Monday, December 05, 2005
Rice Chides Europeans on Detention Center Complaints - New York Times
Rice Chides Europeans on Detention Center Complaints - New York Times
Rice Chides Europeans on Detention Center Complaints
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chastised Europe leaders today, saying that before they complain about secret jails for terror suspects in European nations, they should realize that interrogations of these suspects have produced information that helped "save European lives."
In her remarks, the Bush Administration's official response to the reports of a network of secret detention centers, Ms. Rice repeatedly emphasized that the United States does not countenance the torture of terrorism suspects, at the hands of either American or foreign captors.
She offered her remarks to reporters early this morning, in a departure lounge at Andrews Air Force Base, just before setting off for a trip to Europe, where she was certain to be asked about the growing controversy over the secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons believed to be located in at least eight European nations. Her statement is also to serve as the basis for the government's response to an official inquiry from the European Union over the secret prisons.
Noting that half-a-dozen international investigations are underway, Ms. Rice did not explicitly confirm the existence of the detentions center. But that was implicit in her remarks.
"We must bring terrorists to justice wherever possible," she said. "But there have been many cases where the local government cannot detain or prosecute a suspect, and traditional extradition is not a good option."
"In those cases," she added, "the local government can make the sovereign choice to cooperate in the transfer of a suspect to a third country, which is known as a rendition.
"Sometimes, these efforts are misunderstood," she said.
News reports starting early last month said the Central Intelligence Agency began holding dozens of terror suspects in secret prisons in as many as eight European nations shortly after Sept. 11. The Administration has not confirmed the reports but has repeatedly maintained that it is abiding by American law and international agreements. Officials have also repeatedly said that the United States and the European states share a common concern about terrorism.
"The terror threatens all of us," Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, said on CNN on Sunday. "You had seen terror attacks in Britain, in Spain, in Italy, in Turkey, in Russia, in Egypt, in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia. This is a threat, really, to the civilized world. We need to cooperate together to deal with this terror threat that threatens all of us. We are cooperating with a number of countries."
The administration's secret detention policy has come under attack from the United Nations, the European Union and Democrats in Washington. Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, wrote Ms. Rice the letter from the European Union last Tuesday, demanding an explanation.
In Congress, Democrats are calling for an investigation of the prisons and the treatment of suspects held there, while Republicans are pushing for an investigation to determine who in the government leaked the information to the news media.
The Bush Administration began drafting Ms. Rice's statement last week. Consultations between agencies including the White House, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency continued through the weekend and culminated with a conference call Sunday night.
Ms. Rice insisted that the United States had done nothing wrong.
Many of the imprisoned suspects "are effectively stateless," she maintained, "owing allegiance only to the extremist cause of transnational terrorism. Many are extremely dangerous."
She made an effort to frame the debate as one over the effectiveness of terror enforcement and not over the propriety of holding suspects indefinitely in secret prisons.
"We consider the captured members of Al Qaeda and its allies to be unlawful combatants who may be held, in accordance with the law of war, to keep them from killing innocents," she said. "We must bring terrorists to justice wherever possible."
The European nations must decide, she added, whether they "wish to work with us to prevent terrorist attacks against their own country or other countries."
Who is Madsen and What is he doing?
Not sure why Madsen is putting out this hooey, which presents the hijacker story as the real truth, and the idea that it could have been stopped with better intel.
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December 4, 2005 -- Current Deputy Director for National Intelligence helped lay groundwork for 9-11 intelligence failures. National Security Agency (NSA) insiders speak out about Hayden's and his NSA predecessors' climate of fear, retribution, and lack of priorities. EXCLUSIVE --
Much has been written about why NSA failed to report four important intercepts prior to 911 that would have alerted the United States that a major attack was to take place on September 11, 2001.
The intercepts of Al Qaeda communications were:
Sept. 10, 2001 - "The match is about to begin."
Sept. 10, 2001 - "Tomorrow is zero hour"
In addition, two other intercepts of Al Qaeda cells in the United States were also ignored:
Sept. 10, 2001 - "Watch the news."
Sept. 10, 2001 - "Tomorrow will be a great day for us."
WMR can report that because of poor management decisions made by then-NSA Director Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, the NSA did not have the expertise or ability to adequately identify key intercepts that, if known and understood in time, could have prevented the 911 attacks. These intercepts sat unread in an area of the NSA basement known as the "Carillon pool" until it was too late.
