[News] British territory used in 2 U.S. rendition flights
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Feb 21 19:33:09 EST 2008
TWO ARTICLES FOLLOW
February 22, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3412933.ece
US aircraft did use British base to transport terrorist suspects
Francis Elliott and Frances Gibb
British facilities were used by the US to
transport terrorist suspects at least twice,
despite repeated government denials including
by Tony Blair - that the UK had any involvement
in extraordinary rendition flights.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, admitted
that two US flights carrying terrorist suspects
refuelled at the airbase on the British Indian
Ocean territory of Diego Garcia in 2002.
In a statement to the Commons he apologised to
MPs for having to correct previous denials,
blaming a US administrative error that had only
just come to light. Condoleezza Rice, the US
Secretary of State, had expressed her deep
regret at the error and had phoned him to apologise on Wednesday.
Gordon Brown made little attempt to hide his
irritation, telling reporters of his
disappointment at the very serious issue. The
Prime Minister said: We have got to assure
ourselves that these procedures will never happen
again. It is unfortunate that this was not known
and it was unfortunate it happened without us
knowing that it had happened, but its important
to put in procedures [to ensure] that this will
not happen again. John Bellinger, legal adviser
to Ms Rice, told a press briefing in London that
the error came to light after a new and even
more exhaustive search carried out in response
to continuing allegations that Diego Garcia had been used for such flights.
The US Government had asked the CIA to revisit
the records and interview the flight crews, he
said. The mistake had arisen because of an
administrative error in the way record searches were conducted.
Mr Miliband said that Britain was seeking
specific assurances from Washington on all
flights about which concerns had been expressed
regarding the use of UK territory. Each of the
two flights was carrying a single, nonBritish
detainee who did not leave the plane while it was
on the ground, he said. One of those detainees
has since been released, but the other is still
being held at Guantanamo Bay. It is understood
one of the flights was en route to the detention
centre in Cuba while the other was headed for Morocco.
Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP for Chichester
and chairman of the All-Party Group on Rendition,
said that yesterdays admission would undermine
faith in US promises on rendition. This
statement will leave the British public unwilling
to trust other assurances we have received from the US, he said.
Mr Blair told MPs less than a year ago that there
was no evidence that Diego Garcia had been used
by the US to transport terrorist suspects to CIA
detention facilities.Three months ago the Foreign
Office Minister, Kim Howells, wrote to Mr Tyrie
rejecting his call for Britain to investigate
independently claims that the British territory
had been used to facilitate extraordinary
renditions. Mr Howells said that he had received
robust assurances from the US just the previous month.
What the Government said
We have not approved and will not approve a
policy of facilitating the transfer of
individuals through the UK to places where . . .
they would face a real risk of torture Foreign Office, Jan 19, 2006
The British Government is not aware of any cases
of rendition through the UK since May 1997, apart
from the two cases in 1998 Alistair Darling, March 17, 2006
I am satisfied . . . that the only rendition
which has taken place have been as I have stated
Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary, March 31, 2006
There is no evidence that US rendition flights
have used UK airspace (except the two cases in
1998) Intelligence and Security Committee report, June 28, 2007
We would not allow transfer of detainees through
our airspace if we had any concerns about
individuals Letter from Kim Howells, Foreign Office Minister, Nov 2007
Contrary to earlier explicit assurances that
Diego Garcia had not been used for rendition
flights, recent US investigations have revealed
two occasions in 2002, when this had in fact
occurred David Miliband, Feb 21, 2008
***************************************
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/21/europe/rendition.php
British territory used in 2 U.S. rendition flights
By John F. Burns
Thursday, February 21, 2008
LONDON: In tones freighted with frustration,
Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the House
of Commons on Thursday that "contrary to earlier
explicit assurances," the Central Intelligence
Agency had confirmed using a U.S.-run airfield on
the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian
Ocean for the refueling of two American rendition
flights carrying terrorist suspects in 2002.
The American acknowledgment of the flights, each
carrying a single detainee, contradicted previous
U.S. assurances to the Labour government that no
such flights had landed on British territory or
passed through British airspace. Although the CIA
attributed its earlier denials to a "flawed
records search," the turnaround risked fueling
animosities that the government here has aroused,
particularly on Labour's left wing, with its
alliance with the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Miliband's statement prompted protests from
members of Parliament of all parties and from
British-based human rights groups that had
contended for years that Britain had been a
knowing or unknowing partner in Washington's use of rendition flights.
The term has been used to describe the secret
transport of prisoners from one country or
jurisdiction to another without formal
extradition proceedings, and earned much of its
notoriety from the American practice after Sept.
11, 2001, of transporting terrorist suspects to a
network of secret CIA prisons outside the United States.
