Carne Ross

Carne Ross is founder and director of Independent Diplomat, a diplomatic advisory group. Born in 1966, Ross has a fraternal twin. Ross taught in Zimbabwe before attending the University of Exeter where he studied economics and politics. He joined the British foreign service in 1989. Ross's testimony in the Butler Review directly contradicted the British position on the justification behind the invasion of Iraq.

Career

Ross joined the British Foreign Office and worked at the UK embassy in Bonn, Germany before moving to the UK mission to the UN Security Council where he worked from December 1997 to June 2002.

At the UN, Ross served as the UK delegation's expert on the Middle East. Ross also worked on several important Security Council resolutions such as SCR 1284 which rewrote the Council's Iraq policy and established UNMOVIC, the weapons inspection body. He also negotiated for the UK the resolution establishing the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the Council's resolution of 12 September 2001 condemning the attacks of the day before.

Ross then served as Strategy Coordinator for the UN in Kosovo (UNMIK) where he devised and led a joint UN and government policy to implement a series of standards to improve governance, the rule of law and human rights protection, and advised the Secretary-General's Special Representative on diplomatic and political tactics.

He quit the British civil service in 2004 after 15 years of service. He is now a supporter of a UN Parliamentary Assembly. [ [http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_palmer/2007/03/the_rome_treaty_lets_celebrate.html Comment is free: The road from Rome ] ] In 2005, he founded the non-governmental organisation Independent Diplomat.

Testimony on the UK's role in the invasion of Iraq

Ross testified during the Butler Review, which investigated intelligence blunders in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. He testified that at no time during his work on Iraq (1998-2002) did the UK or US assess that Iraq's WMD posed a threat. He also argued that available alternatives to war, namely targeting Iraq's illegal oil revenues, were ignored. This testimony directly challenged Blair's assertions that the war was legally justified by Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction which posed a threat to British interests. The testimony was published by the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs after MPs sought assurances from the Foreign Office that it would not breach the Official Secrets Act.

Publications

Ross published a book called Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite [http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0801445574] in 2007. He also wrote a play called The Fox [http://www.curtainup.com/fox.html] , which enjoyed a short run in New York in early 2001.

References

External links

* [http://www.independentdiplomat.org/ Independent Diplomat]
* [http://www.hurstpub.co.uk/hurst/bookdetails.asp?book=237 UK Publisher: Hurst & Co]
* [http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4707 US Publisher: Cornell University Press]
* Stephen Moss, "Diplomat at large", The Guardian, 20 June 2005 [http://politics.guardian.co.uk/interviews/story/0,,1510368,00.html]
* Colin Brown and Andy McSmith, "Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war", The Independent, 15 December 2006 [http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2076137.ece]