The reasons why NSA was caught unprepared for 911 essentially go back a decade before Hayden's arrival as director. After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, NSA's Russian linguists and Soviet experts were considered the golden employees. Even though the threat changed and the Russian priorities were downgraded, the Russian experts were placed in top management positions in areas in which they had no experience. In what would be a fateful decision, Russian experts were put in charge of Middle East and Asian units, according to NSA sources. It was so bad, according to one source, that when an NSA branch manager, who only knew Russian, was placed in charge of China operations, he embarrassed himself and NSA when, during a Washington, DC briefing for old China hands from the CIA, DIA, and other agencies, he was unable to correctly pronounce Chinese names.
The decision to promote Russian experts to top management, rather than Arabic, Farsi, and other language experts, would eventually result in almost total ignorance of the warning signs that were developing in the Middle East in the early 1990s. Overworked, under-appreciated, and with no chance of promotion, many Arabic linguists began leaving NSA in the middle 1990s, just as a firebrand Islamic fundamentalist named Osama Bin Laden was making some disturbing comments from Sudan and later, Afghanistan.
By 1998, some 1000 top NSA specialists -- linguists, mathematicians, and computer programmers -- had left the agency. However, the old Russian experts remained and were promoted. One of them was Maureen "Mo" Baginski, a Russian linguist, who was appointed to head the NSA's important Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID). She would later be blamed by Hayden and others for being partly responsible for the 911 failures at NSA. However, old NSA hands say that it was not fair to blame Baginski, since she "was out of her element" when dealing with the Middle East. Baginski is now a senior official of the FBI.
Making matters worse was the initiative to purposely drum out of NSA a number of experienced Middle Eastern and South Asian linguists as part of Hayden's reorganization program that emphasized outsourcing. One NSA linguist, fluent in Pashto (the language of the Taliban), Farsi, and 16 other languages was forced to retire a few years before 911. He was told by NSA managers that "minor languages" like Farsi and Pashto "never will be important to us." In fact, NSA paid little attention to "low density languages" that would later become critical. These included Uzbek, Urdu, Pashto, Dari, Farsi, and various Arabic dialects.
Attempts to convince Hayden that he had to beef up Middle Eastern language proficiency by training better instructors, concentrating on Middle Eastern dialects, and evaluating and upgrading language training programs went unheeded. Although Hayden paid plenty of lip service to these ideas, nothing ever happened. Eager to carry out his pet Groundbreaker and Trailblazer outsourcing projects, the NSA Director continued to sell the NSA store to private contractors.
Moreover, the NSA contracting firms, some of which were large Pentagon weapons system providers, convinced Hayden that China, not the Middle East, was the highest priority. As a result, by 2000, Groundbreaker/Trailblazer contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing had successfully seen to it that China, not the Middle East, would be the focus of NSA's re-engineered signals intelligence systems. By hyping the "China threat," intelligence could be used to justify large defense programs in which the contractors had a vested interest. Chief among these was the Ballistic Missile Defense system being pushed by Donald Rumsfeld, who was not yet Defense Secretary but who championed "Star Wars II" as the head of the Rumsfeld Commission on missile defense. Of course, China was high on Rumsfeld's mind when his commission's report rhetorically asked, "What if China gave North Korea advanced missile technology (or even a completed missile)?"
Meanwhile, intelligence from NSA raw intercepts were being leaked to the media, including Parade magazine, in order to justify expensive defense systems to counter the "China threat." NSA analysts were appalled at the lackadaisical way important intelligence was being leaked. Sources for COMINT on China and other countries involved in weapons proliferation -- targeted telephone numbers and fax, computer, and other telecommunications links -- literally dried up overnight and continued to stay dark, according to one source.
Hayden's predecessor as director, Air Force General Kenneth Minihan, did try to stress multi-skills and multi-lingualism for NSA analysts in his National Cryptologic Strategy for the 21st Century (NCS21) reorganization plan. However, Minihan never did much to launch his NCS21 initiative. Minihan's plan specifically stated that NSA would:
"Invest in our people through education, training and career development to achieve and maintain required skill levels. Our overall occupational structure will be skills-based and constantly tuned to mission requirements and achieve information superiority."
However, Hayden scrapped NCS21, replacing it with Groundbreaker and Trailblazer.
