Thatcher in the dark on sinking of Belgrano

[emad]

June 27, 2005

Thatcher in the dark on sinking of Belgrano
By Michael Evans and Alan Hamilton



VITAL intelligence about the most controversial action of the Falklands campaign in 1982 did not reach senior British commanders and politicians until it was too late, the official history of the conflict, which is published tomorrow, discloses.

But there were few regrets that the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano with the loss of 321 lives, even though the enemy had changed its mind about launching an attack on the British task force and was travelling away from the battle zone.

Sir Lawrence Freedman, the historian who has compiled an exhaustive three-volume account of the war, also tells for the first time of an SAS mission to sabotage an Argentine bomber base, which was foiled by bad weather, and of the nuclear depth charges routinely carried by four Royal Naval ships in the South Atlantic.

Although widely lauded at the time for her principled stand against the Argentine invasion of the islands, Margaret Thatcher endured years of criticism for allowing the attack on a warship outside the British-imposed exclusion zone around the islands. It now appears that she did not know the full story.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1670775,00.html


TOMORROW: 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.....expect the unexpected....