Online Opinion

[Previous entry: "Edinburgh Rejects Congestion Charges"] [Next entry: "School Dinners"]

Agreeing With Howard

It is not often that I find myself in agreement with the leader of the Tory party, but on Clarke's proposed anti-terror laws he is broadly correct. Those who are accused of a crime, must be charged, and must be prosecuted. Furthermore, he is correct that phone tap evidence should be used in court. Tapping phones is simply too powerful a tool in the detection and prevention of serious crime to ignore, although its use should always be subject to judicial oversight.

Instead of the illiberal regime of house arrest and guilt without proof that the Home Secretary proposes, he should instead be investigating mechanisms whereby the evidence against the accused can be examined openly in court, without compromising the identity of security personnel. If that requires small parts of a trial to be heard in camera, or some evidence to be given anonymously, then that is the compromise we may need to make. Certainly it is preferable to the current proposal, where no evidence will ever be heard at all.

Replies: 1 Comment

The request to Mr Howard in Davos to contribute extra troops to Iraq has, according to Mr Downer, been followed up at his request by a written request from the UK.

Yet it seems clear from UN resolution 1546 paras 15, and 18 that any request for additional forces must come from the present Government of Iraq and not from the UK, supported depending on those forces’ role, by the UN Special Representative, Ashraf Qazi, The original Australian troop commitment was part of an attack force, which became the MNF.

The MNF’s mandate is reviewable by the Government of Iraq by June 8 this year.

What is the status of the additional force – is it operating to support UNAMI, which protection of Japanese engineers would suggest? If so is it blue beret?

Posted by Geoff Taylor @ 02/25/2005 01:16 PM GMT

archives :: links :: faq :: feedback

Find out how you can support Online Opinion

Online Opinion is a trademark owned by Graham Robinson. All rights reserved. The copyright on all articles, columns, and letters on this site is owned by the original author. The copyright on all other material is owned by Graham Robinson. Permission is granted to download and store these pages for personal or research purposes only, and only as is consistent with normal viewing of web pages. All other rights reserved. Permission is granted to freely link to any page within this site, as long as ownership of the material linked to is clear. No advertisements may be associated with this site, whether explicitly or implicitly, without prior written permission.