NCS21 would have also helped curb the problem with the "stovepiping" of intelligence, which prevented intelligence like the September 10, 2001 NSA Al Qaeda intercepts from getting to those decision makers who needed it. One of NCS 21's stated goals was to:
"Work with the intelligence community to develop interactive databases to enable the policy maker to initiate a single request, search all available community databases, and receive the requested data."
Rather than integrating databases, Hayden's programs were discontinuing databases, particularly those that concentrated on the Middle East and South Asia.
As a result of the interplay between Hayden, the contractors, and Rumsfeld, NSA's intercept priorities were focused away from the Middle East to Chinese missile and other weapons systems. Repeated urging to beef up NSA's Middle Eastern and African capabilities were ignored, even after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Many linguists were tossed out based on trumped up "security" problems. NSA Security is noted for running a virtual Gestapo-like operation at the agency. According to dozens of current and ex-NSA employees interviewed by WMR, anyone targeted for any reason by NSA management soon finds themselves the subject of interrogations, forced visits to the NSA psychologist, and finally clearance revocation and termination. The terminations of linguists with critical skills continued right up to September 2001.
Hayden's two reorganizations projects -- Groundbreaker and Trailblazer -- saw a number of NSA's language databases being terminated because of a lack of funding due to the outsourcing of critical operational responsibilities.
A few NSA analysts early on predicted that Islamic radicals encouraged by Saudi radical clerics would soon launch a major suicide terrorist attack on American soil.
The analysts based their prediction on a number of key events and dates. One was the September 12, 1994 suicide crash of a stolen Cessna plane flown into the South Lawn of the White House by Frank Corder. (President Clinton was then staying at Blair House, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House). The other was the undetected flying of a Cessna aircraft through heavily-fortified Soviet air defense systems by 19 year-old German pilot Mathias Rust in 1987. Rust landed his aircraft in Red Square, within yards of the offices of the top Soviet leadership.
September 12, 1994 and May 28, 1987: they were key events for NSA analysts who predicted a suicide aircraft mission in the United States by Islamist radicals.
The other significant date pointed to by NSA analysts was September 11. This was the last day of the siege by the Palestinian terrorist group "Black September" of Israeli athlete hostages at the 1972 Munich Olympics, a day and month that NSA Middle East experts pointed out was significant throughout the Islamic world. Eleven Israeli athletes were killed by their Black September captors. Black September took its name from the September 1970 massacre by King Hussein of Jordan of thousands of Palestinians in Jordan who attempted to stage a coup.
NSA managers who did not understand the nuances of the Middle East claimed that since the "U.S. eliminated Black September," nothing connected to the group or the month of September could be taken seriously.
But two decades later, NSA began to obtain tapes of incendiary speeches by Wahhabi Muslim Saudi clerics in mosques throughout the oil-rich kingdom. When the contents of the transcriptions of these tapes were compared to classified COMINT [Communications Intelligence] and information in articles in various Arabic language newspapers, alarm bells went off in the Middle East branches at Fort Meade, particularly after the February 26, 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center. A report never distributed outside of NSA reported that "Saudi extremists were contemplating 'kamikaze'-type attacks in the United States using aircraft." Ironically and eerily, the date of that report was September 11, 1993.
Also ignored were clear indications that certain Israeli elements were engaged in suspicious activities prior to 9-11. Although NSA has traditionally been skeptical about Israeli intentions -- ever since the 1967 unprovoked Israeli attack on the NSA ship USS Liberty and severe compromises of classified information from the Pollard affair and the DINDI/PIEREX joint NSA-Israeli activities in the 1980s -- by the late 1990s, NSA gingerly handled intercepts of Israeli communications. It is such a touchy subject that the name tags of NSA linguists that carry their language expertise in one case have been altered. Hebrew linguists tags are denoted as "Special Arabic," an obvious attempt to demonstrate to those NSA employees without special access that the agency does not listen in on Hebrew communications.
Israel was suspected by some NSA and CIA analysts of helping to beef up China's missile and other weapons systems with sophisticated technology. Some of this technology was used to make improvements to the Chinese Silkworm anti-ship missile, the C-801 sea-skimming missile, and the EM-52 rocket-propelled anti-ship mine. These weapons systems were then offered by China to Iran.
There were attempts at the analyst level to try to share intelligence prior to 9-11. This was done through the Tech Track program, an analyst-led initiative to identify various subject area experts, particularly in the non-Russian areas, who could be called on for assistance. This program was showing success before NSA management stepped in and took it over. An attempt to eliminate the stovepiping of intelligence was quickly ended due to senior management interference.
