Downing Street Says » US intelligence

» Monday, October 12, 2009

US intelligence

Asked if the letter sent by President Obama concerning US intelligence had been discussed by the Prime Minister and Nancy Pelosi in their meeting this morning, the PMS said that the letter from the Obama administration was simply a restatement of their existing position on this issue. Asked if the Prime Minister discussed it in the meeting, the PMS said that the readout of the meeting that he had given did not include any suggestion of a discussion on that issue. They had talked about the issues of climate change, Afghanistan, Pakistan, G20 follow up and the Middle East.

Asked if the Prime Minister had any views on the story that had been published in the Washington Post, the PMS said that the Prime Minister’s views were the Government’s views which had been set out by the Foreign Secretary many times. This did not look like a new development and our position on this was that the basis of all intelligence relationships was trust. Intelligence was shared on the basis of a reciprocal understanding that the confidence and control over it would always be retained by the state that provided it. This was an important principle of intelligence cooperation and we had always been clear in private and public that we did not object to the release of this material by the US, but it must be for the US to decide whether or not to disclose its own intelligence.

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