posted June 21, 2006 01:10 PM            

It will be interesting to see if they choose to do so.

To date, not one "Secret CIA Prison" has been found, in spite of all the investigative checking, all the publicity and all the blithering blather that's accompanied the allegation.

A Pulitzer Prize may have been awarded for a story which may have no basis in reality and for which not one shred of evidence has been found.

And the leftist press wonders why we love them so.

Let's see, Newsweek had their lying scoop about Korans being flushed down toilets at Gitmo and then, Time has an equally dubious scoop about "Secret CIA Prisons". Sounds like the scales have been balanced.

Oh wait, those were both stories which gave the US a black eye in the world, assisted terrorists with their propaganda war against the United States and pointed to a moral relevance between the US and our terrorist enemies.

Yep, that's some major scale balancing act.

TIME MAGAZINE LIES ABOUT NEGROPONTE

It certainly looked as if Time magazine had a big scoop. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, in an interview posted on April 12 with Time's Michael Duffy and Timothy J. Burger, was said to have confirmed the existence of CIA "secret prisons," as first reported by Dana Priest of the Washington Post in a controversial Pulitzer Prize-winning story. In big bold letters, as it appeared online, Time proclaimed: "Exclusive: John Negroponte says accused Al-Qaeda members will remain in secret prisons as long as 'war on terror continues.'" But Time magazine now tells me that this is not what Negroponte actually said. In fact, Negroponte never even used the phrase "secret prisons" and the words never came up during the interview.

Questioned about this, Time has issued a statement to AIM saying that "We did not mean to imply that those specific words were spoken but the context of the exchange was clear."

Before we attempt to decipher this "clarification," let us consider why Time engaged in this deception.

The Original Bogus Story

Even though Priest won a Pulitzer for her story about CIA "secret prisons" in Europe, there is still no proof of their existence. Priest herself says she doubts that the Europeans will turn up any evidence and so far they haven't. The term "secret prisons" was clearly designed to suggest something evil about the practice of holding suspected terrorists and transferring them to various locations. It makes the war on terror—not the terrorists planning to attack America and our allies—into something sinister. In one interview, Priest didn't take issue with the characterization of the "secret prisons" as "secret gulags." The campaign has all the earmarks of disinformation.

Having chosen to use the term, "secret prisons," Priest and her fellow-travelers in the media are now stuck with it. It's not enough to brandish a Pulitzer. There ought to be some standard dictating that a story of this magnitude have some evidence backing it up, aside from the vague anonymous sources that made up the original Priest article. On this score, however, they have so far come up short. And this is why the Time interview of Negroponte was such a potential blockbuster.

Columnist Nat Hentoff certainly thought the interview was something new and dramatic and that Time meant exactly what it had reported. His column, "CIA Secret Prisons Exposed," ran in the May 7 Village Voice. But Hentoff went further, calling them secret or hidden "gulags." The Voice ran an illustration of a blindfolded prisoner behind bars. Since there are no pictures of any of these "secret prisons," an illustration has to do.

Hentoff Goes For Bait

Accepting the claim of "secret prisons" as a matter of fact, Hentoff seized on the Time magazine interview, reporting that "… Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte said the prisoners in these hidden gulags will be there as long as 'the war on terror continues.' He added, in an April 12 Time interview: 'I'm not sure I can tell you what the ultimate disposition of those detainees will be.'"

It is important to read and understand exactly what Time magazine reported. It said, "Negroponte also told Time that three dozen or so of the worst al-Qaeda terrorists held in secret CIA prisons are likely to remain in captivity as long as the 'war on terror continues.'" Doesn't that sound like Negroponte explicitly referred to secret prisons? Or at least that he was asked about detainees in secret prisons? How could any reasonable person conclude anything other than that the phrase "secret prisons" was in the answer or the question, and that, as Hentoff said, Negroponte had confirmed the original Post article?

Never Came Up

The trouble for Time is that the phrase "secret prisons" never came up in the interview. At least that is what Carl Kropf, Chief of Media Relations for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told me. He said the question and answer on this matter consisted of the following:

"Q: What is the end game for the three dozen or so high value detainees?

"A: I'm not going to get into that one, really. These people are being held, they're bad actors, and as long as the situation continues, the situation with the war on terror continuing, I'm not sure I can tell you what the ultimate disposition of those detainees would be."

Negroponte didn't describe the nature of these facilities or their locations. He didn't even imply that they were "prisons" in the sense that we understand the term. The subject just never came up. Instead, he talked about them being "held" somewhere.

It's hardly surprising that terrorists are being held by the United States or our allies. After all, we are in a war for our survival. There is a war going on and terrorists are being killed or apprehended. Those being held somewhere are being interrogated to produce information to save American lives. But the media, including Time, have decided that they are being held in "secret prisons" or worse, and the implication is that we ought to be ashamed of what our government is doing to protect us.

Time now says they did not "mean to imply" that he had used those words "secret prisons." Well, Hentoff's column is a concrete example of how people would view the Time article as saying that Negroponte had confirmed their existence. That was my impression as well, and that is why I followed up with some questions that resulted in this house of cards falling down.

False Charge

Time went on to say that "Negroponte's comments appear to be the first open acknowledgement of the secret U.S. detention system and the fact that captives such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammad—involved in Sept. 11 or other major attacks on U.S. interests around the world—may be held indefinitely."

The word "appear" was the key one. But how could he have appeared to say anything about secret prisons when the subject didn't even come up in the interview? Time went further, saying his remarks were the "first open acknowledgement of the secret U.S. detention system…"

This is strange and irresponsible journalism. First, the magazine uses the weasel word "appear." Then it said that Negroponte's comments constituted an "open acknowledgement" of their existence. How can it be that the comments "appear" to be referring to something that is quite "open" and direct? The obvious intent was to create the impression that the magazine had a big scoop. In fact, however, Negroponte really did not say much in that exchange. What he said, in effect, was that he wasn't going to comment on the fate or location of those detainees. Not satisfied with that answer, Time decided to create something out of almost nothing. This is how Dana Priest won a Pulitzer.

posted June 21, 2006 01:19 PM              

LOve and Respect for ALL..

posted June 21, 2006 04:10 PM              

Shut uppppp.

posted June 21, 2006 05:48 PM            

OK TP, show me which European countries admitted they had/have "secret CIA prisons" inside their borders.

Oh, and be sure to post the article where they admitted it.

There are several people here whom I wouldn't take their word on anything.

