"C.I.A. Used a British Island to Transport Terrorism Suspects"
"In tones freighted with frustration, Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, on Thursday told the House of Commons that “contrary to earlier explicit assurances” the Central Intelligence Agency had confirmed using an American-operated airfield on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for refuelling two American “rendition” flights carrying terrorism suspects in 2002.
The American acknowledgment of the flights, each carrying a single detainee, contradicted previous assurances by the United States to Britain’s Labor government that no such flights had landed on British territory or passed through British airspace....
Mr. Miliband’s statement prompted protests from members of Parliament from various parties and from British-based human rights groups that had contended for years that Britain had been a knowing or unknowing partner in the American 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. It gained much of its notoriety from the American practice after Sept. 11, 2001, of transporting terrorism suspects secretly to other countries for interrogation.
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Michael Hayden, informed British officials of the 2002 flights during a visit to London last week. He issued a statement to the agency’s staff in Washington on Thursday saying that a fresh review of agency records had shown that the C.I.A. had erred in assuring Britain previously that “there had been no rendition flights involving their soil or airspace” since the 2001 attacks in the United States. Mr. Miliband said he had received a personal apology from Secretary of State Condoleeza 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,” General Hayden said....
Mr. Miliband told the House of Commons he was “very sorry indeed” to have to revise the Labor 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 the 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 accusations as “a very old story,” and a discredited one....
Couple more limey liars for you!
Government fuckers ever tell the truth, dammit!!!!??
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 such a breach could not happen again.
For Mr. Brown, the information about 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....
I'm smelling a terror attack in England!!
Brown NEEDS one!
CUI BONO?
In his account, General Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said that neither of the two detainees carried aboard the rendition flights that refuelled at Diego Garcia “was ever part of the C.I.A.’s high-value terrorist interrogation program.” This appeared to be his way of saying what Mr. Miliband, in his Commons statement, made explicit, that the suspects on the two flights were not taken to any of the C.I.A.’s network of secret prisons, some of them in eastern Europe, and that they were not subjected to stress techniques that critics of the C.I.A. program have described as tantamount to torture, including waterboarding....
Well, they lied once, so.... the trust is kind of broken, you know?
“These were rendition operations, nothing more,” General Hayden said. He also used the statement to refute accusations by human rights groups that the C.I.A. “had a holding facility” for terrorist suspects on Diego Garcia, a 40-mile long island leased by Britain about 1,000 miles southwest of the southernmost tip of India. “That is false,” he said.
O.K., liar!
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 refuelling and as a forward base for long-range bombers, including B-52’s, that have been used in military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. As many as 2,500 American military personnel are said to be 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.
It's known as "liberation."
For years, governments and Parliaments across Europe have been roiled by accusations that the C.I.A. 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. One British rights group, Liberty, contended in 2005 that aircraft operated by or chartered by the C.I.A. had used 11 British airports and air bases since 2001, involving 210 flights.
Oh, so this is all FOOLEYS for British bullshit-eaters!
The government MUST HAVE KNOWN all about RENDITIONS!!
William Hague, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Conservatives, told the BBC:
“As America’s candid friend. [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].”
"Naw, we don't want to do that" -- Bush administration
"US confirms secret flights landed in British territory"
WASHINGTON - CIA Director Michael V. Hayden acknowledged yesterday that two rendition flights carrying terror suspects refueled in British territory, despite repeated US assurances that none of the secret flights since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had used British airspace or soil....
I'm so tired of that damnable lie justifying this inhumane shit!!!
The State Department's top lawyer, John Bellinger, flew to London overnight to deal with the potential diplomatic and political fallout, according to a senior State Department official....
The CIA has held and interrogated fewer than 100 prisoners in its detention program, using "enhanced" or controversial interrogation techniques on about a third, Hayden has told Congress.
Gee, when the torture tape destruction story came out, the government and MSM made it seem like only three guys got tortured!!
WTF?!?!
At the time of the 2002 flights in question, the United States and Britain did not have an agreement regarding the use of the Diego Garcia facility for renditions, and the refueling stops did not require permission from British authorities, the State Department said....
A "final mutual understanding" appears to have been in place by late 2005, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States respects the sovereignty of foreign countries when conducting intelligence operations within their borders, suggesting that the CIA conducts rendition flights with the permission of the governments involved.Yeah, we all KNOW THAT!!!!
This all a who-ha over FOOLEYS?
In a Dec. 6, 2005, interview with Sky News from Berlin, Rice publicly sidestepped a question about whether British airports or airspace were being used in renditions and whether the British government was aware of it.
"We have obligations under our international conventions and we are respecting the sovereignty of our allies," she said. "We are not using the airspace or the airports of any of our partners for activities that would lead renditions to torture. We don't send people to be tortured."
She's just as big a liar as her immediate superiors!!!!
A US intelligence official said the review was prompted by fresh allegations in the news media last fall that Diego Garcia was being used as a secret detention site."
Yeah, WHERE the FUCK ARE YOU, AmeriKan MSM?
And the result of all this inhumanity, skullduggery and lies, folks?
"by Ben Fox, Associated Press | February 22, 2008
SAN JUAN - In a stunning turnaround, the former chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay said yesterday that he would be a defense witness for the driver of Osama bin Laden.
I guess the defense won't be calling bin Laden, huh?
Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, who resigned in October over alleged political interference in the US military tribunals, said he will appear at a hearing for Salim Ahmed Hamdan.
"I expect to be called as a witness . . . I'm more than happy to testify," Davis said in a telephone interview from Washington. He called it "an opportunity to tell the truth."
Also see: FORMER PROSECUTOR SAYS GITMO TRIALS RIGGED FROM THE STARTAt the April pretrial hearing inside the US military base in southeast Cuba, Hamdan's defense team plans to argue that alleged political interference cited by Davis violates the Military Commissions Act, said Hamdan's military lawyer, Navy Lieutenant Brian Mizer.
Davis alleges, among other things, that Pentagon general counsel William Haynes said in August 2005 that any acquittals of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo would make the United States look bad, calling into question the fairness of the proceedings.
"He said 'We can't have acquittals; we've got to have convictions,' " Davis recalled....
Excuse me?
It is not clear whether the Pentagon, which defends the commission system as fair, will allow Davis to testify. In December, two months after he resigned as the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, the Defense Department barred Davis from appearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
The US holds about 275 men at Guantanamo and plans to prosecute about 80 before military commissions."
And what of the rest?
What have they done, other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
They just gonna remain at Gitmo forever even though they never did anything, huh?
Aaaaaah, the sweet shitstink of AmerIkan justice!!
