US envoys were bullies: Clark

Helen Clark. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says concerns by the US Embassy over the screening of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 for a Wellington Central Labour Party fundraising event showed "outright bullying" and "unprofessional" conduct by officials.

And former Defence Force chief Sir Bruce Ferguson says the embassy staff member who linked New Zealand's humanitarian mission to Iraq to deals for Fonterra in one of his diplomatic cables must have been "smoking dope".

The cables are among the 1500 from New Zealand which have been part of 250,000 US diplomatic cables from around the globe leaked by WikiLeaks.

One cable shows that former deputy chief of mission David Burnett was concerned enough about the fundraiser in July 2004 to call Helen Clark's office.

He said the fundraiser was to be hosted by Marian Hobbs, the MP for Wellington Central at the time and a Cabinet minister. He also telephoned Marian Hobbs' office but her staff would not put him through to her to discuss it.

Helen Clark's office got back to him to say the minister would be attending but not hosting the event.

Mr Burnett suggests in his cable to Washington that a "potential fiasco" may have been averted because of his phone calls.

"It is apparent to us that neither the minister nor anyone else in the Labour Government seems to have thought there was anything wrong with a senior minister hosting such an event.

"Ambassador will use a scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister to tell Clark of the near instantaneous press queries for [US Government] comment in this matter and remind her that we would really rather not get dragged into internal political issues, such as Ministerial fundraising events for Clark's Labour Party."

Helen Clark said yesterday that the fundraiser had been put on by the Labour electorate committee.

Regarding the cable about the fundraiser showing Fahrenheit, she said, "This comes down to really outright bullying. It's pretty crazy. I just find it unprofessional."

Fahrenheit 9/11 was critical of the response of the US Government, and in particular President George W Bush, to the terrorist attacks on 2001 and its later prosecution of a war in Iraq.

Also yesterday, Sir Bruce Ferguson said he believed he attended every committee meeting where deployment of engineers to Iraq was discussed, with Helen Clark, former deputy prime minister Michael Cullen, former defence minister Mark Burton and Progressives leader Jim Anderton. He said that Fonterra was not mentioned.

"Throughout all the meetings there wasn't even a hint that we were going in for anything other than that the United Nations had asked us and what could we contribute, how we would contribute that and what would the protection for our troops be."

He was surprised to see one of the US Embassy cables from Wellington this week saying Dr Cullen had told a Cabinet meeting that New Zealand's absence from Iraq might cost Fonterra the lucrative dairy supply contract it enjoyed under the United Nations Oil for Food Programme.

"Whoever wrote that was probably smoking dope," said Sir Bruce.

"Never, ever, was there a conscious thought, a wink, nudge or anything like that, that we were doing it other than for sovereign reasons of the United Nations mandate to say, 'Can we go and help?"'

Asked if he was surprised at the level of contact between his Defence Force staff at the time and the US Embassy, he said he was surprised but did not believe it was unethical.

"People do talk but they talk under the basis of confidentiality. That's how it works in the free world. You make networks, you know them well and you exchange views, informally, off the record sometimes, and it may be reported back.

"That's how the world actually operates. The tragedy of it is that it will stop the standard diplomacy and the networking which actually has gone on for hundreds of years."