You're one of them.

posted June 21, 2006 06:15 PM              

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Page A01

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

In Afghanistan, the largest CIA covert prison was code-named the Salt Pit, at center left above. (Space Imaging Middle East)

Detainees Database
The Pentagon has declined to identify the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, most of whom were captured in Afghanistan during and after the 2001 war there. The Post has compiled a list of names made public thus far, encompassing 434 men whose identities have appeared in media reports, on Arabic Web sites...

Names of Detainees Held at Guantanamo Bay

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Washington Post staff writer Dana Priest discusses the latest developments in national security and intelligence.

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The Washington Post's Dana Priest talks about the CIA's secret compounds that have been used to hide and interrogate some of its al Qaeda captives.

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The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody.

Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.

The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic and anxious first months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the working assumption was that a second strike was imminent.

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html

posted June 21, 2006 06:17 PM              

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By BRIAN ROSS and RICHARD ESPOSITO

Dec. 5, 2005 — Two CIA secret prisons were operating in Eastern Europe until last month when they were shut down following Human Rights Watch reports of their existence in Poland and Romania.

Current and former CIA officers speaking to ABC News on the condition of confidentiality say the United States scrambled to get all the suspects off European soil before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there today. The officers say 11 top al Qaeda suspects have now been moved to a new CIA facility in the North African desert.

Related: List of 12 Operatives Held in CIA Prisons
Prison Moves
Related: ABC News Investigations: Complete Coverage

CIA officials asked ABC News not to name the specific countries where the prisons were located, citing security concerns.

The CIA declines to comment, but current and former intelligence officials tell ABC News that 11 top al Qaeda figures were all held at one point on a former Soviet air base in one Eastern European country. Several of them were later moved to a second Eastern European country.

All but one of these 11 high-value al Qaeda prisoners were subjected to the harshest interrogation techniques in the CIA's secret arsenal, the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized for use by about 14 CIA officers and first reported by ABC News on Nov. 18.

Rice today avoided directly answering the question of secret prisons in remarks made on her departure for Europe, where the issue of secret prisons and secret flights has caused a furor.

Without mentioning any country by name, Rice acknowledged special handling for certain terrorists.

"The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which were designed for different needs. We have had to adapt," Rice said.

The CIA has used a small fleet of private jets to move top al Qaeda suspects from Afghanistan and the Middle East to Eastern Europe, where Human Rights Watch has identified Poland and Romania as the countries that housed secret sites.

But Polish Defense Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told ABC Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross today: "My president has said there is no truth in these reports."

Ross asked: "Do you know otherwise, sir, are you aware of these sites being shut down in the last few weeks, operating on a base under your direct control?"

Sikorski answered, "I think this is as much as I can tell you about this."

In Romania, where the secret prison was possibly at a military base visited last year by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the new Romanian prime minister said today there is no evidence of a CIA site but that he will investigate.

Sources tell ABC that the CIA's secret prisons have existed since March 2002 when one was established in Thailand to house the first important al Qaeda target captured. Sources tell ABC that the approval for another secret prison was granted last year by a North African nation.

Sources tell ABC News that the CIA has a related system of secretly returning other prisoners to their home country when they have outlived their usefulness to the United States.

These same sources also tell ABC News that U.S. intelligence also ships some "unlawful combatants" to countries that use interrogation techniques harsher than any authorized for use by U.S. intelligence officers. They say that Jordan, Syria, Morocco and Egypt were among the nations used in order to extract confessions quickly using techniques harsher than those authorized for use by U.S. intelligence officers. These prisoners were not necessarily citizens of those nations.

According to sources directly involved in setting up the CIA secret prison system, it began with the capture of Abu Zabayda in Pakistan. After treatment there for gunshot wounds, he was whisked by the CIA to Thailand where he was housed in a small, disused warehouse on an active airbase. There, his cell was kept under 24-hour closed circuit TV surveillance and his life-threatening wounds were tended to by a CIA doctor specially sent from Langley headquarters to assure Abu Zubaydah was given proper care, sources said. Once healthy, he was slapped, grabbed, made to stand long hours in a cold cell, and finally handcuffed and strapped feet up to a water board until after 0.31 seconds he begged for mercy and began to cooperate.

While in the secret facilities in Eastern Europe, Abu Zubaydah and his fellow captives were fed breakfasts that included yogurt and fruit, lunches that included steamed vegetables and beans, and dinners that included meat or chicken and more vegetables and rice, sources say. In exchange for cooperation, prisoners were sometimes given hard candies, desserts and chocolates. Abu Zubaydah was partial to Kit Kats, the same treat Saddam Hussein fancied in his captivity.

"One of the difficult issues in this new kind of conflict is what to do with captured individuals who we know or believe to be terrorists," Rice said. "The individuals come from many countries and are often captured far from their original homes. Among them are those who are effectively stateless, owing allegiance only to the extremist cause of transnational terrorism. Many are extremely dangerous. And some have information that may save lives, perhaps even thousands of lives."

Sources tell ABC News that Jordanians, Egyptians, Moroccans, Tunisians, Algerians, Saudis, Pakistanis, Uzbekistanis and Chinese citizens have been returned to their nations' intelligence services after initial debriefing by U.S. intelligence officers. Rice said renditions such as these are vital to the war on terror. "Rendition is a vital tool in combating transnational terrorism," she said.

Of the 12 high-value targets housed by the CIA, only one did not require water boarding before he talked. Ramzi bin al-Shibh broke down in tears after he was walked past the cell of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the operational planner for Sept. 11. Visibly shaken, he started to cry and became as cooperative as if he had been tied down to a water board, sources said.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1375123&WNT=true

posted June 21, 2006 06:20 PM              

Graphic by Newsweek; Plane photo: Konstantin von Wedelstaedt
Holding pattern: The agency has been operating a Boeing 737 as part of a top-secret global charter

FACT FILE
Tale of a 'Snatch'
The Boeing 737, tail number N313P, made stops conforming closely to the account of suspect Khaled el-Masri.

