CIA spy scandal in the Netherlands on Pakistani nuclear proliferation

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This video from the USA is called U.S. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy [and the Indian sub-continent].

In Dutch daily De Telegraaf today, the main headline on the front page was for this article (translated):

12 June 2008

Dutch-United States spying scandal

by Joost de Haas

THE HAGUE – The United States intelligence service CIA has done operations which the Dutch government did not know about. In a conflict about that, the The Hague CIA boss had to leave.

The espionage row up to now had been carefully kept from becoming public in order not to harm the relationship with the USA.

Controversy

The CIA ‘station chief’ who had become controversial left the Netherlands in 2005 after the Dutch intelligence bosses had lost confidence in him. Well informed sources in The Hague say so. Behind closed doors, the parliamentary committee on intelligence services (CTIVD) has been informed on the problems with the CIA.

When asked, the chair of that committee, [Christian Democrat] Ms I.P. Michiels van Kessenich-Hoogendam, confirmed that the issue had been solved by replacing the CIA chief.

The controversial operations on Dutch territory included, eg, an inquiry into nuclear technology proliferation, including Pakistan. The [Dutch secret service] AIVD in this found out about CIA activities which it had not been informed about according to the legal rules. According to insiders, this led to a bizarre situation during a secret visit to the house of a Dutch businessman: “Shortly after the AIVD had intruded into the house and had installed microphones and cameras, suddenly a CIA team arrived, going into the same house. In this way, the AIVD people were able to film their American colleagues.”

According to Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, that incident was in 2004. There, the AIVD confirms the De Telegraaf article.

De Telegraaf is a Rightist daily with a tradition of slavishly following United States governments.

The CIA has been in the news before as helping the Pakistani regime in nuclear spying in the Netherlands against the will of the Dutch government.

United States governments have a record of supporting nuclear proliferation to the regimes of Pakistan, India [see also here], Israel, and South Africa when it was still an apartheid state.

While citing nuclear proliferation as the pretext for the Iraq war with over a million dead … while Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction.

At the moment, Iran is threatened by war by the Bush administration with similar pretexts as for the Iraq war … though even Bush’s own intelligence services admit that Iran does not have any nuclear weapons and is unlikely to get them anytime soon.

One of already over 110 (when I last checked) comments at the site of De Telegraaf:

How low have we [Dutch] gone by following Bush. “Our little boy” [Prime Minister Balkenende], did he say anything about it during his recent visit to the USA, or did he accept insincere compliments like a good boy?

Ans, Driel | 06:50 | 12.06.08

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