK government sanctioned five members of the Board of Directors of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It said this organisation “funnels money into the Iranian regime’s repression”.
• On the anniversary of the freeing of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a documentary was released about the controversial affair which is a “fury-causing indictment” of former foreign secretaries Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson.

Israel

• The UK government announced its “2030 roadmap for UK-Israel bilateral relations”, which it describes as “an ambitious agreement to ensure the UK and Israel’s partnership remains forward-looking and continues to address shared challenges”. The roadmap mentions for the first time that a 2020 UK-Israel military cooperation agreement “enshrines ongoing joint training and exercises” which contribute to “strengthening military ties”.

Jordan

• It was found that UK ambassador to Yemen Michael Aron “took part in the opening ceremony of a Jordanian cigarette factory part-owned by British American Tobacco (BAT) and praised the facility in a televised interview”. In doing so, he breached strict guidelines on British diplomats mixing with the tobacco industry overseas.

Qatar

• UK officials said they would privately welcome Qatari investment in Manchester United Football Club, with one trade envoy saying that Britain should “absolutely be embracing foreign investment into this country from the Middle East”. Human rights groups have accusedthe Qatari effort as another case of “sportswashing”.

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ASIA

China

• The Chinese embassy in London condemned a visit by British lawmakers to Taiwan, saying this was a “gross interference in China’s internal affairs and a serious wrong signal to Taiwan independence separatist forces”.

India

• The Indian ministry of external affairs summoned the most senior UK diplomat in New Delhi after the Indian High Commission in the UK was vandalised. “India finds unacceptable the indifference of the UK Government to the security of Indian diplomatic premises and personnel in the UK”, the ministry said in a press release.

Afghanistan

• The MoD apologised after an investigation “found Afghan applications to a resettlement scheme were told they could only come to the UK if their documents were approved by the Taliban”.

AFRICA

The Gambia

• Members of the UK’s Royal Gibraltar Regiment trained officers and soldiers from the Gambian Armed Forces over a period of five weeks as “part of wider UK Defence efforts to build capability with key partners” across the African continent.

Rwanda

• UK home secretary Suella Braverman visited Rwanda as part of the UK government’s “cash-for-humans” refugee plan, in the words of Sonya Sceats from NGO Freedom from Torture. Rwandan president Paul Kagame reportedly told Braverman that his country “will always have capacity for more refugees”.
• The UK government continued to ignore the “ongoing war crimes being committed by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo”, which is creating its own refugee crisis.

AUSTRALIA

• It was reported that Australia may end up spending “more than the $3bn initially announced to boost the submarine industrial capacity of the US and the UK under the Aukus deal”, with “scope for additional funding” beyond the initial four-year period.

CLIMATE

• UN chief António Guterres declared that rich polluting countries like the UK must “fast forward” their net zero targets by a decade, amid the publication of a drastic new IPCC report.

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