“In January 2003, NSA [National Security Agency] was tasked by the White House to monitor the communications of a surprisingly large number of international organizations, all of whom were key players standing in the way of the Bush administration’s strenuous efforts to convince the world community to join the U.S. and Britain and its so-called Coalition of the Willing in an invasion of Iraq. NSA and Britain’s GCHQ [Government Communications Headquarters] began intercepting all of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s telephone calls and e-mails, and a special eavesdropping device was surreptitiously planted inside Annan’s office suite [at U.N. headquarters]… The U.S. and British governments were both concerned that Annan was personally opposed to the United Nations’ approving a resolution calling for war against Iraq. At the same time, NSA and GCHQ mounted a joint ‘surge operation’ to intensively monitor the communications traffic of governments with seats on the U.N. Security Council in order to determine whether they would vote for the resolution. Included were Chile, Pakistan, Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, and Bulgaria, all of whom were then being intensively lobbied to vote with the United States and Britain.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Matthew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry, Pages 248-249