1. Jan. 16, 2004 Washington Dulles to Shannon, Ireland
2. Jan. 17, 2004 Shannon, Ireland, to Larnaca, Cyprus
3. Jan. 21, 2004 Larnaca, Cyprus, to Sale, Morocco
4. Jan. 22, 2004 Sale, Morocco, to Kabul, Afghanistan
5. Jan. 22, 2004 Kabul, Afghanistan, to Alger-hourari boum, Algeria
6. Jan. 22, 2004 Alger-hourari boum, Algeria, to Palma, Majorca
7. Jan. 23, 2004 Palma, Majorca, to Skopje, Macedonia
8. Jan. 24, 2004 Skopje, Macedonia, to Baghdad, Iraq
9. Jan. 24, 2004 Baghdad, Iraq, to Kabul, Afghanistan
10. Jan. 25, 2004 Kabul, Afghanistan, to Timisoara, Romania
11. Jan. 25, 2004 Timisoara, Romania, to Bucharest, Romania
12. Jan. 26, 2004 Bucharest, Romania, to Palma, Majorca
13. Jan. 28, 2004 Palma, Majorca, to Washington Dulles

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Intelligence: The New Super Boss and a "Ghost" Plane
Michael Hirsh, NEWSWEEK Senior Editor, Washington and Frank Gaffney, President, Center for Security Policy; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense

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By Michael Hirsh, Mark Hosenball and John Barry
Newsweek
Feb. 28, 2005 issue - Like many detainees with tales of abuse, Khaled el-Masri had a hard time getting people to believe him. Even his wife didn't know what to make of his abrupt, five-month disappearance last year. Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, says he was taken off a bus in Macedonia in south-central Europe while on holiday on Dec. 31, 2003, then whisked in handcuffs to a motel outside the capital city of Skopje. Three weeks later, on the evening of Jan. 23, 2004, he was brought blindfolded aboard a jet with engines noisily revving, according to his lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic. Masri says he climbed high stairs "like onto a regular passenger airplane" and was chained to clamps on the bare metal floor and wall of the jet.

Story continues below ↓
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Masri says he was then flown to Afghanistan, where at a U.S. prison facility he was shackled, repeatedly punched and questioned about extremists at his mosque in Ulm, Germany. Finally released months later, the still-mystified Masri was deposited on a deserted road leading into Macedonia, where he brokenly tried to describe his nightmarish odyssey to a border guard. "The man was laughing at me," Masri told The New York Times, which disclosed his story last month. "He said: 'Don't tell that story to anyone because no one will believe it. Everyone will laugh'."

No one's laughing these days, least of all the CIA. NEWSWEEK has obtained previously unpublished flight plans indicating the agency has been operating a Boeing 737 as part of a top-secret global charter servicing clandestine interrogation facilities used in the war on terror. And the Boeing's flight information, detailed to the day, seems to confirm Masri's tale of abduction. Gnjidic, Masri's lawyer, called the information "very, very important" to his case, which is being investigated as a kidnapping by a Munich prosecutor. In what could prove embarrassing to President Bush, Gnjidic added that a German TV station was planning to feature Masri's tale ahead of Bush's much-touted trip to Germany this week. German Interior Minister Otto Schily recently visited CIA Director Porter Goss to discuss the case, and German sources tell NEWSWEEK that Schily was seeking an apology. CIA officials declined to comment on that meeting or any aspect of Masri's story.

The evidence backing up Masri's account of being "snatched" by American operatives is only the latest blow to the CIA in the ongoing detention-abuse scandal. Together with previously disclosed flight plans of a smaller Gulfstream V jet, the Boeing 737's travels are further evidence that a global "ghost" prison system, where terror suspects are secretly interrogated, is being operated by the CIA. Several of the Gulfstream flights allegedly correlate with other "renditions," the controversial practice of secretly spiriting suspects to other countries without due process. "The more evidence that comes out, the clearer it is that there's been a stunning failure of accountability," says lawyer John Sifton of Human Rights Watch.

CIA officials are increasingly fretful about being saddled with this secret prison network at a time of intense pressure from lawyers and human-rights activists. The CIA's anxiety only deepened last week when President Bush named John Negroponte, his ambassador to Iraq, as the country's first director of national intelligence. Negroponte, a demanding career diplomat, will take over the coveted president's daily brief, or PDB, from Goss. Bush sought to reassure the CIA that it would still be welcome in the Oval Office. But Bush also signaled that Negroponte would preside over a major shift in power in intelligence gathering. "John and I will work to determine how much exposure the CIA will have to the Oval Office," the president told reporters.

While it battles for influence in Washington, the agency is also fighting a rear-guard action against critics at home and abroad. Some CIA officials fear the White House is now exposing them to legal peril. New Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under pressure while he awaited his confirmation hearings late last year, repudiated a controversial August 2002 memo that CIA officials carefully solicited from the Justice Department for legal authorization on renditions and the agency's treatment of Qaeda prisoners. Today the CIA has dozens of detainees it doesn't know how to dispose of without legal procedures. "Where's the off button?" says one retired CIA official. "They asked the White House for direction on how to dispose of these detainees back when they asked for [interrogation] guidance. The answer was, 'We'll worry about that later.' Now we don't know what to do with these guys. People keep saying, 'We're not going to shoot them'."

Charles Ommanney / Contact for Newsweek
Czar in waiting: Negroponte will preside over a major shift in intelligence gathering
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The new evidence supporting Masri's case will only inflame the debate. According to data filed with European aviation authorities, the Boeing 737 landed in Skopje on Jan. 23, 2004, after a flight from the island of Majorca off Spain (a U.S.-friendly government), and left that night. Masri's passport has a Macedonian exit stamp for Jan. 23. The flight plan shows that the plane landed the next day in Baghdad and then went onto Kabul, Afghanistan, on Jan. 25, which also conforms to Masri's account. According to Federal Aviation Administration records, the jet was owned at the time by Premier Executive Transport Services, a now-defunct Massachusetts-based company that U.S. intelligence sources acknowledge to NEWSWEEK fits the profile of a suspected CIA front.

The Boeing flights are part of a detailed two-year itinerary for the 737 obtained by NEWSWEEK. The jet's record dates to December 2002 and shows flights up until Feb. 7 of this year. The Boeing 737 may have served as a general CIA transport plane for equipment and supplies as well. Among the stops recorded are Libya, where the U.S. government has been dismantling Muammar Kaddafi's clandestine nuclear program, and Jordan, where the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that high-level Qaeda detainees, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, were being held. (A Jordanian spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.) The Boeing also landed at Guantanamo.

Ironically, many U.S. officials say, the CIA secret facilities have proven very effective for quietly interrogating a handful of known Qaeda suspects. But when such rough practices "migrated" to Iraqi war detainees and bigger facilities like Abu Ghraib prison—under the direction of the Defense Department—the public backlash compromised the CIA's intel-gathering efforts. Today the agency's cover has been blown and critics are questioning why no full-time CIA employees have been prosecuted despite several cases of serious abuse linked to the agency.

