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.
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.
RE: “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” ~ Craig Murray
BY GILAD ATZMON, 10/16/11:
SOURCE –
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-liam-fox-is-not-a-useful-idiot.html
P.S. As far as I’m concerned, if Nick Clegg does not pull out of the coalition, then it is tantamount to an admission that he is corrupt as well. ~ J.L.D.
“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?”
that “obscure commercial intelligence agency” is GA. i think you may have erred in the artilce when you wrote “The Israelis were interested in Werrity’s travels to Iran, where he met with opposition figures and likely plotted his regime change agenda.”
his regime change agenda? or thier regime change agenda? i seriously doubt this 33 yr old was playing mossad. more likely they were playing/using him..and now hanging him out to dry.
” In fact, an Israeli is quoted as saying he understood Werrity was Fox’s chief of staff.”
while it may be a ‘fact’ an israeli claimed that, it certainly doesn’t mean the israeli was telling the truth. any douche could figure our Werritty wasn’t fox’s chief of staff. then again perhaps mossad is just stupid. more likely they are palying stupid. who’s running this show? Werritty, or mossad?
sorry, that link was supposed to read G3 (not GA). that’s the name of the mossad intelligence link in my last post. btw..this has been reported on the popular UK political blog of guy fawkes.
Werrity a James Bond figure? Inspector Clouseau seems more appropriate. That is unless it is an elaborate double-bluff.
Still no-one sees Werrity for what he really is: a con-artist.
Everyone who trusted him, especially with money, will regret it. Those who trusted him with their reputations have no hope left at all.
If Mossad’s plans for Iran really are based on contacts with opposition groups made through Werrity, they’d better check these groups genuinely exist and were actually on the other end of the dialogue before they take any further action at all.
The least mentioned, but most serious, criminality was the use of Parliament’s Crowned Portcullis symbol (legally, a Royal Badge) on Werrity’s business cards, representing Werrity as having Parliamentary authority when he was soliciting money. The Speaker’s secretary has informed me, in what may be the most cafefully-worded letter I’ve ever read, that the Speaker has asked the relevant Commons authorities to take action.
Mr Cameron and his spin doctors are busy dodging snowballs, oblivious to the oncoming freight train. There hasn’t been a case of contempt of Parliament with intent to steal since the 17th century -and that was over about thirty quid taken from letters covered by Parliamentary privilege.
This was the use of Parliament’s Royal Badge to steal money. The international ramifications aren’t really central to that kind of charge, though it will add quite a bit of spice to the court reports, no doubt.
If the Privilleges Committee agree that a contempt has been committed (the business card speaks for itself), the Speaker can decide to try the case at the bar of the House (in which case the penalty is unlimited), or he can ask the DPP and Attorney General to take the case to a Crown Court or the Central Criminal Court. This isn’t the sort of “ask” where they are able to say “no”.
There is also a more straighforward fraud inquiry being conducted by City of London Police, who are not subject to quite the same level of political control as the Met, and who are usually the lead agency in putting conmen away.
The most probable outcome is precisely what none of the politicians want: Werrity going to jail after a trial where almost anything might be said in evidence. In a case where Parliament’s violated privilege will trump the usual ministerial right to withold evidence “in the national interest”.
Pathological liars are not compelled to tell plausible lies: they are compelled to force people to accept lies which every fibre of their logical mind ought to reject. David Cameron, Liam Fox and indeed, Mossad, are about to discover that this is what’s been done to them, and they will find it very traumatic and immensely humiliating. I speak from experience: I’ve met my own version of Mr Werrity, the consequences were awful as well as hugely expensive, and that is how I knew what he was from the first instant that I saw an image of the business card.
Craig Murray was the former British Ambassador to the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan,
He first speculated about Werrity’s links to the Minister, and speculated that Mossad may be pulling his strings, either openly or without his knowing.
From Craig Murray’s own website
Gould and Werritty Relationship
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/10/gould-and-werritty-relationship/
Guardian Confirms Mossad Fears
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/10/guardian-confirms-mossad-fears/
Werrity has made visits to Iran, and he does speak some Farsi, apparently.
In the process he has met some real people, who probably had conversations about something mundane or innocent, not knowing that they’d be presented to his (many and assorted) paymasters as an agent network.
Probably, most of the people he chatted up in Tehran will pay the ultimate price for being polite to him. That, I am afraid, is the sort of wreckage that this kind of man always leaves in his wake.
He’s not exclusively a Mossad “asset” because there’s every indication that he performed the same sell to the security services of several Arab states as he did with Mossad. We’ll probably never find out if he got money out of the FBI and CIA as well, but I wouldn’t bet against this.