Thursday, January 12, 2006

Secret treaties between Republic of Ireland and USA?

In the Dail today, Michael D. Higgins referred to two treaties between the USA and the Irish Republic that are listed on the US State Department's website but were never presented before the Dail. Given the sensitivity of the Shannon airport issue and the general erosion of the republic's neutrality, this is a source of concern. The line from the government is that these are administratively focused and don't tie the country in any hitherto unknown GWOT fashion.

But one of them sounds dodgy. Here are the relevant pages from the State Department's website, which list the name of the treaties, but not their text.

2003 Treaty Actions (Updated March 2004)
IRELAND
Agreement concerning security measures for the protection of classified military information. Signed at Dublin January 31, 2003. Entered into force January 31, 2003.

2004 Treaty Actions (Updated October 2005)
IRELAND
Acquisition and cross-servicing agreement, with annexes. Signed at Stuttgart­Vaihingen and Dublin February 26 and 27, 2004. Entered into force February 27, 2004.


The former looks especially suspicious. Everyone knows that it's only 300,000 troops, but nothing else, passing through Shannon, right?

UPDATE: Labour's website has similar information (although our links are clickable, unlike theirs!). And there is no sign of these treaties on the US side that we can find, so we're not sure what exact status they had in terms of needing ratification by the Senate.

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