Analysts figured out other clever ways to meet with other experts, both within the NSA and at other intelligence agencies. Not necessarily knowing the names of counterparts in other intelligence sections, subject area experts figured out a way to organize dinner meetings at Washington area restaurants by sending out notices on secure networks to particular intelligence branches and sections at the NSA, CIA, DIA, and other agencies. The analysts would identify one another based on the color of the neckties they agreed in advance to wear.
This would never be happening if the official story of 9/11 were true.
TSA chief unveils air travel screening changes - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com
Tags: Lies 9/11 09/11/2001 TSA hijackers box cutters false flag ruse
Tags: Lies 9/11 09/11/2001 TSA hijackers box cutters false flag ruse
Tory party faces meltdown as its grassroots troops desert or die
Politics, news, comment from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online
The Times
December 05, 2005Tory party faces meltdown as its grassroots troops desert or die
By Andrew Pierce
THE new Tory leader will tomorrow inherit a Conservative Party organisation that is in danger of collapsing in large swathes of the country, with many constituency associations verging on the brink of extinction.
The new leader, expected to be David Cameron, will head a party where almost half of the 450 active associations have fewer than 100 members and 170 have income that has slumped below £1,000-a-year, according to an internal report commissioned by Francis Maude, the party chairman. The situation is so dire that the party leadership has put 200 associations on an “at risk” list.
The collapse in grassroots support, after three consecutive general election defeats, is one of the many headaches that faces Mr Cameron when, as expected, he is declared leader in succession to Michael Howard tomorrow afternoon.
The report, A 21st Century Party, ordered by the Conservative Party high command, is a devastating indictment of the state of the party. As recently as the 1960s it was one of the biggest mass political movements in the world, with three million members.
Today the figure is closer to 280,000, with the majority of members in receipt of their old age pensions.
“Today, a significant number of associations have fallen below the size required to function effectively. Like the divisions of a battle weary army, they exist on paper but not in practice,” the report states.
“Having fallen below the size required to function effectively they have not recovered as our political fortunes have recovered. Some have ceased to function at all. Others survive thanks to the dedication of a handful of people.”
The number of full-time agents, political organisers who manage associations, has fallen to a post-war low of 110 compared with the 280 who were employed at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s power in the 1980s. The majority are in safe seats with rich associations, which diverts resources and expertise from the marginals where they are badly needed.
While the vast majority of associations have embraced the computer era, that has not necessarily translated into effective campaign gains. The report states that “118 of those [associations] who store their data on a computer canvassed fewer than 1,000 electors in the last 16 months”. A further 120 still stored their data on paper, “and it is likely that many of these canvassed fewer than 1,000 electors”.
In a sign that the party leadership has recognised that there is an urgent need for change, the first merger of two neighbouring associations took place last week. Horsham, the constituency of Francis Maude, who has a majority of 13,000, combined with Crawley, a former Tory seat, which Labour clung on to by 37 votes in May. A further 58 mergers are in the pipeline.
The uncertainty over the leadership has meant that donations fell in the last quarter to a low of below £2 million; but there are signs for optimism in fundraising. The £240,000 costs of the leadership election has been offset by more than £500,000 that has been returned with the completed ballot papers. Two £50,000 donations arrived at party headquarters last week.
Jonathan Marland, the party treasurer, expects to deliver a break-even financial report by the end of the year and a nationwide fundraising appeal is to be launched on the back of Mr Cameron’s installation. The party is expecting a huge surge in donations when Mr Cameron takes over. Lord Harris of Queensway, the carpet magnate who bankrolled John Major’s Tory Party, was treasurer of Mr Cameron’s campaign.
Raymond Monbiot, the chairman of the National Convention, the voluntary wing of the party, admitted the state of the party was desperate in some parts of the country. He said that improvements were already on the way which would accelerate with the confirmation of the new leader.
“The recruitment of more agents will be a major step in the professionalisation of the organisation,” Mr Monbiot said. “There will be more mergers, but only when it is the wishes of the grassroots.
“When you have lost three elections, and we are moving to the fifth leader in eight years, it is not the most inspiring way to to make the wheel start rolling again; but there is a new mood out there. We are rebuilding,and modernising. We have to.”
The Times
December 05, 2005Tory party faces meltdown as its grassroots troops desert or die
By Andrew Pierce
THE new Tory leader will tomorrow inherit a Conservative Party organisation that is in danger of collapsing in large swathes of the country, with many constituency associations verging on the brink of extinction.