Among these cases is that of Manadel al-Jamadi, the Iraqi whose corpse was notoriously photographed with grinning U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib last year. An Associated Press report last week said that documents show Jamadi died under CIA interrogation while suspended by his wrists at the prison. But only the Navy SEALs who delivered him to Abu Ghraib are currently being investigated, officials say.

U.S. officials insist the CIA has stopped rendering suspects to countries where they believe torture occurs. NEWSWEEK has learned that shortly after a Canadian jihadi suspect of Syrian origin, Maher Arar, was shipped back to Syria in September 2002, officials began having grave second thoughts about rendering suspects to that nation. As a result, the administration made a secret decision to stop sending suspects to Syria. But officials acknowledge that such scruples are being ignored when it comes to rendering suspects to allies like Egypt and Jordan, even though some officials do not believe "assurances" from these nations that they were not mistreating prisoners. Now the CIA may have to supply many more assurances—and Khaled el-Masri, among others, is waiting for them.

With Stephen Grey in London and Stefan Theil in Berlin

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6999272/site/newsweek/

posted June 21, 2006 06:34 PM              

A presidential directive allows the agency to capture and hold specific classes of suspects without accounting for them to the public, or revealing the conditions they face in the prisons. Opponents of this practice charge that US officials have ordered (or deliberately overlook) prisoner abuse. The prisons are assumed to be serviced by the N44982, N4476S and N221SG prisoner transport planes, although there is no proof of the allegation. Apart from the hundred CIA detainees, Swiss politician Dick Marty's January 2006 report concluded that another hundred had been kidnapped on European territory and rendered to other countries, some of which use torture.

An investigation on the origins of the leaks has also been opened by the U.S. Justice Department to investigate what may have been illegal release of classified information. On April 21, 2006, Mary O. McCarthy, a longtime CIA analyst, was reportedly fired for leaking classified information to a Washington Post reporter. Some have speculated that the information allegedly leaked may have included information about the camps.[1] McCarthy's lawyer, however, claims that McCarthy "did not have access to the information she is accused of leaking."[1]

Contents [hide]
1 Detainees
2 Suspected black sites
3 Issue development
3.1 European Union
3.1.1 The Village 's March 2005 revelations
3.1.2 Human Rights Watch's allegations
3.1.3 Investigations in Spain concerning CIA flights
3.1.4 Investigations in France concerning CIA flights
3.1.5 The European investigation
3.1.6 The Onyx-intercepted fax
4 Controversy
5 U.S. administration response
6 United Nations response
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit]
Detainees
Main article: Detainees in CIA custody
The list of those thought to be held by the CIA include suspected al-Qaeda members Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah. The total number of ghost detainees was presumed to be at least a hundred, although the precise number cannot be determined because less than 10% of them have been charged or convicted. However, Swiss senator Dick Marty's memorandum on "alleged detention in Council of Europe states" stated that about a hundred persons had been kidnapped by the CIA on European territory and subsequently rendered to countries where they may have been tortured. This number of a hundred persons does not overlap, but adds itself to the U.S. detained 100 ghost detainees.[2]

[edit]
Suspected black sites
Americas
In Cuba, the CIA detains alleged "enemy combatants" in Guantánamo Bay, which includes Camp X-Ray (now closed), Camp Delta, Camp Echo and Camp Iguana. A CIA prison was built within the larger Camp Echo at Guantanamo Bay in 2003, and has reportedly held prisoners from Pakistan, West Africa and Yemen.
Asia
In Thailand, the Voice of America relay station in Udon Thani was reported to be a black site. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has denied these reports.[3]
Middle East
In Afghanistan, the prison at Bagram Air Base was initially housed in an abandoned brickmaking factory outside Kabul known as the "Salt Pit" [4], but later moved to the base some time after a young Afghani died of hypothermia after being stripped naked and left chained to a floor. During this period, there were several incidents of torture and prisoner abuse, though they were related to non-secret prisoners, and not the CIA-operated portion of the prison. At some point prior to 2005, the prison was again relocated, this time to an unknown site. Metal containers at Bagram Air Base were reported to be black sites.[5] Some Guantanamo detainees report being tortured in a prison they called "the dark prison", also near Kabul.[6] In Iraq, Abu Ghraib was disclosed as also working as a black site, and was the center of an extensive prisoner abuse scandal.[7] Additionally, Camp Bucca (near Umm Qasr) and Camp Cropper (near the Baghdad International Airport) were reported.
An Israeli newspaper reported Al Jafr prison in Jordan as a black site.[8] Black sites have also been reported in Alizai, Kohat, and Peshāwar, Pakistan.
Africa
Djibouti [9]
Egypt, Libya, Morocco [10][11]
Indian Ocean
The U.S. Naval Base in Diego Garcia was reported to be a black site, but UK officials have denied these reports.[12]
Europe
Several European countries have denied hosting black sites: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Romania, Georgia, Latvia, and Bulgaria. Slovakian ministry spokesman Richard Fides said the country had no black sites, but its intelligence service spokesman Vladimir Simko said he would not disclose any information about possible Slovakian black sites to the media. EU Justice commissioner Franco Frattini makes an unprecedented call for the suspension of voting rights for any member state found to have hosted a CIA black site.
Bulgaria [8]
Ukraine[13] denied hosting any such sites [14].
Macedonia [8]
Romania
Although interior minister Vasile Blaga has assured the EU that the Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport was used only as a supply point for equipment, and never for detention, there have been reports to the contrary. A fax intercepted by the Onyx Swiss interception system, from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to its London embassy stated that 23 prisoners were clandestinely interrogated by the U.S. at the base.[15][16][17]
Mobile sites
U.S. warship USS Bataan[18][19][20]- By definition as a U.S. military vessel, this is not technically a "black site" as defined above. However, it has been used by the United States military as a temporary initial interrogation site (after which, prisoners are then transferred to other facilities, possibly including black sites).
N221SG a Learjet 35
N44982 a Gulfstream V[21][22] (also known as N379P)
N8068V a Gulfstream V
N4476S a Boeing Business Jet[23][24]
[edit]
Issue development
The Washington Post on December 26, 2002 reported about a secret CIA prison in one corner of Bagram Air Force Base consisting of metal shipping containers.[3] On March 14, 2004, The Guardian reported that three British citizens were held captive in a secret section (Camp Echo) of the Guantánamo Bay complex.[25] Several other articles reported the retention of ghost detainees by the CIA, alongside to the other official "enemy combatants". However, it was the revelations of the Washington Post, in a November 2, 2005 article, that would start the scandal. The newspaper revealed that the U.S. government was detaining more than 100 terrorism suspects in eight secret facilities.[26] According to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats, there is a network of foreign prisons that includes or has included sites in several European democracies, Thailand, Afghanistan, and a small portion of the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba - this network has been labeled by Amnesty International as "The Gulag Archipelago", in a clear reference to the novel of the same name by Russian writer and activist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. At the request of U.S. officials, the Post declined to publish the names of the Eastern European countries involved.[27]

