UK Envoys Lose Sat Phone, Iraqi Rebels Find It & Run Up £500,000 Bill

[Lori Price CLG]

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16310310&method=full&siteid=62484&headline=our-envoys-lose-sat-phone--iraqi-rebels-find-it---run-up--pound-500-000-bill-calling-al-qaeda-in-yeme-name_page.html

UK Envoys Lose Sat Phone, Iraqi Rebels Find It & Run Up £500,000 Bill Calling Al-Qaeda In Yemen and Saudi Arabia --No-One Noticed For Two Years 30 Oct 2005 British diplomats had a satellite phone stolen in Baghdad...and only noticed it was missing after a bill for FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS was run up. The invoice shows thousands of phone calls made to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, bases for al-Qaeda terror networks.

The invoice shows thousands of phone calls made to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, bases for al-Qaeda terror networks. MI6 spy chiefs fear the "Thuraya" phone was used by insurgents to plot a wave of suicide bombings across Iraq.

Now furious Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has launched a major investigation into how the theft was allowed to happen - and why nothing was done until the huge bill was uncovered.

<snip>

They should have switched to T-Mobile, to avoid roaming charges, <g>. --Lori Price

[SillyGoose]

1. You just can't make this stuff up.

Hmmm...thousands of calls made to al Qaeda bases in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

:think:

[phusion]

2. Saudi Arabia is harboring Al Qaeda cells?!

Why haven't we invaded them?!?!

This is HUGH!!111

[sarcasmo]

6. 19 of the hijackers were from Saudi, yet we invade Iraq.

This has been know since 9/11 that Saudi is harboring TERRA cells.

[mike_c]

7. who could have ever imagined...?

:shrug:

[leftchick]

19. no way! They are all harbored in Iraq! Iraq attacked us on 9/11!!!

just ask cheney... :puke:

[Lori Price CLG]

10. I like the pumpkin avatar, SillyGoose! n/t

[SillyGoose]

16. Thanks, Lori! Its from the DU stock avatars.

:)

[daleo]

3. If Al-Qaeda was actually a CIA/MI6 front, this would make sense

I'm just saying...

[Jacobin]

4. Um, does anyone really buy this crap?

Wouldn't it be a little too easy to find which numbers were called and wouldn't those using the phones know that?

Probably got passed all around Iraq for people calling their friends and relatives on Blair's dime.

I think they are a bit too smart to be using that phone, with the phone numbers going to a British government office.

[northzax]

8. not if they're calling throwaway cells

or cut outs.

[Seansky]

5. verified?

[Lori Price CLG]

9. Well, Jack Straw is investigating. Which aspect of verification

do you mean - the story itself, or the calls?

Lori Price

[Richard Steele]

11. Can you hear me now?

Un-frigging believable; they didn't notice for 2 years?

It's not like this was just someone's cell phone.
The incompetence involved approaches Bushlike proportions.

[Lori Price CLG]

13. LOLOL!!!

Great comments, dicksteele!

Lori

[fedsron2us]

12. Assuming the phones were billed on a regular basis

then the charges would have gone through the British Foreign Office's accounts. Usually they would be allocated to a given cost center which would have a fixed budget for such expenses. Once that limit was exceeded the item should automatically be flagged for investigation. Looks as though their financial controls are not very good.

[still_one]

14. if they lost the phone you think they would have reported it missing

so they wouldn't get charged

[EuroObserver]

15. Mmmm. Possibly, nice one.

See also "Is Blair losing his grip?"(Observer =/= Sunday Guardian): http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1604588,00.html

This is only the beginning of the beginning...

[henslee]

17. Reminds me of that Rodney D-field joke. "Someone stole my wife's credit

cards but I didn't bother reporting it... They're charging less than she was." Bwahhhhh.

[tatertop]

18. That is a great joke.