The new leader, expected to be David Cameron, will head a party where almost half of the 450 active associations have fewer than 100 members and 170 have income that has slumped below £1,000-a-year, according to an internal report commissioned by Francis Maude, the party chairman. The situation is so dire that the party leadership has put 200 associations on an “at risk” list.
The collapse in grassroots support, after three consecutive general election defeats, is one of the many headaches that faces Mr Cameron when, as expected, he is declared leader in succession to Michael Howard tomorrow afternoon.
The report, A 21st Century Party, ordered by the Conservative Party high command, is a devastating indictment of the state of the party. As recently as the 1960s it was one of the biggest mass political movements in the world, with three million members.
Today the figure is closer to 280,000, with the majority of members in receipt of their old age pensions.
“Today, a significant number of associations have fallen below the size required to function effectively. Like the divisions of a battle weary army, they exist on paper but not in practice,” the report states.
“Having fallen below the size required to function effectively they have not recovered as our political fortunes have recovered. Some have ceased to function at all. Others survive thanks to the dedication of a handful of people.”
The number of full-time agents, political organisers who manage associations, has fallen to a post-war low of 110 compared with the 280 who were employed at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s power in the 1980s. The majority are in safe seats with rich associations, which diverts resources and expertise from the marginals where they are badly needed.
While the vast majority of associations have embraced the computer era, that has not necessarily translated into effective campaign gains. The report states that “118 of those [associations] who store their data on a computer canvassed fewer than 1,000 electors in the last 16 months”. A further 120 still stored their data on paper, “and it is likely that many of these canvassed fewer than 1,000 electors”.
In a sign that the party leadership has recognised that there is an urgent need for change, the first merger of two neighbouring associations took place last week. Horsham, the constituency of Francis Maude, who has a majority of 13,000, combined with Crawley, a former Tory seat, which Labour clung on to by 37 votes in May. A further 58 mergers are in the pipeline.
The uncertainty over the leadership has meant that donations fell in the last quarter to a low of below £2 million; but there are signs for optimism in fundraising. The £240,000 costs of the leadership election has been offset by more than £500,000 that has been returned with the completed ballot papers. Two £50,000 donations arrived at party headquarters last week.
Jonathan Marland, the party treasurer, expects to deliver a break-even financial report by the end of the year and a nationwide fundraising appeal is to be launched on the back of Mr Cameron’s installation. The party is expecting a huge surge in donations when Mr Cameron takes over. Lord Harris of Queensway, the carpet magnate who bankrolled John Major’s Tory Party, was treasurer of Mr Cameron’s campaign.
Raymond Monbiot, the chairman of the National Convention, the voluntary wing of the party, admitted the state of the party was desperate in some parts of the country. He said that improvements were already on the way which would accelerate with the confirmation of the new leader.
“The recruitment of more agents will be a major step in the professionalisation of the organisation,” Mr Monbiot said. “There will be more mergers, but only when it is the wishes of the grassroots.
“When you have lost three elections, and we are moving to the fifth leader in eight years, it is not the most inspiring way to to make the wheel start rolling again; but there is a new mood out there. We are rebuilding,and modernising. We have to.”
Ambassador Bridge
Taken from the Canadian side in Windsor Ontario, the Ambassador Bridge spans the Detroit River linking Canada with the United States. It is probably one of the most travelled international bridges.
Rice faces growing anger over claims of CIA abductions
America, United States, Times Online, The Times, Sunday Times
The Times December 05, 2005
Rice faces growing anger over claims of CIA abductions
By Anthony Browne in Brussels and David Charter in Washington
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, the US Secretary of State, will try to dismiss mounting concern over alleged CIA human rights abuses in Europe when she embarks on a four-day tour of the Continent today.
Allegations have been multiplying almost daily that the CIA has operated secret prisons in Eastern Europe and covertly abducted and transported alleged terrorists through Europe. The claims have provoked demands for a response from the US Government.
It is alleged that the CIA runs a secret global abduction and internment operation of suspected terrorists, known as “extraordinary rendition”, which since 2001 has captured about 3,000 people and transported them around the world.
Dr Rice will give a robust defence of America’s actions in response to terrorism. She will tell European leaders that the US does not fly prisoners around the world to be tortured, and that it has respected the sovereignty of all the countries that it has dealt with.
