U.S. agents 'bugged Tony Blair's private phone calls for years'



U.S. agents allegedly bugged Tony Blair's phone calls

American spymasters snooped on the private life of Tony Blair, according to reports in the U.S.

Mr Blair was given the code name 'Anchory' as his private telephone calls were routinely listened into and recorded.

A file containing personal information about him is said to have been compiled at a giant U.S. listening post run by the secretive National Security Agency.

The extraordinary claim was made by a former Navy communications operator who worked at a listening post in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

David Murfee Faulk told American TV network ABC News that he had seen a file on the 'private life' of Mr Blair in 2006.

He said his security clearance at the National Security Agency base allowed him access to top-secret information.

Faulk declined to reveal the exact contents of the file, other than to say it contained information of a 'personal nature'.



Faulk said U.S. spymasters also 'bugged' telephone calls made by Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.

Mr Al -Yawer and Mr Blair were considered two of America's biggest allies in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The admissions will cause huge embarrassment to the U.S.

Special relationship: There is an 'unwritten' rule that America and Britain do not collect information on each other

There is an 'unwritten' rule that America and Britain do not collect information on each other, although Britain's GCHQ spy centre in Gloucester and the NSA routinely share gathered information.

One former CIA official told ABC that Faulk's claims could have serious repercussions.

Spied on: Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, had his calls bugged, according to David Faulk

'If it is true that we maintained a file on Blair, it would represent a huge breach of the agreement we have with the Brits,' said the ex-CIA chief.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister's office said there would be 'no comment' on the claims.



No one from Mr Blair's office was available for comment.

Faulk's allegations will also reopen claims by Harrods boss Mohammad al Fayed that Princess Diana was being bugged.

Mr al Fayed tried unsuccessfully to have the NSA hand over tapes that he claimed showed Diana and his son Dodi's telephone calls were monitored in the weeks before their deaths in Paris in 1997.



Faulk, 39, broke his cover last month when he claimed U.S. intelligence intercepted the private phone calls of American journalists, aid workers and soldiers stationed in Iraq.

This led to calls for the U.S. Congress to investigate the 'extremely disturbing' allegations.



The Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees are now looking into the claims.

Bugged: Mohamed al Fayed claimed that his son and Princess Diana's phone calls were monitored

A second 'whistleblower', Adrienne Kinne, 31, backed Faulk's claims about eavesdropping on U.S. journalists.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as 'personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism'.

Faulk said his primary role was to listen into conversations in Arabic and translate them for his spymasters. He said Mr al-Yawer made 'pillow talk' phone calls to his fiancee whom he later married.

Mr Al Yawer was the first President of Iraq's interim government between 2004 and 2005.

Faulk, who worked until recently as a reporter for a community newspaper in Augusta, Georgia said he was one of as many as 3,000 linguists at Fort Gordon.

He said his group spent much of its time monitoring calls into and out of Baghdad's Green Zone, the fortified enclave that houses the U.S. Embassy and military and intelligence commands.