The director of the CIA, General Michael Hayden,
who informed British officials of the 2002
flights during a visit to London last week,
issued a statement to the agency's staff in
Washington on Thursday saying that a fresh review
of agency records had shown that the CIA had
erred in assuring Britain previously "there had
been no rendition flights involving their soil or
airspace" since the Al Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington.
Miliband said he had received a personal apology
from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had
told him that she shared his "deep regret" about the earlier, false denials.
"That information, supplied in good faith, turned
out to be wrong," Hayden said. "This time, the
examination revealed the two stops in Diego
Garcia. The refueling, conducted more than five
years ago, lasted just a short time. But it happened. "
"That we found this mistake ourselves, and that
we brought it to the attention of the British
government, in no way changes or excuses the
reality that we were in the wrong. An important
part of intelligence work, inherently urgent,
complex and uncertain, is to take responsibility
for errors and to learn from them. In this case,
the result of a flawed records search, we have done so."
Miliband told the House of Commons he was "very
sorry indeed" to have to revise the Labour
government's repeated assurances in recent years
that it knew of no American rendition flights
involving British airspace or airfields.
The British assurances, on numerous occasions in
2005, 2006 and 2007, were given, among others, by
former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said in 2005
that he was "not prepared to believe" that the
Americans had broken faith with Britain over the
issue, and by a former foreign secretary, Jack
Straw, who dismissed the allegations of rendition
flights through Britain at the same time as "a
very old story," and a discredited one.
"The House and its members will be deeply
disappointed at this news, and about its late
emergence," Miliband said in his statement.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, visiting Brussels, spoke in similar terms.
"It is unfortunate that this was not known, and
it was unfortunate it happened without us knowing
that it had happened," he said, adding that
Britain would press for procedures to ensure that
the breach could not happen again.
For Brown, the renewed controversy over the
flights came at a politically awkward moment,
when he has been struggling with low poll ratings
driven by a series of government mishaps, and by
months of uncertainty over the future of the
troubled Northern Rock bank, which was finally
nationalized in legislation rushed through Parliament on Monday.
Brown, a silent skeptic during the Blair years
about British military commitments in Afghanistan
and Iraq, has also been working to replace the
close relationship that Blair had with President
George W. Bush with a more wary stance, and
moving rapidly to draw down the remaining 4,200 British troops in Iraq.
In his account, Hayden, the CIA director, said
that neither of the two detainees carried aboard
the rendition flights that refueled at Diego
Garcia "was ever part of the CIA's high-value
terrorist interrogation program." This appeared
to be his way of saying what Miliband, in his
House of Commons statement, made explicit: that
the suspects on the two flights were not taken to
any of the CIA's network of secret prisons, some
of them in Eastern Europe, and that they were not
subjected to stress techniques that critics of
the CIA program have described as tantamount to
torture, including waterboarding.
Hayden said one of the detainees "was ultimately
transferred to Guantánamo," the U.S. military
prison on the eastern tip of Cuba, while the
other "was returned to his home country,"
identified by State Department officials in Washington on Thursday as Morocco.
"These were rendition operations, nothing more,"
Hayden said. He also used the statement to refute
allegations by human rights groups that the CIA
"had a holding facility" for terrorist suspects
on Diego Garcia, a 40-mile-long, or 65-kilometer
long, island leased by Britain that lies about
1,000 miles southwest of the southernmost tip of
India. "That is false," he said.
For more than 30 years, the United States has
operated a military air base on the island under
an agreement with Britain, using it mainly for
refueling and as a forward base for long-range
bombers that have been used in the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. It is believed to have as
many as 2,500 U.S. military personnel stationed
at the base, while Britain has only a few
hundred. More than 2,000 islanders were
transferred elsewhere after Britain leased the
island, many of them under bitter protest.
For years, governments and parliaments across
Europe have been roiled by allegations that the
CIA has used European airspace and airfields for
rendition flights, but in the face of insistent
American denials, much about the practice has
remained murky. The nations listed by human
rights groups as having been involved in the
flights - or of turning a blind eye to use of
their airfields - have included Britain, Greece,
Portugal, Spain and Sweden, among others. A
British rights group, Liberty, alleged in 2005
that aircraft operated by or chartered by the CIA
had used 11 British airports and air bases since 2001, involving 210 flights.
The CIA's acknowledgment that it misled Britain
about the two flights revived those allegations,
and not only among the rights groups. Miliband
said the Foreign Office was compiling a list of
flights that protest groups have cited in their
allegations of British complicity in the CIA
rendition program, which would be passed to the
United States for "specific assurance that none
of these fights were used for rendition
purposes." That plan was supported by William
Hague, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Conservatives.
"As America's candid friend," Hague told the BBC,
Britain should insist that the Bush
administration clear up all the uncertainties
surrounding rendition, and not only the details
of the flights, but whether it was prepared to
"adopt a definition of torture" that met the
standards laid down in international conventions.
Freedom Archives
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415 863-9977
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