The US Government has so far refused to comment, insisting that it is a matter for national security, which has only fuelled speculation.
During the trip to Germany, Belgium, Romania and the Ukraine, Dr Rice is expected to give a formal response to an official request by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, on behalf of EU governments, that the US answer the allegations.
Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s National Security Adviser, told Fox News yesterday: “She is going to be addressing these issues in a comprehensive way. One of the things she will be saying is ‘look, we are all threatened by terror. We need to co-operate on its solution’.
“As part of that co-operation, for our part, we comply with US law. We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal and we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured.”
Mr Hadley told CNN that Dr Rice would not comment on specific CIA operations. “Obviously if there are these types of intelligence operation going on, they are the kinds of thing that one cannot talk about. Why? Because the information would help the enemy.”
About a dozen European governments have launched internal investigations into allegations that the CIA used their airports covertly to move terrorist suspects around the world, including to and from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Der Spiegel reports that the CIA has made 437 flights through German airspace — some using German airports — in the past two years.
The CIA is alleged to have made secret flights through Britain, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Denmark, the Irish Republic and other EU countries. Eight European governments have demanded a response from the US. The Council of Europe, an intergovernmental human rights group, has begun an investigation.
Legal advice sought by an all-party parliamentary group, which meets for the first time today, concluded that the British Government would be guilty of breaking international law if it allowed secret flights to use UK airports, it was reported last night. Academics from New York University said: “A state which aids or assists another state in the commission of an internationally wrongful act by the latter is internationally responsible for doing so.”
The British Government has insisted that there is nothing wrong with the CIA flying planes through British airspace, and admits that it does not know or ask whether there are any prisoners on the flights.
According to The Washington Post, the US Government has pressed Berlin not to complain about the CIA’s wrongful alleged kidnapping and imprisonment of Khaled Masri, a German who says he was abducted in Macedonia and tortured at a US base in Afghanistan.
Despite the controversy, the US State Department believes that there is little appetite among European governments to take on the US over its tactics in the war on terror.
FLIGHTS UNDER SCRUTINY
Germany 437 CIA flights landed or crossed airspace, according to Der Spiegel
France 2 jets carrying suspects to Guantanamo Bay apparently used airports
Britain 210 flights alleged to have used British airports
Portugal 34 CIA flights reported landed; has asked for clarification from US
Italy 17 secret CIA flights landed between July 2002 and May 2005, according to Corriere della Sera
Spain 10 CIA flights alleged to have landed in Tenerife and Majorca
Iceland 67 CIA flights alleged to have landed since 2001; has demanded an explanation from US
The Times December 05, 2005
Rice faces growing anger over claims of CIA abductions
By Anthony Browne in Brussels and David Charter in Washington
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, the US Secretary of State, will try to dismiss mounting concern over alleged CIA human rights abuses in Europe when she embarks on a four-day tour of the Continent today.
Allegations have been multiplying almost daily that the CIA has operated secret prisons in Eastern Europe and covertly abducted and transported alleged terrorists through Europe. The claims have provoked demands for a response from the US Government.
It is alleged that the CIA runs a secret global abduction and internment operation of suspected terrorists, known as “extraordinary rendition”, which since 2001 has captured about 3,000 people and transported them around the world.
Dr Rice will give a robust defence of America’s actions in response to terrorism. She will tell European leaders that the US does not fly prisoners around the world to be tortured, and that it has respected the sovereignty of all the countries that it has dealt with.
The US Government has so far refused to comment, insisting that it is a matter for national security, which has only fuelled speculation.
During the trip to Germany, Belgium, Romania and the Ukraine, Dr Rice is expected to give a formal response to an official request by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, on behalf of EU governments, that the US answer the allegations.
Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s National Security Adviser, told Fox News yesterday: “She is going to be addressing these issues in a comprehensive way. One of the things she will be saying is ‘look, we are all threatened by terror. We need to co-operate on its solution’.
“As part of that co-operation, for our part, we comply with US law. We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal and we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured.”
Mr Hadley told CNN that Dr Rice would not comment on specific CIA operations. “Obviously if there are these types of intelligence operation going on, they are the kinds of thing that one cannot talk about. Why? Because the information would help the enemy.”
About a dozen European governments have launched internal investigations into allegations that the CIA used their airports covertly to move terrorist suspects around the world, including to and from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Der Spiegel reports that the CIA has made 437 flights through German airspace — some using German airports — in the past two years.
