Shaphan

Lingering questions about Robin Cook's death

I would rather not be having these thoughts but, as I am, I reckon it's time to commit them to writing.  This extended entry builds upon 'Robin Cook, the Database and Secrets', which itself derived from 'Warning to Labour Politicians' (and the thread began with 'John Prescott and National Security').  It raises questions about Robin Cook's death, ones I've not seen addressed elsewhere.  In life, I was never Cooky's biggest fan.  But if there were the slightest possibility that his death was not naturally caused, then the man deserves better than for the official version to be believed without question. 

It's been about 9 months since the passing of Robin Cook MP.  I have suggested previously that, one month before he died, Cook may have started to divulge confidential information, despite having signed the Official Secrets Act.  His sudden and unexpected death might have saved MI6/MI5/DIS/whomever from having to resolve the problem of how to stop him doing it again.

The recent Prescott affair had alerted me to the strange possibility that undercover MI5 officers or agents might have been working as diary secretaries for some senior Labour Party politicians.  And that brought, reluctantly, Gaynor Regan to mind;  she had become Robin Cook's diary secretary around 1994, the year he had become shadow foreign secretary.  Such diary secretaries - Tracey Temple, too - would have to be vetted and to have signed the Official Secrets Act.  Once my mind began to question whether Gaynor Regan really had been all that she had appeared to be, then other questions about the circumstances of Robin Cook's death followed, ones that I had discounted at the time because, after all, he was with her when he died and it was all a terrible tragedy.

But. for example, how did he die?  The post mortem took two days "to establish whether the Livingston MP had died from an illness or injuries sustained in the fall", and the cause of death was eventually given as 'hypertensive heart disease'.  No mention was made of any injuries to the head and neck.  Yet most early press reports indicated that, after having had a heart attack, he had fallen down a ridge and had broken his neck.   The spokesman for RAF Kinloss air rescue centre said that Robin Cook had been winched up to the helicopter from "... close to the summit.  That part of Ben Stack is very steep, monster steep and very rocky."  I reckon it'd be a bit surprising if there were no head or neck injuries at all if a body fell, as a dead-weight, down that rocky ridge.  But the official story was sudden death by heart disease.

When did he die?  There are conflicting accounts, not helped by the fact that the announcement of his death was delayed by three hours for family and friends to be informed.  Officially, he was pronounced dead at 4.05pm, soon after being brought at the hospital in Inverness.  But all reports said Gaynor and a fellow hill-walker gave Cook artificial resuscitation for 30-40 minutes, instructed via mobile phone, until the chopper arrived.  I'm no medic, but if he needed resuscitating then he probably died not long after he collapsed, around 2.20pm, before even the emergency services were called. 

Who were the so-far unidentified group of walkers (or hunters(?)) who, we were told, came to Gaynor Cook's aid?  If it's not an obvious question, what were they doing on Ben Stack?  For, according to the landlady of Scourie Lodge, where the Cooks had spent their last night,

"She was lucky another walker was in the area to be with her at such a time.

"You could be on Ben Stack ninety times and not see a soul, so for someone to be within shouting distance and with a mobile phone was very fortunate."

Indeed.  Although most reports spoke of a 'group of walkers', in this Times article there was only one.

Neither of the Cooks was carrying a mobile phone but Mrs Cook's cries for help were answered by a walker, who called the emergency services at about 2.23pm.

Between them, Mrs Cook, 48, and the man, who has not been named, gave Mr Cook mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions under the telephone guidance of Inverness ambulance staff, until rescuers arrived by Coastguard helicopter at 3.01pm.

How come that heroic walker kept his anonymity?   Did he, at least, give a statement to police?  What about the party he belonged to, mentioned by the Sunday Times, the Herald and many others?  I find it odd that no one in that group of walkers spoke to, or was spoken to by, anyone in the media or, as far as we know, the police.  Was even their nationality ever revealed?

Robin Cook chose an extremely remote place to die, far away from London, and the story was over before the press could send anyone to cover it.  I doubt any journalist was sent to climb Ben Stack to see the place the former foreign secretary had died.  (I haven't either, but I'm just a blogger in London.)  Someone who has walked up Ben Stack described it thus:

Although the walk doesn't cover much distance and can easily completed in half a day, there are a couple of ridges to be negotiated near, and at, the top.

Presumably Robin Cook collapsed at that first ridge, before the summit.  If he had been taken ill before they'd reached that narrow pass, it's unlikely he would have suffered any head or neck injuries [see photos of Ben Stack] when falling.  So his collapse couldn't have occured at a more dangerous or inopportune place. 