[edit]
European Union
The accusation that several EU members may have allowed the United States to hold, imprison or torture detainees on their soil has been a subject of controversy in the European body, who announced in November 2005 that any country found to be complicit could lose their right to vote in the council.[28]

[edit]
The Village 's March 2005 revelations
In the 26 February-4 March 2005 edition of Ireland's "The Village", an article titled "Abductions via Shannon" revealed that Dublin and Shannon airports in Ireland were "used by the CIA to abduct suspects in its 'war on terror'". The article went on to state that a Boeing 737 (registration number N313P, later reregistered N4476S) "was routed through Shannon and Dublin on fourteen occasions from 1 January 2003 to the end of 2004. This is according to the flight log of the aircraft obtained from Washington DC by Village". Destinations included Estonia (1/11/03); Larnaca, Sale, Kabul, Palma, Skopje, Baghdad, Kabul (all 16 January 2004);Marka (10 May 2004 and 13 June 2004). Other flights began in places such as Dubai (2 June 2003 and 30 December 2003), Mitiga (29 October 2003 and 27 April 2004), Baghdad (2003) and Marka (8 February 2004, 4 March 2004, 10 May 2004), all of which ended in Washington DC.

The article stated that the same aircraft landed in Guantanamo on September 23, 2003 "having travelled from Kabul to Szymany (Poland), Mihail Kogălniceanu (Romania) and Salé (Morocco)."It had being used "in connection with the abduction in Skopje, Macedonia, of Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, on 31 December 2003, and his transport to a US detention centre in Afghanistan on 23 January 2004."

The aircraft was registered as being owned by Premier Executive Transport Services, based in Massachusetts, though as of February 2005 it was listed as being owned by Keeler and Tate Management, Reno, Nevada (US). On the day of registration transference, a Gulfstream V jet (number N8068V) used in the same activities, was transferred from Premier Executive Transport Services to a company called Baynard Foreign Marketing.

[edit]
Human Rights Watch's allegations
On November 3, 2005, Tom Malinowski of the New York-based Human Rights Watch cited circumstantial evidence pointing to Poland and Romania hosting CIA-operated covert prisons. Flight records obtained by the group documented the Boeing 737 'N4476S' leased by the CIA for transporting prisoners leaving Kabul and making stops in Poland and Romania before continuing on to Morocco, and finally Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.[29][30] Such flight patterns might corroborate the claims of government officials that prisoners are grouped into different classes being deposited in different locations. Malinowski's comments prompted quick denials by both Polish and Romanian government officials as well as sparking the concern of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who called for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States.

[edit]
Investigations in Spain concerning CIA flights
In November 2005, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that CIA planes had landed in the Canary Islands and in Palma de Mallorca. An attorney opened up an investigation concerning these landings which, according to Madrid, were made without official knowledge, thus being a breach of national sovereignty.[31][32][33]

[edit]
Investigations in France concerning CIA flights
The French attorney general of Bobigny opened up an instruction in order "to verify the presence in Le Bourget Airport, on July 20, 2005, of the plane numbered N50BH." This instruction was opened following a complaint deposed in December 2005 by the Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH) NGO ("Human Rights League") and the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) NGO on charges of "arbitrary detention", "crime of torture" and "non-respect of the rights of war prisoners". It has as objective to determine if the plane was used to transport CIA prisoners to Guantamamo detention center and if the French authorities had knowledge of this stop. However, the lawyer defending the LDH declared that he was surprised that the instruction was only opened on January 20, 2006, and that no verifications had been done before. On December 2, 2005, conservative newspaper Le Figaro had revealed the existence of two CIA planes that had landed in France, suspected of transporting CIA prisoners. But the instruction concerned only N50BH, which was a Gulfstream III, which would have landed at Le Bourget on July 20, 2005, coming from Oslo, Norway. The other suspected aircraft would have landed in Brest on March 31, 2002. It is investigated by the Canadian authorities, as it would have been flying from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada, via Keflavík in Iceland before going to Turkey [34].

[edit]
The European investigation

Report regarding the Egyptian fax intercepted on 10 November 2005 by the Swiss Onyx interception system, as published in the Swiss pressThe European Union (EU) and Europe's top human rights organisation, the Council of Europe, pledged to investigate the allegations. In an article posted through Reuters on November 25, 2005, the lead investigator for the Council of Europe, Swiss lawmaker Dick Marty announced that he had obtained latitude and longitude coordinates for suspected black sites, and he was planning to use satellite imagery over the last several years as part of his investigation. On November 28, 2005, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini asserted that any EU country which had operated a secret prison would have its voting rights suspended.[35] In a preliminary report, Dick Marty declared that it was "highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware" of the CIA kidnapping of a "hundred" persons on European territory and their subsequent rendition to countries where they may be tortured [1].

On April 21, 2006 the New York Times reported that European investigators said they had not been able to find conclusive evidence of the existence of European black sites.[36]

[edit]
The Onyx-intercepted fax
In its edition of January 8, 2006, the Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick published a document intercepted on November 10 by the Swiss Onyx interception system (similar to the UKUSA's ECHELON system). Purportedly sent by the Egyptian embassy in London to foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the document states that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens were interrogated at Mihail Kogălniceanu base near Constanţa, Romania. According to the same document, similar interrogation centers exist in Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Ukraine[8].