The CIA is alleged to have made secret flights through Britain, the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Denmark, the Irish Republic and other EU countries. Eight European governments have demanded a response from the US. The Council of Europe, an intergovernmental human rights group, has begun an investigation.
Legal advice sought by an all-party parliamentary group, which meets for the first time today, concluded that the British Government would be guilty of breaking international law if it allowed secret flights to use UK airports, it was reported last night. Academics from New York University said: “A state which aids or assists another state in the commission of an internationally wrongful act by the latter is internationally responsible for doing so.”
The British Government has insisted that there is nothing wrong with the CIA flying planes through British airspace, and admits that it does not know or ask whether there are any prisoners on the flights.
According to The Washington Post, the US Government has pressed Berlin not to complain about the CIA’s wrongful alleged kidnapping and imprisonment of Khaled Masri, a German who says he was abducted in Macedonia and tortured at a US base in Afghanistan.
Despite the controversy, the US State Department believes that there is little appetite among European governments to take on the US over its tactics in the war on terror.
FLIGHTS UNDER SCRUTINY
Germany 437 CIA flights landed or crossed airspace, according to Der Spiegel
France 2 jets carrying suspects to Guantanamo Bay apparently used airports
Britain 210 flights alleged to have used British airports
Portugal 34 CIA flights reported landed; has asked for clarification from US
Italy 17 secret CIA flights landed between July 2002 and May 2005, according to Corriere della Sera
Spain 10 CIA flights alleged to have landed in Tenerife and Majorca
Iceland 67 CIA flights alleged to have landed since 2001; has demanded an explanation from US
British general faces war charge - Sunday Times - Times Online
British general faces war charge - Sunday Times - Times Online
The Sunday Times December 04, 2005
British general faces war charge
Michael Smith
A BRITISH general is facing possible criminal charges over one of the most controversial incidents of the Iraq war, The Sunday Times has learnt.
The allegations levelled against Major-General Peter Wall relate to alleged attempts by senior officers to prevent an investigation into the deaths of a British tank commander and an unarmed Iraqi civilian.
The death of Sergeant Steven Roberts at al-Zubair in the early hours of March 24, 2003, led to widespread public outrage after the Ministry of Defence confirmed he had no body armour. In a taped message, recorded the evening before he died and released by his widow Samantha, Roberts described the lack of equipment as a “joke”.
It only emerged later that a civilian had died in the same incident.
Wall, who is deputy chief of joint operations, is by far the most senior officer to have been implicated in a case involving alleged wrongdoing by British troops.
He was commander of 1 (UK) Armoured Division at the time of the alleged offence.
His actions were investigated after Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, told Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, that the evidence suggested “a concerted attempt by the chain of command to influence and prevent an investigation”.
Goldsmith then removed the case from the army’s control and ordered that any charges be heard by a civilian court.
As a result of a Metropolitan police investigation, two soldiers from 2nd Royal Tank Regiment face possible murder charges over the death of Zahir Zabti Zaher, the unarmed Iraqi civilian.
Another soldier from the same regiment faces a possible manslaughter charge over the death of Roberts. Wall faces possible charges relating to the alleged attempt to prevent the investigation.
The allegations against Wall, one of the army’s most senior commanders, and other serious claims made by an army whistleblower, will raise doubts over its ability to police its soldiers’ conduct in Iraq.
If Wall is charged, the army’s role as a peacekeeping force may be undermined, with soldiers under fire fearing legal scrutiny for every action they take.
The Ministry of Defence issued a statement on Wall’s behalf. In it the general said: “It is inappropriate for me to comment on the case as it is still under investigation, but I am confident I acted in accordance with the interests of justice and appropriate care for the soldiers under my command.”
The whistleblower, who first informed The Sunday Times of Wall’s alleged involvement, said the army Special Investigation Branch (SIB) team that was sent to the scene of the killings realised immediately there were grounds for a criminal investigation.
However, they were told by a senior SIB officer not to pursue the soldiers as possible suspects and to treat them simply as witnesses, a move that seriously hampered subsequent investigations into the killings.
“They went to the scene and quickly established some suspicious markers,” the source said. “From what they could gather, Sergeant Roberts had been shot by one of his own men.
“There had been a huge amount of rounds fired, lots of empty cases. No rounds [were] being reported as fired at them. There was no body [found] but they talked to enough locals to say that an Iraqi had been shot and killed and it happened at the same time that Sergeant Roberts died.