Although Ben Stack is as remote as can be, it is strangely linked back to London, back to Westminster even, through its ownership.  The mountain is situated within the extensive Reay Forest estate, which belongs to the hyper-rich Duke of Westminster.  It's used for deer-stalking, shooting, and fishing, etc.  The duke owns vast amounts of British land and is our wealthiest aristocrat by far.  But he's also devoted much of his working life to the armed forces, in particular to the reservist Territorial Army, of which he is a Major-General and its most senior officer.  He's been to Basra, Iraq, five times since the invasion.  He currently serves as Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Reserves) at the Ministry of Defence.  The ultimate insider.  According to the MoD website:

The military runs through the Duke of Westminster like the lettering in a stick of rock.  His family has served in the Cheshire Yeomanry, since they founded it hundreds of years ago.  His father, grandfather and great grandfather all wore the cap badge. (...)

The Duke, who is 53, divides his working day (and frequently the evenings) between his desk in Main Building [at the MoD] and his private office.  He also spends as much time as he can visiting reserve units across the country and on operations all over the world.

So, Robin Cook died on land owned by a senior MoD official.  Given Cooky's views on the Iraq war, I really doubt he would have appreciated the irony.

(One more curiosity about Ben Stack, which I'm almost sure is totally irrelevant but I'll mention it out of ignorance anyway.  Someone who has walked up, photographed and written about Ben Stack finishes their account of it with this....

The final oddity on the summit is a cairn with its own omnidirectional radio antenna.

No, I don't know what an omnidirectional radio antenna is, either, but I'm curious that it's described as an oddity, so I thought I'd mention it anyway.  If anyone can elucidate, please leave a comment.)

After Robin Cook died, the local police released a statement:  "As this would appear to be a medical matter, there is no further police involvement."  "Appear to be"?  Case closed, before it was even opened.  A high-profile former foreign secretary, who had maybe started to spill official secrets, dies unexpectedly, maybe of a broken neck, on land owned by an MoD insider, with an unidentified man, or group, nearby, and the police decide not to get involved.  Probably wise of them, just as I probably shouldn't be writing this down, and you probably shouldn't be reading it.

P.S. [2006.05.19]  Please see later entries:  'Addenda to 'Lingering Questions...' and 'Robin Cook's Mobile Phone'.

Robin Cook, the Database and Secrets

On the day after the July 7th, 2005 bombings on London transport, former foreign secretary Robin Cook MP wrote what turned out to be his penultimate newspaper column for the Guardian.  In it he revealed something about al-Qaeda that perhaps he shouldn't have.

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies.  Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. 

Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.  Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

As far as I know, this was the first time publicly, in the anglophone world, that the al-Qaeda name had been explained as referring to a computer database.

In the francophone world, a colourful former French military intelligence officer, Pierre-Henri Bunel, had had a book published in 2004, "Proche-Orient, une guerre mondiale?", extracts of which appeared [in French] on a French conspiracy website.  The extract went into some detail of how al-Qaeda originally referred to a computer database of Islamist fighters.  But, AFAIK, it was not until after Robin Cook had revealed the same in the Guardian, and after his death a month later, that an English translation of Bunel's words appeared on the web.  It's a rough translation, which doesn't read well.  But the basic outline of his account accords with what Cook had revealed.

Here's my suspicion:  that Robin Cook knew nothing about P-H Bunel's book or article, and that his knowledge of the origin of the Qaeda name stemmed solelyfrom his time at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.  In other words, that both men had, independently of each other, revealed that, as they understood it, the designation 'al-Qaeda' had originally referred to a computer database.  And, according to Bunel, that that name had been operative at least by the mid-'80s.

But yesterday MI5 the government published its 'narrative' of the July 7th bombings [.pdf].  Annex 3 of the whitewash was a chronology of the development of modern jihadism.  Extract:

c1984   Radical preacher Abdullah Azzam set up an organisation called Maktab al-Khidmat (MAK) "Bureau of Services" to disseminate propaganda about jihad in Afghanistan.  Usama bin Laden (UbL) joins.

1989   Withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.  UbL returns to Saudi Arabia.  Decision by MAK to continue to support jihadist causes.  Thinking around "the base" or "foundation" (translation: Al Qaida) for further operations articulated.

1988-89   UbL disagreement over focus of the cause and starts to form Al Qaida. [...]

So, MI5's version of the aetiology of the 'Qaeda' name makes no mention of computer databases, or its use by western intelligence agencies before 1989, and it repeats previous explanations as to its origins.  So, either Cook and Bunel were wrong, or they were right but wrong to reveal it.  And while Bunel is a peripheral figure lacking credibility, Robin Cook was neither.

