Whistle blown for Full Time on US / Danish war efforts ?

In January 2004, while working for the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, Major Frank Søholm Grevil, who was trained as a chemical engineer and army officer worked for the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, ( DDIS). In January 2004 he approached a journalist on the daily newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, and told him that the Danish government had distorted the intelligence, concerning the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. How did he know this ? Well, he had produced the intelligence reports.

As a result the Danish Prime Minister told Parliament : “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we believe. We know it.”

Denmark had sent a submarine, a corvette and several hundred troops to participate in the American-British invasion. ( Yes. A submarine HDMS KRONBORG purchased from Sweden in 2001, which was to be sold to Bulgaria for use against smugglers in the Black Sea but has now been scrapped- see here for the remarkable story of Denmark’s submarine fleet)

Grevil made his revelation knowing it would be publicised, out of a sense of public duty, because of the intense debate over the war and subsequent failure of the Coalition forces to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The journalist wanted proof and Grevil supplied copies of confidential assessments of the alleged military threat posed by Iraq. These assessments incorporated a series of reservations that disagree with Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen’s subsequent emphatic statements that he knew that Iraq in March 2003 was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.

“There is no certain information about operative weapons of mass destruction,” one report stated dated 30 January 2003.

The reports Grevil supplied also had political analyses of the United States’ motives, which warned the Danish government that the US was intent on invading Iraq, in breach of international law.

These leaked reports made front-page headlines on the Sunday edition of the newspaper and led to a renewed political scandal about the basis for Denmark’s participation in the invasion.

Grevil was subsequently caught attempting to erase incriminating traces of his activity on a computer on which he had prepared copies of the leaked documents, and after a controversial trial lasting five days, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Grevil is a widower and single father of two children, aged 12 and 17. (In neighbouring Sweden, the law prohibits investigators from probing where a "leaked" piece of information originated, and it is unlawful for journalists to disclose their sources.)

The scandal arising out of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, exacerbated by Grevil’s revelations, led to the resignation of the Danish Minister of Defence, Svend Aage Jensby, in April 2004.

Denmark still has approximately 500 troops in Iraq, stationed in the British area in the south of the country. The submarine’s whereabouts are not known.

Following publication of a book “I nationens tjeneste - Majoren, der fik nok” (“In the service of the nation – the major who had had enough”), in which Grevil reveals the poor and inefficient organisation and obsolete focus on Eastern Europe that prevails within the DDIS, his former employer is determined to prosecute for breach of confidentiality.

The book, reveals that the most of the intelligence analysed by the service was second-hand, coming from unreliable American and British intelligence assessments. The Danish service itself had, according to Grevil, only “one single Iraq source”, and the information provided by this source was “several years old and thus of very limited value”.

It now appears that Major Frank Grevil was not the only mole in the Danish defence intelligence service,.For almost 18 months, the DDIS has hunted in vain for the person who in April 2004 fed TV 2 with two secret threat assessments about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, according to DDIS head Jørn Olesen.

That the uncertainty about the accuracy of what the Prime Minister told Parliament has arisen at all is due to the fact that the media have “hackneyed” a sentence taken out of context in three of the DDIS’s threat assessments that were not addressed to the prime minister at all, but to staff within the armed forces.

In Frank Grevil’s leaked documents from the start of 2003, the DDIS concludes that “there is no certain information about weapons of mass destruction, as Iraq has to a great degree succeeded in keeping a possible active programme secret. However, it is judged that Iraq is in possession of biological and chemical combat agents (BC combat agents), as well as the capability to deliver these [by missile].”

The greatest harmful effect of Frank Grevil’s leak is said to be the collaboration with foreign intelligence services.

If they cannot trust the DDIS, the sources dry up. Whether damage has been done by this specific case is difficult to answer, the DDIS head said: “After all, we cannot know what we have missed,” he said.

On July 6th 2005 President Bush had a Birthday breakfast with the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen Discuss on his way to the G8 summit.

The Prime Minister said,

It's our common desire to spread liberty and promote democracy. We do not accept the thesis that certain peoples and nations are not yet ready for democracy, and therefore, better suited for dictatorship. We share the belief that freedom is universal, and we share the belief that in the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, you cannot stay neutral.

This is why Denmark contributes with more than 500 troops in Iraq; why we make an active contribution to the joint allied effort in Afghanistan; why we wish to promote democracy and reform in the Middle East; and why we urge all parties to find a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The President said

I want to thank you very much for your steadfast support for freedom and peace in Afghanistan and Iraq. I particularly want to thank the loved ones, the family members of the troops stationed abroad for the sake of peace and freedom, for their sacrifice. I know many miss their loved ones, and I know how hard it is for families during times of deployment. And I appreciate them very much. I also want to thank you very much for being such a key contributor to our common security within NATO.

Which must have been music to the Prime Minister's ears.

However On August 30th the Central Intelligence Agency were told that they can no longer use Danish airspace for flights to transport suspected terrorists around the world. Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller said the Danish government has told the United States that it is opposed to the unauthorized flights. Reports had surfaced in May that civilian aircraft secretly registered to the CIA had been sighted over Denmark. Human rights organizations claimed that the planes are used to transport terror suspects to places where torture is conducted.

Møller had originally denied that the government had knowledge of transports taking place in Danish airspace that violate “international conventions.”

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made it quite clear to U.S. officials that Denmark does not want its airspace used for purposes that are in conflict with international conventions,” wrote Møller, in response to an inquiry from Frank Aaen, the Red-Green Alliance military affairs spokesman [a Danish political Party].

Meanwhile there are reports that the UK have asked the CIA to become involved in the rendition and interrogation of suspects for the 7/7 London Transport bombings.

Brief Time line of Grevil “Whistleblower” case.

February 2004: Intelligence officer Frank Grevil delivers a series of classified reports from the Defence Intelligence Agency (DDIS) about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction to the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende.

March 2004: Copenhagen’s Police charge Frank Grevil with having disclosed confidential information. He confesses and is dismissed from the DDIS.

April 2004: The Ministry of Defence published excerpts from the DDIS reports after the government has been accused of misleading the Danish parliament and the public about the Danish basis for war.

November 2004: The City Court of Copenhagen sentences Frank Grevil to six months’ prison and the prosecutor appeals the sentence. [The prosecutor thought he should be sentenced to one year’s imprisonment.]

September 2005: Appeals Court on Friday 23rd reduced the sentence for Frank Grevil to four months.