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Not to be outdone by the ludicrous goings-on in Washington DC, where our own Justice Department has tried to turn a drug-dealing, wife abusing, failed businessman into an Iranian Terrorist Mastermind, the Brits are trying to best us. The Tory government’s recently resigned defense minister, Liam Fox, left in disgrace after he was deeply implicated in a pay for play scandal involving a best friend, Adam Werrity, who jet-setted around the world with Fox and freelanced an independent foreign and defense policy that set official government figures on edge.
Adam Werrity and Liam Fox (R)
I’d followed this scandal peripherally until I started hearing more about Werrity’s doings, and then I really took notice. Werrity, it appears, held views roughly similar to Michael Ledeen and cultivated wealthy pro-Israel donors who funded his travels to Iran, Israel and other locales where, among other things, he plotted the overthrow of the Iranian regime:
The revelation that the man who had unrestricted access to Mr Fox while he was serving in David Cameron’s Cabinet was at the same time attempting to unseat the Iranian President will fuel alarm in the Foreign Office that he was pursuing a freelance foreign policy and acting as a “rogue operator”.
In order to be a neocon version of James Bond, Werrity required an extensive bankroll to fund his stays at first class luxury hotels. He found funding to the tune of hundred of thousands of pounds from some of the most well-known Tory and pro-Israel fatcats in Britain including the chair of the UK equivalent of Aipac (called Bicom):
The Finnish billionaire Chaim “Poju” Zabludowicz, who has given the Tories more than £100,000, was also named as a Pargav donor, via his company, Tamares Real Estate. Mr Zabludowicz shares Mr Fox’s pro-Israel opinions and chairs the pro-Israel lobbying group Bicom. He was yesterday said to be “extremely disappointed” to discover the truth about how his money was used.
Another key Werrity donor and central figure in Bicom was Michael Hintze:
Most significant of all was the involvement of Michael Hintze, the billionaire fund manager who has given the Tories more than £1.4m – including individual donations to Mr Fox, George Osborne and Boris Johnson. He had already been brought under scrutiny after it was revealed that Mr Werritty worked from a desk at the offices of Mr Hintze’s hedge fund, CQS – and that Mr Hintze had donated £29,000 to Atlantic Bridge.
Werrity was cozy not just with the UK pro-Israel lobby, but with figures likely from the Mossad as well:
Mr Werritty, 33, has been debriefed by MI6 about his travels and is so highly regarded by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad – who thought he was Mr Fox’s chief of staff – that he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government, multiple sources have told The IoS.
Werrity brought Fox to a dinner meeting with the British ambassador to Israel during a Herzlyia security conference, at which they met Israeli political figures including likely Mossad operatives. The Israelis were interested in Werrity’s travels to Iran, where he met with opposition figures and likely plotted his regime change agenda. All of this, of course, allowed the Iranians to claim, falsely we believed, during the post-election riots that British agents were plotting to overthrow the government. Turns out it likely was true. Though the Iranians may not have known that Werrity was doing so unofficially, not on behalf of the British government. But how can you blame the Iranians for not understanding the difference when it appears neither the Israelis, nor lots of others did either. In fact, an Israeli is quoted as saying he understood Werrity was Fox’s chief of staff.
Here is what official Britain thought of Werrity’s doings:
One Whitehall source was scathing of Mr Werritty. The source said: “Ask yourself what he was doing there. It’s regime change but only in his own mind. I can’t think of anything more stupid, wandering round Iran flying the British flag. Does he really think the answer to Iran’s nuclear ambitions – which we all want to resolve – is to have a bunch of people encouraging the opposition there in that way? We do have a responsibility to those people, and anything that’s done like that has to have government approval, which he doesn’t seem to have had. It’s ridiculous. You are inviting people to believe you have the Government’s resources behind them, and in fact the opposition is likely to be brutally crushed.
Now, what other foreign intelligence agency is plotting regime change? The Mossad of course. So the questions arises–just whose interest was Werrity serving when he engaged in all this razzle dazzle and subterfuge? He appears to suffer from the same illness that afflicts the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. They pursue Israel’s interest to the detriment of the interests of their own country, because they don’t see any difference between the two. Israel’s interests in their eyes become U.S. or UK interests through some miraculous process of transsubstantiation. Here is how Craig Murray described the problem:
Not only was Werritty being paid to act as an unofficial part of the Defence Secretary’s entourage, the money was coming from people who may have been ready to promote the interests of certain foreign governments, particularly the United States, Israel and Sri Lanka.
…It is plain as a pikestaff that Fox had retained his effective partnership with Werritty in lobbying activities that not only were concerned with Israel and Sri Lanka, but which actively sought to promote the geo-strategic interests of those countries – for money.
…What really was worrying senior officials in the MOD [Ministry of Defense]and Cabinet Office was the possibility that Fox could be being used as a ‘useful idiot’ by Mossad, Israel’s far-reaching and extremely effective intelligence service. Key funding sources for Werritty were from the Israeli lobby and a rather obscure commercial intelligence agency. Might Mossad be pulling Werritty’s strings, with or without his knowledge?
On Friday, two senior Fleet Street journalists also reported hearing similar concerns from other Whitehall officials about possible Israeli intelligence service involvement with Fox and Werritty. By working closely with an unofficial aide with extraordinary access but no security vetting and murky funding sources, Fox had potentially compromised national security. That is the real story here.
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