U.S. military protection presents problems to host countries

By Richard Norton-Taylor

LONDON: The American spy plane now in the hands of the Chinese flew from the Japanese island of Okinawa, one of a string of bases the U.S. retains throughout the world, including Britain.

United States bases in Japan are a relic of the last war, imposed by the victor on the vanquished. They are now used to monitor the activities of China, a country the Bush administration describes as a "strategic competitor" and to promote broader U.S. interests in the Far East.

Britons should be concerned about the other U.S. bases here in the United Kingdom -- relics of the cold war. Documents which have now emerged throw intriguing light on the secret decisions to allow the United States to use those bases.

They raise serious questions, including issues of legality, about the proposed use of early warning radar stations here for the new U.S. missile defense project, a project seen by the Chinese as directed against them as much as against the alleged "states of concern" cited by Washington as North Korea, Libya, Iran and Iraq.

The post-war Labor government handed over bases to the U.S. with no formal agreement and without any public or parliamentary debate. The pretext was the 1948-1949 Berlin crisis when the U.S. deployed heavy bombers to Britain as a way, noted the U.S. secretary of state, James Forrestal, of getting a "foot in the door".

An U.K. air ministry document from 1961 recalls that the U.S. offered to send the bombers as a "political gesture and as a token of U.S. interest in the defense of Europe".

It notes that in 1949, Ernest Bevin, the U.K. Labor foreign secretary, told the British ambassador in Washington that "there had never been a decision taken by the cabinet regarding the permanent location of American bombers in this country; neither had we never reported the question to parliament".

The informal arrangement, which has no legal status, was known as the "ambassador's agreement", made by Whitehall and the then U.S. representative to the Court of St James, one Louis Douglas. The arrangement would continue, British officials noted, "so long as, in the opinion of both the U.S. and U.K. governments, the presence of such units in the U.K. is considered desirable in the interests of common defense".

The documents, made available to the Guardian and the New Statesman, were obtained by Lindis Percy, the veteran peace campaigner who has fought -- and continues to fight -- a host of court injunctions preventing her from entering U.S. bases in Britain.

She is contesting the legality of the bases, including Fylingdales, the U.S. early warning radar station on the North Yorkshire moors and the large U.S. eavesdropping station at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate.

Both would play a key role in the U.S. missile defense project as would a new X-band radar station which would cover more than 17 acres near Fylingdales, located, incidentally, in a national park.

We know the use of U.S. bases in Britain is covered by a form of words drawn up by Sir Oliver Franks, Britain's ambassador in Washington in the early 1950s. It states that the use of British bases "in an emergency would be a matter for joint decision by HM government and the U.S. government in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time".

This clever formula implies Britain has an informal veto, or at least the right to be consulted. In practice, as successive prime ministers have privately acknowledged, it provides nothing of the kind. The U.S. merely informs the British government.

Though Thatcher told the Commons in 1986 that President Ronald Reagan sought her agreement for U.S. bombers to use the Lakenheath nuclear-capable base against Libya, Whitehall officials said Washington forewarned her but did not seek permission.

When Harold Macmillan had to cope with the embarrassment following the shooting-down over Russia of a Brize Norton-based U.S. spy plane in 1960, he was forced to describe the joint formula as a "loose arrangement".

During cold war crises, the U.S. did not consult Britain before putting nuclear strike forces here on full alert.

The most significant document Percy obtained from the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MoD) is a paper by a senior official from the treasury solicitors -- Whitehall's lawyers. In it, he rehearses the arguments deployed inside Whitehall at the time about the legal status of the U.S. bases.

The treasury solicitor advised ministers in 1950 that Royal Air Force officers, described as "station commanders", "will have no right to interfere with anything which the Americans may do at the stations either in regard to their operational activities or their general administration of these stations."

Though in theory, he continues, the British authorities may resume occupation whenever they want to, "the Americans will in fact be in sole occupation".

Government lawyers justified the "sole occupation" even of land requisitioned or acquired under compulsory purchase orders by the MoD by abandoning the law and jumping straight into the strategic arena. The plan for the defense of Britain, they argued, "involves the cooperation of the American forces and that it is in order that they may be able to play their part in this plan that these stations will be placed at their disposal".

The "defense of this country", notes the document, "should be understood as comprehending the defense of the various countries of the Atlantic Pact". Moreover, it adds: "'Defense' must be regarded as comprehending in certain circumstances offensive action." Perfect: the MoD is under obligation to use its land for the defense of Britain. Since U.S. forces were essential to this task; they can occupy the bases.

That U.S. and British forces were thus united in the common defense of these islands may have been broadly accepted at the height of the cold war. But that is behind us. The MoD in a recent policy document said it was unlikely that a direct threat to the country's strategic security would re-emerge in the foreseeable future.

Yet the U.S. now wants to use British bases for a missile defense project it says is necessary for its own security but which is opposed by senior military commanders, foreign office security advisers and ministers. The present Labor government says that far from setting up expensive anti-missile systems against perceived threats, it is in Britain's national strategic interest to "engage" with these countries, including, presumably, with China.

Geoff Hoon, the U.K. defense secretary, admits that Britain would be more threatened, indeed a target, if it hosts new U.S. bases. Countries such as Japan where the currently captive China spy plane was based, should take note of these problems America can bring. And perhaps Britain should too.

-- Guardian News Service