Beckett ‘not happy’ with US arms reports
Foreign secretary Margaret Beckett last night said she was “not happy” that the US has used a UK airport to transport bombs to Israel.
She has told the Washington administration that it appeared to be “seriously at fault” in using Glasgow’s Prestwick airport to refuel two planes carrying laser-guided bombs to Israel, and said she may issue a formal complaint.
The row comes amid news that eight Israeli troops have been killed in clashes with Hizbullah in the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil, the largest single loss of Israeli life in the conflict since it began two weeks ago today.
World leaders met in Rome yesterday to try to find a way through the crisis, but the meeting ended without any commitment to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Ms Beckett’s comments followed reports in the Daily Telegraph that two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes carrying bombs to Israel for its fight against Hizbullah stopped over at Prestwick after flying over the Atlantic at the weekend.
“No, I’m not happy about it, not least because it appears that insofar as there are procedures for handling of that kind of cargo, hazardous cargo, irrespective of what they are, it does appear that they were not followed,” she told Channel Four News.
She added: “I’ve already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, that we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened.
“We’re still looking into the facts but I have already notified the United States that we are not happy about it.”
Opposition MPs have long been calling for an inquiry into claims that UK airports, including Prestwick, were used by the CIA to transport terror suspects across the world, although the government has insisted there is no evidence to support such a probe.
However, critics of the government’s close relationship with the US are likely to welcome Ms Beckett’s tough stance on the current issue.
On Tuesday, an ICM poll for The Guardian revealed that 63 per cent of the public think Tony Blair has tied Britain too closely to the US. Just 30 per cent think he has got the balance of the ‘special relationship’ about right.
Commenting on the Prestwick reports last night, Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell said that if true, this would be a “provocative” act on the part of the US.
“It can only reinforce the belief of many that Britain is taken for granted in the so-called special relationship,” he said.
“Who knows how many of these munitions may be used to cause the kind of damage to Lebanon which the prime minister of that country described in Rome as cutting his country to pieces?”
Sir Menzies wrote to Mr Blair earlier in the week calling for all British arms exports to Israel to be halted in light of the Jewish state’s “disproportionate” actions in Lebanon and Gaza.
