Richard Norton-Taylor

Richard Norton-Taylor  was security and defence editor at the Guardian for three decades.

Letter

Helping Saddam

26 June 2024

Andrew Cockburn describes the way the United States covered up its assistance to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, and blamed Iran for gassing thousands of Kurds in Halabja in 1988 (LRB, 4 July). Britain was at it, too, as I learned when reporting for the Guardian on the Scott Inquiry into the export of arms to Iraq, triggered by the collapse of the trial of three executives at the Matrix...

Particularly Anodyne: One bomb in London

Richard Norton-Taylor, 15 July 2021

Decades​ of resentment in Northern Ireland, ignored by Westminster, finally resulted in 1969 in what are known euphemistically as ‘the Troubles’. Almost three decades of violence followed, with the loss of more than 3500 lives. Operation Banner, the longest continuous deployment by the British army, did not secure peace any more than its counterinsurgency campaigns before and...

Secrets are like sex

Neal Ascherson, 2 April 2020

Like sturgeons and swans in medieval England, public information began as royal property. Today, we understand more vividly than ever before that information is also a commodity: I have it, you don’t;...

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Getting it right

Tam Dalyell, 18 July 1985

Without Richard Norton-Taylor of the Guardian, there would be no Belgrano affair, and doubtless Mr Clive Ponting OBE would be plying his way, ever upwards, in the Ministry of Defence. This is no...

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