US held file on Blair detailing 'his private life' claim

Published on Tuesday 25 November 2008 00:31

UNITED States intelligence officials kept a file on the "private life" of Tony Blair, a former US Navy communications operator claimed yesterday.

David Murfee Faulk, who worked at a listening post in Fort Gordon, Georgia, claimed he saw the file on the former prime minister in 2006. But he refused to provide details of what the file, held in an intelligence database called Anchory, contained, other than to say it was a file on his "private life" and included information of a personal nature.

Mr Faulk also said he heard "pillow talk" phone calls of Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, another key US ally, when he worked as a US Army Arab linguist assigned to a US National Security Agency (NSA) facility at Fort Gordon between 2003 and 2007.

While it is not illegal to collect information on foreign leaders, the US and the UK have pledged "not to collect on each other", former US intelligence officials said.

The NSA works closely and shares data with its British counterpart, according to the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

"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," one former CIA official said.

In the case of the former Iraqi president, Mr Faulk said the phone calls were to Mr Yawer's fiance, Nasrin Barwari, the minister of public works in the interim government. Mr Faulk described the calls as "courting, wooing and pillow talk".

A spokesman for the NSA said the agency followed all the laws, but declined to comment on the specifics of Mr Faulk's allegations.