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UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
Sunil Sood writes "Yes, its that time of year again - no, not the New Year but when the UK National Archives release a whole lot of previously "classified" information (many govt papers in the UK, with only a few exceptions, are classified secret for a 'standard' 30 years) As normal, you have the usual combination of the amusing: The design of a coin to mark the UK joining the EEC was changed, after Prince Philip said he did not like the 'little p', and the more serious: it was believed the USA had plans for US airborne troops to seize the oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1973."
We do. It's called the Freedom of Information Act.
We do.
Read, L
Here are some related links:
US ready to seize Gulf oil in 1973
Was America preparing a war for the Gulf oil in 1973?
Britain Warned of U.S. Plans After War
U.S. Mulled Seizing Oil Fields In '73 British Memo Cites Notion of Sending Airborne to Mideast
And this news item found originally on Reuters ties up nicely to the above:
U.S. OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation) Imports Set Record in 2003, Trend Seen Up
Oh, get over it. This is information that is 30 years old.
If you want to bitch about revealing the confidences of an ally, let's talk about the detailed briefings the US forces in Afghanistan gave about SAS operations there. In one briefing the US Army disclosed more about an SAS operation in the field than the British government has ever done.
One of the reasons the SAS is so successful is that they keep their tactics very close to their chests. Certainly they never reveal specifics, such as the strength of their assault forces, enemy kills and captures, objectives achieved, casualties sustained, etc. It's so nice of the US Army to fill in the blanks and piss away the concept of operational security for them though.
And I haven't even mentioned "friendly fire" incidents and the subsequent cover-ups with which any related investigations are almost always tainted.
You were saying something about the UK letting the US down?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
For those Slashdotters too young to remember, this was going on about the same time as the Saturday Massacre - where Nixon ordered Eliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox. The anti-Nixon folks were having a field day (I was at UC Bezerkeley at the time).
There was another side of the story that didn't come out till much later. The Israelis had readied their nuclear armed missiles for launch, the Soviets were threatening Israel with retaliation in case Israel launched and the US was basically threatening the Soviets with retaliation.
After hearing about what went on during the 1973 war, it is too bad that someone from the Pentagon didn't walk over to the US Supreme Court and persuaded the Justices to tell Cox to lay low until things quited down - as this was the closest we got to nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
What other outcome? Maybe that they'd actually comply with the entirely reasonable demands that they cease their war against China. Hey, it's easy to say in hindsight that the Japanese would never do that, but there was actually a debate within the Japanese government about whether to do just that in response to the threatened embargo.
The lack of radio silence (sources?) wouldn't mean all that much--the US didn't have the same signal intelligence infrastructure it does today.
Since I'm trying very hard not to consider your post an uninformed troll, I won't go for a cheap shot like "if it weren't for us you'd all be speaking German".
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.