Campaigner Challenging MoD Over Menwith Hill
[Original headline: Court case may force MoD to reveal details of the golf balls ]
After more than 40 years of subterfuge, an unusual and low-key High Court case may be about to force the Ministry of Defence to explain the goings on at a shadowy US military installation that has placed a remote part of the Yorkshire Dales in the nuclear arms race.
A private legal claim by Lindis Percy, a formidable campaigner for the accountability of US bases in Britain, challenges the MoD over its role in the recent expansion of America's Menwith Hill communication eavesdropping base, located on rolling moorland west of Harrogate, into a satellite missile tracking site designed to detect strikes on the US by "rogue" states such as Iraq or Libya.
Ms Percy's case deals in the complex technicalities of how Washington may be contravening a 28-year-old disarmament treaty with Moscow if it builds itself an anti-nuclear shield – of which Menwith's Space-Based Infra-Red System (SBIRS) would be a crucial part.
If she can fend off the Government's attempts to have the case struck out on an abuse of process argument, her lawyers will argue that it should be heard in open court though even in chambers the legal process may allow Yorkshire to glean some idea of the station's work. Its functions, powers, numbers of employees and British agreements with the US governing its use have never been disclosed and no minister or MP is ever believed to have been granted a visit to the site. Even America's ownership of the site has been con-ceded only in the past four years.
The case follows two months of disclosures and whispered concerns that have delivered a new realisation of the potential risk Menwith's expanded role could pose and have increased demands for more transparency. The MoD did confirm in 1997 that the station, which it leases to the US National Security Agency, was to expand to include SBIRS. The move meant the construction of two more dishes, housed in Menwith's surreal, giant white golf balls, or radomes, to track satellites by infra-red telescope, detecting the heat emitted by any nuclear, chemical or biological missile.
In April, senior defence sources said Britain, and specifically sites such as Menwith and the nearby Fylingdales early-warning station, would become a target of "rogue" states if the Government let the US use such bases as a protective shield against missiles.
The Foreign Office also raised concerns with Washington that if part of the US National Missile Defence (NMD) – the "Son of Star Wars" programme – is built in Britain, the nation will not necessarily be under its protective umbrella. The US will know when a missile goes off but there will be no interceptor missile dispatched on Yorkshire's behalf.
Technical concerns have added to anxieties in the past eight months. An NMD interceptor missile test in October scored an ambiguous hit but a second test, six months ago, failed. The respected US Union of Concerned Scientists has declared NMD will not work because warheads can be divided into many small bomblets that would be released from the missile early in flight and overwhelm the defence system with too many targets.
The American President, Bill Clinton, is not due to decide until the autumn, after a further test over the Pacific Ocean, whether to install and deploy NMD. The MoD's line is that it has still not committed British bases, even though the SBIRS capacity is in place at Menwith Hill. But on Friday, Pentagon lawyers told Mr Clinton there was no legal reason why America should not start work on NMD.
In Yorkshire, activists have been anxious to avoid being cast as an bunch of anti-nuclear ideologues. Chris Ryan, a former Harrogate councillor and inquisitor who lives three miles from the station, said: "Your average Joe Public sees a nuclear defence as a safety device. He wants to know he is safe. But there's an expectation of more information."
After 10 years investigating the plant, David Bowe, MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, has never stepped inside – though he was a member of the Brussels committee that found last year that Menwith's worldwide eavesdropping network, codenamed Echelon, was involved in commercial espionage – another issue of growing concern to the EU. Mr Bowe said: "We do want to know if we are to be protected by this place because having set it up we do seem to be an enhanced target. But our essential concern is what tasks Menwith Hill is actually performing."
Ms Percy has sought answers by every available means, often with the help of Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes. Two years ago, Mr Baker asked in the Commons how many RAF servicemen worked at RAF Menwith Hill, and what their functions and powers were. John Reid, Armed Forces minister at the time, replied: "There is a small number of RAF personnel at RAF Menwith Hill. I am withholding the further information requested..."
This summer, Mr Baker asked John Spellar, Mr Reid's successor, which treaties covered the use by the Americans of Menwith Hill. He replied: "The United Kingdom is not party to the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Questions on its interpretation should be addressed to the USA and Russia. Article four of the Outer Space Treaty requires that the moon and other celestial bodies should be used exclusively for peaceful purposes... It imposes no limitations on other military activities in outer space."
Ms Percy is suing the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, Menwith's RAF Liaison Officer and the Defence Land Agent over their alleged complicity in contravention by America of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, which obliged Washington and Moscow to pursue disarmament. The Government is taking her seriously enough to appoint an international relations expert, Prof Christopher Greenwood QC, to the case.
Though Washington insists its shield is not aimed at Russian missiles and would not contravene the treaty, Professor Paul Rogers of Bradford University's peace studies department is unconvinced. "In Moscow and Beijing they do not believe a word of it. They see a limited [programme] as the start of a much bigger programme," he said.
Rebecca Johnson, director of the Acronym Institute, a respected defence and disarmament think-tank, has also warned of perceptions – particularly in China, which has barely 20 missiles capable of reaching the US – that NMD is an aggressive move.
Ms Percy's High Court case may at least tease out a little more information. "The evidence we are going to get will describe the SBIRS system. Potentially it is a fascinating case," said her solicitor, Matthew Gold of Birnberg, Pierce and Partners.
Ms Percy said: "It is all part of piecing together the jigsaw, though it should not be up to a citizen to bring such a case."
This week, she, David Bowe and Prof Rogers will all speak at a Menwith Hill forum staged to discuss "issues of concern" relating to the station. Within the past two weeks a new radar dish has been lifted on to its concrete base at Menwith and a second is now waiting to be put in position – evidence that the tracking system for SBIRS, originally believed to have been scheduled for completion in February, is well under way. The people of Yorkshire still await an explanation.
• Story originally published by •
Independent / London | By Ian Herbert - June 19 2000