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry later explained that the intercepted fax was merely a review of the Romanian press done by the Egyptian Embassy in Bucharest. It probably referred to a statement by controversial Senator and Great Romania party leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor.[37]

[edit]
Controversy
The revelation of such black sites adds to the controversy surrounding U.S. policy regarding "enemy combatants". According to government sources, the detainees are broken into two groups. Approximately 30 detainees are considered the most dangerous or important terrorism suspects and are held at the black sites under the most secretive arrangements by the CIA. The second group is comprised of more than 70 detainees who may have originally been sent to black sites, but are soon delivered by the CIA to intelligence agencies in Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Morocco, and Egypt. A further 100 ghost detainees kidnapped on European territory and rendered to other countries must be counted, according to Swiss senator Dick Marty's January 2006's report. This process is called "extraordinary rendition". Marty also underlined that European countries probably had knowledge of these covert operations. Furthermore, the CIA apparently financially assists and directs the jails in these countries. While the U.S. and host countries have signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture, CIA officers are allowed to use what the agency calls Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. These have been alleged to constitute "severe pain or suffering" under the UN convention, which would be a violation of the treaty and thus U.S. law.

The fourteen European countries Marty listed as collaborators in "unlawful inter-state transfers": Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Romania and Poland. [2] Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz characterized the accusation as "libel", while Romania similarly said there was no evidence. Britain's Tony Blair said "[the report] added absolutely nothing new whatever to the information we have".[3] Poland and Romania received the most direct accusals, as the report claims the evidence for these sites is "strong." The report cites airports in Timisoara, Romania, and Szymany, Poland, as "detainee transfer/drop-off point[s]." Eight airports outside Europe are also cited.

[edit]
U.S. administration response
Responding to the allegations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated on December 5 that U.S. had not violated any country's sovereignty in the rendition of terrorism suspects, and that individuals were never rendered to countries where it was believed that they might be tortured. Some media sources have noted her comments do not exclude the possibility of covert prison sites operated with the knowledge of the "host" nation,[38] or the possibility that promises by such "host" nations that they will refrain from torture may not be genuine.[39]

[edit]
United Nations response
On May 19, 2006, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (the U.N. body that monitors compliance with the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the world's anti-torture treaty) recommended that the United States cease holding detainees in secret prisons and stop the practice of rendering prisoners to countries where they are likely to be tortured. The decision was made in Geneva following two days of hearings at which a 26-member U.S. delegation defended the practices.[40] PDF file of report

[edit]
See also
Detainees in CIA custody
Forced disappearance
Geneva Conventions
Ghost detainee
"The Gulag Archipelago", Amnesty International qualification of the CIA black sites network
N44982, one of the jets allegedly used to covertly transport prisoners
Political prisoner
Prisoner of war
Rendition and Extraordinary rendition
United Nations Convention Against Torture
erroneous rendition
the salt pit
the dark prison
Camp Eggers
"Enemy combatants"
Jeff Rense
[edit]
References
^ "Colleagues Say C.I.A. Analyst Played by Rules"", New York Times, April 22, 2006.
^ a Information memorandum II on the alleged secret detentions in Council of Europe state, rapported by Dick Marty, January 22, 2006
^ "Thaksin denies Thailand had 'CIA secret prison'", Bangkok Post.
^ ""The Salt Pit" CIA Interrogation Facility outsitde Kabul", GlobalSecurity.org.
^ a Priest, Dana, "U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations 'Stress and Duress' Tactics Used on Terrorism Suspects Held in Secret Overseas Facilities", Washington Post, December 26, 2002, pp. A01.
^ ""U.S. Operated Secret 'Dark Prison' in Kabul"", Reuters, December 19, 2005.
^ White, Josh, "Army, CIA Agreed on 'Ghost' Prisoners", Washington Post, March 11, 2005, pp. A16.
^ "Secret CIA centre in Jordan", News24, October 13, 2004.
^ Amnesty International. "United States of America / Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and ‘disappearance’", amnestyusa.org, April 5, 2006.
^ Huizinga, Johan, "Is Europe being used to hold CIA detainees?", Radio Netherlands, November 25, 2005.
^ "CIA Prisons Moved To North Africa?", CBS News, December 13, 2005.
^ Amnesty International. "United States of America / Yemen: Secret Detention in CIA "Black Sites"", YubaNet.com, November 8, 2005.
^ a b c d Dombey, Daniel, "CIA faces new secret jails claim", Financial Times, January 10, 2006.
^ UPI. "Ukraine denies hosting secret CIA prisons", United Press International, March 13, 2006.
^ "Swiss hunt leak on CIA prisons", The Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2006.
^ "Swiss intercept fax on secret CIA jails", Vive le Canada, January 10, 2006.
^ "Swiss paper claims proofs of secret US torture camp", Australian Broadcasting Corporation, January 12, 2006.
^ Posner, Michael (2004). "Letter to Secretary Rumsfeld".
^ John Walker Lindh Profile: The case of the Taliban American. CNN.com People in the News. Retrieved on November 29, 2005.
^ "Myers: Intelligence might have thwarted attacks", CNN, January 9, 2002.
^ Priest, Dana, "Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War", Washington Post, December 27, 2004, pp. A01.
^ Tim, "CIA Torture Jet sold in attempted cover up", Melbourne Indymedia, December 11, 2004.
^ Grey, Stephen, "Details of US 'torture by proxy flights' emerge", Not In Our Name, November 14, 2004.
^ Brooks, Rosa, "Torture: It's the new American way", Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2005.
^ "Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons The Observer's David Rose hears the Tipton Three give a harrowing account of their captivity in Cuba", The Guardian, March 14, 2004.
^ Priest, Dana, "CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons", CNN, November 2, 2005, pp. A01.
^ "The Consequences of Covering Up", FAIR, November 4, 2005.
^ CNews
^ "Secret Prisons in Poland and Romania?", DW-World, November 4, 2005.
^ Sliva, Jan, "Nations Urged to Answer Prison Allegations", MagicValley.com, November 4, 2005.
^ "El Gobierno canario pide explicaciones sobre vuelos de la CIA en Tenerife", El Pais, 16 November 2005.
^ "La Fiscalía de Canarias investigará las escalas de vuelos de la CIA en Tenerife y Gran Canaria", El Mundo, 18 November 2005.
^ "Un supuesto avión de la CIA aterriza en la base portuguesa de Azores", Canarias 7, 28 November 2005.
^ (French)"La France enquête sur les avions de la CIA", Le Figaro, February 2, 2006.
^ Ames, Paul, "EU May Suspend Nations With Secret Prisons", ABC News, November 28, 2005.
^ No Proof of Secret C.I.A. Prisons, European Antiterror Chief Says, New York Times, April 21, 2006
^ Axis Information and Analysis. Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review, 28 November 2005.
^ Rupert Cornwell, 'Rendition' does not involve torture, says Rice The Independent on 6 December 2005
^ Bronwen Maddox, Tough words from Rice leave loopholes, The Times on December 06, 2005
^ William Fisher, US Groups Hail Censure of Washington's "Terror War, Inter Press Service on May 20, 2006
[edit]
External links
"CIA Interrogation Centre "The Salt Pit"", Altopix.
Priest, Dana, "Secret World of U.S. Interrogation Long History of Tactics in Overseas Prisons Is Coming to Light", Washington Post, May 11, 2004, pp. A01.
Hersh, Seymour M., "The Gray Zone - How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib", The New Yorker, May 24, 2005.
"U.S. Holding Prisoners in More Than Two Dozen Secret Detention Facilities Worldwide, New Report Says", Human Rights First, June 17, 2004.
Priest, Dana, "At Guantanamo, a Prison Within a Prison CIA Has Run a Secret Facility for Some Al Qaeda Detainees, Officials Say", Washington Post, December 16, 2004.
"CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment Afghan's Death Took Two Years to Come to Light; Agency Says Abuse Claims Are Probed Fully", Washington Post, March 2, 2005.
Priest, Dana, "CIA Avoids Scrutiny of Detainee Treatment Afghan's Death Took Two Years to Come to Light; Agency Says Abuse Claims Are Probed Fully", Washington Post, March 3, 2005.
"Terror Interrogations Held in Old Soviet Facility", Fox News, November 2, 2005.
Priest, Dana, "Secret prison system detains high-level terrorism suspects", Washington Post, November 2, 2005.
"CIA 'running secret terror jails'", BBC, November 2, 2005.
"CIA 'has secret terror jails'", Aljazeera, November 2, 2005.
Priest, Dana, "Policies on Terrorism Suspects Come Under Fire: Democrats Say CIA's Covert Prisons Hurt U.S. Image; U.N. Official on Torture to Conduct Inquiry", Washington Post, November 3, 2005.
"Thailand denies being interrogation site", The Age, November 3, 2005.
"Get out of the torture business - Mistreating detainees is unAmerican and puts our own soldiers at risk", Oregon Live, February 10, 2005.
Robinson, Eugene, "Out of a Bad Spy Novel", Washington Post, November 4, 2005, pp. A23.
"‘Black site’ prisons invite unchecked abuse", News Tribune, November 3, 2005.
Silva, Jan, "Nations urged to answer prison allegations", Washington Post, November 4, 2005.
Brookes, Peter, "CIA 'black sites': A black eye for U.S.", Philadelphia Inquirer, November 9, 2005.
"Frist concerned more about leaks than secret prisons", CNN, November 10, 2005.
"The Hunt for Hercules N8183J", Der Spiegel, November 28, 2005.
Jeff Rense Homepage: Certain CIA Matters
"Revealed: the terror prison US is helping build in Morocco", The Sunday Times, February 12, 2006.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site"