When I first read Cook's July 8th article, and the zinger about 'al-Qaeda' as a database, I wondered about what secret he might reveal to us next.  But now I wonder about what, say, MI6 thought about the possibility of the former foreign secretary, who had signed the Official Secrets Act for life, revealing other things that he shouldn't (if, that is, the database story were true).  Then, it would have become a matter of national security.  How could they prevent him from repeating his mistake?  Could they have had him arrested and charged under the OSA?  Did they try to speak to him, between July 8th and August 6th, 2005, to warn him as to his future conduct?

If Robin Cook was starting to spill secrets, his sudden death one month later would have saved the defence, intelligence and security services from having to confront a difficult problem, one which would have had no obvious, certain solution.

The two Bush/Blair transcripts

Steve Clemons (Washington Note) wrote an intruiging piece on December 22nd about the alleged Bush/Blair transcript in which Bush was said to have suggested they bomb Aljazeera.  Clemons said he'd write more in January, but also promised to write more on the following day, December 23rd, about the relevant ten lines of the transcript, but nothing has yet been forthcoming.

It appears there are two sets of leaked Bush/Blair transcripts in existence, and possibly still in circulation, both of which the government has sought to suppress. There's the Aljazeera transcript from 2004, and there are notes of telephone calls between Bush and Blair from 2002, which turned up in the Stormontgate affair.  I've tried to reconcile these two transcripts but, if what little we know about the Aljazeera memo is roughly right, they are undoubtedly two separate documents.

To let leak one transcript of a Bush/Blair conversation is careless and would not have pleased the White House - as the Telegraph wrote at the time:  "The disclosure that terrorists [ie the IRA] gained access to confidential White House information is likely to provoke a furious reaction in America.".  To let leak a second transcript, especially one so potentially embarrassing, would have sent White House-No.10 relations into a tailspin.  Is it any wonder Blair hasn't received his presidential medal of honour yet?

Both transcripts are cloaked in mystery.  Stormontgate became public on October 4, 2002 when the PSNI raided Sinn Fein's offices at Stormont, seized documents and arrested three people, including Denis Donaldson, who later outed himself as a former British agent.  Amongst the documents were, allegedly, notes of telephone conversations between Bush and Blair.  Presumably the subject of the conversations was Northern Ireland - Bush later visited Northern Ireland with Blair in April 2003.  If so, it's unlikely the transcript is revelatory.  But it's possible that the recorded conversation(s) were post-9/11 related, when other, more sensitive, topics might have been discussed. 

According to Denis Donaldson, he informed on Sinn Fein/IRA to both "British intelligence and RUC/PSNI Special Branch".  So the story that PSNI, when it raided Sinn Fein's offices, didn't know Donaldson was a double agent is likely bogus.  To complete the speculation, could the existence of the Bush/Blair transcript have been the actual trigger for the PSNI raid, and that recovering those notes overrode the desire to maintain Donaldson's cover?  Whatever, the PSNI raid seems to have taken that document out of circulation.

As for the Aljazeera transcript, its status is equally murky.  As Blairwatch has pointed out, (at least) two documents are involved in this leak - one, an FCO memo, called 'Iraq in the Medium Term', on military and political strategy in Iraq;  the other, a transcript of a White House meeting between Bush and Blair on April 16, 2004.  Five days before the Daily Mirror broke the Aljazeera story, the BBC had reported that:

Two men have been charged under the Official Secrets Act following the leak of a secret government memo.  The document involved - the Foreign Office's Iraq in the Medium Term - referred to "heavy-handed" US tactics, a government source told the BBC.  Its contents were reported in the Sunday Times in May last year.  Ex-civil servant David Keogh and former MP's researcher Leo O'Connor, both from Northampton, will appear before Bow Street magistrates on 29 November.

Yet when Tony Blair was asked about the Aljazeera allegation, he replied:

"Look, there's a limit to what I can say - it's all sub judice," he said. "But honestly, I mean, conspiracy theories."

But if Keogh and O'Connor have been charged under the OSA with leaking only the FCO memo, then they haven't been charged over leaking the Bush/Blair transcript, and thus the affair isn't sub judice.  It's all highly confusing.

One more thing - IF the Daily Mirror/Aljazeera story is roughly true, it does seem odd, extraordinary even, for Bush to suggest doing something that Blair would never agree to.  Unless, that is, it was a mad scheme, cooked up by the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal, that Bush went along with, and that either Rice or Powell (or both) got wind of it and insisted they would only support it if Blair did too, which they knew he never would.