RAF base secrecy ‘helping to recruit terrorists’

The report which will be officially launched tomorrow is said to be the most comprehensive research in more than a decade on the operations of RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire.

Its author, Dr Steve Schofield, claims the veil of secrecy shrouding the base near Harrogate and its involvement in global covert operations is actually aiding the recruitment of terrorists.

The report states that satellite information received at RAF Menwith Hill is used to support US military operations as far afield as North Africa and the Middle East, including controversial drone strikes.

Dr Schofield said: “It is becoming a form of incantation that details cannot be released because of national security and the war on terror. But far from protecting us, we are actually seeing the reverse.

“Menwith Hill’s operations are being used as a recruitment tool by extremists against the West, and increasing the threat of terrorism. We need a democratic debate as there is simply no accountability through the UK parliament.”

The study claims RAF Menwith Hill intercepts global communications including private and commercial emails and phone calls, before sending them to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) headquarters in Fort Meade in Washington.

The report, which was commissioned by Yorkshire CND and called Lifting the Lid on Menwith Hill, has pieced together research spanning military documents, whistleblower evidence, European Parliamentary evidence and investigations since the 1970s.

It includes allegations the NSA was attempting to monitor the activities of United Nations Security Council members in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The research includes details of a European Parliament report in 2001 which claimed surveillance by US intelligence agencies breached human rights. The report also suggests RAF Menwith Hill is operating as a tax-free “US economic enclave”, with the base itself not paying business rates and US military and civilian personnel enjoying tax exemptions.

But senior RAF officers maintained the Government is “fully briefed” on the base’s activities, and Ministers and Intelligence and Security Committee officials visit regularly.

The base’s RAF commander, Squadron Leader Paddy Currie, declined to comment on operations due to national security, but stressed RAF Menwith Hill’s primary mission is to provide “intelligence support for UK, US and allied interests”. He claimed the US military forces “enjoy no extra benefits or privileges” beyond those stated in the Status of Forces Agreement of 1951.

The base was opened in 1960 and while it is owned by the Ministry of Defence, it is used by the US Department of Defense. There are about 2,200 staff – about two-thirds from the US and the remainder from the UK.

The report will be released at a public meeting at The Quaker Meeting House in Harrogate at 7.30pm tomorrow.

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