posted June 21, 2006 06:36 PM              

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

click here for related stories: Human Rights 8:59 am

The discovery by cleaning workers of a chained and blindfolded prisoner on board a US aircraft at Shannon Airport has exposed the real relationship and the attitude of the US government to Irish neutrality and Irish law.

The Department of Foreign Affairs, in a press statement, reported that on Sunday 11 June "a civilian aircraft landed at Shannon for a technical refuelling stop en route from Kuwait to the United States. Among other unarmed military personnel the plane was carrying a US Marine convicted of a minor breach of the US military code. He was in military custody. He was wearing military fatigues.

"While the transfer of such a prisoner would be lawful under international and domestic law, it requires the consent of the Minister for Justice. The US authorities did not seek such consent. This failure, though inadvertent, is unacceptable. It is a matter of gravest concern to the Irish Government."

It was an employee of a private cleaning company who discovered this person shackled on board the aircraft-not a garda or immigration official but an ordinary worker cleaning the aircraft.

Once again the Irish government takes at face value the word of the US government, despite the fact that the same government is flouting our laws. The recent report published by the Council of Europe on the collaboration by fourteen European countries, including Ireland, in CIA torture flights has exposed what most people believed to be happening for some time; and the Shannon revelation is the smoking gun that they have tried hard to conceal.

Our government has been complicit in this gross violation of international as well as national law in relation to supporting or assisting in the torture of prisoners. The Irish government has taken the word of the US government and Condoleezza Rice at face value.

A number of questions need to be asked about the role of torture flights and the role of Shannon Airport. The US government claims that it does not torture prisoners; then why kidnap people from Britain, Germany, or Italy, then transfer them to third countries, such as Afghanistan, Jordan, or Egypt, for "questioning"? Have Britain and other countries not got the capacity to interrogate prisoners?

There can be only one reason for prisoners being transferred to countries like Afghanistan, Egypt, and Jordan, and that is that these and other countries have a long history of the abuse of prisoners. The torture of political prisoners is commonplace in these and other ally countries of the United States.

It is the same tactic as claiming that the Guantánamo military base in Cuba is not really US territory, so prisoners there are not bound by US law. The US Supreme Court has ruled that this is not the case: this US military base is subject to US law, and the prisoners there have legal rights.

The Council of Europe report exposes not alone the complicity and collusion of fourteen European countries in the transport of prisoners but also the fact that the United States has and uses secret prison camps in a number of European countries, in particular Poland and Romania-two countries that threw off the oppressive "yoke" of socialism and "domination" by the Soviet Union and have now entered the suffocating embrace of imperialism.

The new elites of eastern Europe are quite willing to sell the sovereignty and independence of their countries to secure their own junior role. This is a far cry from the heyday of 1989, when "sovereignty and independence" was the flag that reactionaries draped themselves in throughout eastern Europe.

The political elite of Ireland are now well integrated in both the US and EU imperialist camps, having a foot in both. Our mass media remain remarkably silent in relation to this important matter and to our acquiescence in both torture and war. This elite cannot and will not do anything to jeopardise their economic and political interests.

More than a thousand American soldiers pass through Shannon Airport every day. It is now clear that Shannon will be allowed to continue with this use so long as the United States requires it, as well as to allow torture flights and the refuelling of the US war machine on its way to Iraq or Afghanistan.

As we move into the period before a general election in the Republic, we must now start asking the question of all the parties putting themselves forward for government, including Labour, Sinn Féin, and the Green Party, whether they would close Shannon and Baldonell to the US military. Will they demand that aircraft be opened and searched? Will they ensure that they are not carrying prisoners for torturing, or that these aircraft are not carrying weapons for prosecuting oppressive wars?

Ninety years later, James Connolly's political strategy continues to haunt left and democratic opinion. The elites will always betray the interests of the nation for their own class interests. The empires will still control and dominate us through their business connections, their economic power and influence.

We need to step up the campaign to close Shannon Airport to use by the US war and torture machine.

From Socialist Voice (Dublin)

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3670/1/192/

posted June 21, 2006 06:40 PM              

BERLIN -- The head of an investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons charged yesterday that 14 European nations collaborated with the United States to create a ``spider's web" of clandestine flights and detention centers across the continent and beyond.

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Boston.com
Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who led the Council of Europe's investigation, offered little in the way of hard evidence for what he called serious violations of the human rights of at least 17 terrorist suspects allegedly shunted around the globe by CIA interrogators. But the long-awaited report issued by the council -- which monitors human rights issues -- signaled the outrage felt by many Europeans over America's alleged use of the continent's air space and landing ports in prosecuting its war against Islamic terrorism.

``It is now clear -- although we are still far from having established the whole truth -- that authorities in several European countries actively participated with the CIA in these unlawful activities," Marty said at a news conference in Paris.

The 67-page report specifically accused Poland and Romania of allowing the CIA to use their territory to transfer secret prisoners from plane to plane. At least 12 other European nations allowed refuel ing stops, ``pickup points," or ``staging centers" for controversial CIA undertakings, the report stated.

Using often colorful language, the report described CIA operatives ``dressed in black like ninjas" hustling suspects on and off airplanes on missions spanning four continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.

GLOBE GRAPHIC: Secret CIA flights

Bangor, Maine, which is frequently used for US military flights, may have served as a refueling point for CIA planes headed out on rendition operations, according to the report. Other landing spots ranged from the Spanish resort island of Mallorca -- where American intelligence agents may have enjoyed R&R breaks as well as transferred captives -- to Kabul, Afghanistan, according to the report.

The Maine airport was listed as a CIA ``stopover" point along with airports in Britain, Ireland, Italy, and Greece.

Germany, Spain, Cyprus, and Turkey were identified as ``staging" grounds for clandestine operations.

The report focused on alleged Europe collusion with the CIA but also cites Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan as apparently colluding in extensive operations starting after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The United States has tacitly acknowledged transferring suspected terrorist suspects through ``third countries" but has insisted it has always procured permission from governments. The Bush administration yesterday had no direct response to the report.

``There seem to be a lot of allegations [in the report] but no real facts behind it," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington, adding that cooperation between countries has saved lives in the war against terrorism.

The Council of Europe is a toothless entitity that, in Marty's words, can only ``name and shame" nations it suspects of rights abuses.Continued...

The report specifically accused Poland and Romania of allowing US intelligence agencies to operate secret jails on their territory to question suspected terrorists spirited out of other countries. The aim of the clandestine operations was to avoid allowing detainees to set foot on American soil, which would would entitle them to all constitutional protections afforded any suspect.

Poland denied that CIA planes transporting terror suspects ever landed or dropped off prisoners in that country. In the past it has denied hosting secret detention or interrogation facilities.

``This is slander, and it's not based on facts," Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz told reporters in Warsaw, according to the Associated Press.

Marty conceded that he had little hard evidence of clandestine detention facilities and secret flights, accusing European governments of refusing to help human rights investigators establish facts.

``Even if proof, in the classical meaning of the term, is not yet available, a number of coherent and converging elements indicate that such secret detention centers did exist in Europe," Marty said in the report, which is based on a seven-month probe that relied heavily on accounts in The Washington Post and other news media about so-called ``extraordinary renditions" and ``dark prisons."

Marty also used airport traffic-control records showing some 1,000 CIA flights crisscrossing Europe and statements by 17 individuals who say they were abducted by US intelligence operatives. The report said that such abductions occurred with cooperation or at least tacit permission by European spy agencies.

The European report slammed Britain's MI5 intelligence agency for helping the CIA in ``abducting persons against which there is no evidence." It cited the case of two British residents, Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna, who human rights groups have claimed were snatched in the African nation of Gambia, transported to Afghanistan, then flown to the US facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with at least one refueling stop in Europe, apparently Bucharest, the Romanian capital.

Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, told Parliament the report contained ``absolutely nothing new."

The Council of Europe report listed the following countries as having colluded with the United States in ``unlawful [international] transfers" of people: Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Bosnia, Macedonia, Turkey, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Poland, and Romania.

A map released by the Council of Europe identified airports in Timisoara, Romania, and Szymany, Poland, as ``detainee transfer/drop-off" points -- the site of alleged secret detention centers.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
1 2 Next

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/06/08/secret_us_web_of_prisons_alleged/

posted June 21, 2006 06:58 PM            

quote:

---

Yeah that's why some countries admitted it....TP

---

Alleged, suspected, annoymous sources, so and so said....blah, blah, blah.

Now, who are those European nations which you said admitted there were/are "Secret CIA prisons" inside their borders?

You don't need to give me all this bullsh*t tripe and speculation.

Just prove what you said.

**Edit**
More bullsh*t, proof in the classical meaning of the term....means they have no proof and it's speculation, innuendo and supposition mixed in with some outright lies.

"``Even if proof, in the classical meaning of the term, is not yet available, a number of coherent and converging elements indicate that such secret detention centers did exist in Europe," Marty said in the report, which is based on a seven-month probe that relied heavily on accounts in The Washington Post and other news media about so-called ``extraordinary renditions" and ``dark prisons.""

posted June 22, 2006 09:35 AM              

They tell you to jump...you jump. They don't even need to give you proof.

So shut your mouth old man.

posted June 22, 2006 10:04 AM            

Those were your words..."they admitted it".

You're full of hot air and easily dismissed as a know nothing crank and one willing to believe any lie and repeat any lie...so long as it gives the United States a black eye.

If those so called "secret CIA prisons" existed in European nations..as alleged by the airhead twit, Dana Priest from the Washington Post...then, they would have been found by now. After all, it's been more than 8 months since the airhead broke the so called story.

In 8 months, every prison in Europe could have been searched, every jail in Europe could have been searched, every detention center could have been searched...every guard at every prison, every jail and every detention center interviewed.

And still, there's nothing but hot air and baloney from the I hate America antiwar crowd....including you TP.