“The Iraqis were claiming that there had been a protest by locals who had come to remonstrate with the patrol. Things got to a point where this local threw a stone at a tank and threw another one, and then at some point he gets shot.”
There were Iraqi eyewitness claims that Roberts had ordered his men to shoot the man, that there was no return fire and that he died in the resultant shooting as an indirect effect of his order to fire on the unarmed Iraqi.
The lead SIB investigator, a warrant officer, wanted to interview the soldiers under caution, but he was ordered by the senior SIB officer to take witness statements and compile a report later, the source alleges.
The senior officers who decided the investigation should not go ahead “very nearly succeeded in making any subsequent investigation impossible due to the loss of primary evidence,” the source said.
When the report was received in Germany, in summer 2003, the head of the SIB went to see Wall on a number of occasions and told him there had to be a proper investigation. Wall allegedly wrote to the army’s UK headquarters questioning the need for the case to be investigated and the right of his own SIB to tell him an investigation must take place, the source said.
“He sought legal advice on his powers to halt the investigation into the death of Sergeant Roberts, pointing out that the SIB were ‘ultimately under the chain of command’ and not on any independent ‘statutory footing’.”
The army’s senior legal adviser, known as Brigadier Advisory, replied that the decision not to launch a criminal investigation at the time of the killings was flawed.
Goldsmith told Hoon that even after the “clear advice” from the senior legal adviser, there was further correspondence which “shows the chain of command intervening to prevent investigations by the Special Investigation Branch”.
The SIB carried out a fresh investigation, but when the results were handed to the Army Prosecuting Authority in April 2004 officials there felt compelled to consult Goldsmith, who decided the civilian justice system must deal with the case.
He told Hoon that “as well as ensuring that justice is done there is also a need to ensure that justice is seen to be done, hence the justification for moving these matters to the civilian court”.
It was subsequently re-investigated by the Met and is now back with the Crown Prosecution Service, which is considering possible charges.
The MoD declined to comment but senior defence officials said Wall had been faced with two conflicting pieces of legal advice and “extremely correctly, sought policy advice and further legal advice about the case”.
The soldier’s widow, Samantha Roberts, said she had no knowledge of any attempt by senior officers to prevent the investigation going ahead and was not in a position to speculate on the circumstances of her husband’s death.
The Sunday Times December 04, 2005
British general faces war charge
Michael Smith
A BRITISH general is facing possible criminal charges over one of the most controversial incidents of the Iraq war, The Sunday Times has learnt.
The allegations levelled against Major-General Peter Wall relate to alleged attempts by senior officers to prevent an investigation into the deaths of a British tank commander and an unarmed Iraqi civilian.
The death of Sergeant Steven Roberts at al-Zubair in the early hours of March 24, 2003, led to widespread public outrage after the Ministry of Defence confirmed he had no body armour. In a taped message, recorded the evening before he died and released by his widow Samantha, Roberts described the lack of equipment as a “joke”.
It only emerged later that a civilian had died in the same incident.
Wall, who is deputy chief of joint operations, is by far the most senior officer to have been implicated in a case involving alleged wrongdoing by British troops.
He was commander of 1 (UK) Armoured Division at the time of the alleged offence.
His actions were investigated after Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, told Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, that the evidence suggested “a concerted attempt by the chain of command to influence and prevent an investigation”.
Goldsmith then removed the case from the army’s control and ordered that any charges be heard by a civilian court.
As a result of a Metropolitan police investigation, two soldiers from 2nd Royal Tank Regiment face possible murder charges over the death of Zahir Zabti Zaher, the unarmed Iraqi civilian.
Another soldier from the same regiment faces a possible manslaughter charge over the death of Roberts. Wall faces possible charges relating to the alleged attempt to prevent the investigation.
The allegations against Wall, one of the army’s most senior commanders, and other serious claims made by an army whistleblower, will raise doubts over its ability to police its soldiers’ conduct in Iraq.
If Wall is charged, the army’s role as a peacekeeping force may be undermined, with soldiers under fire fearing legal scrutiny for every action they take.
The Ministry of Defence issued a statement on Wall’s behalf. In it the general said: “It is inappropriate for me to comment on the case as it is still under investigation, but I am confident I acted in accordance with the interests of justice and appropriate care for the soldiers under my command.”
The whistleblower, who first informed The Sunday Times of Wall’s alleged involvement, said the army Special Investigation Branch (SIB) team that was sent to the scene of the killings realised immediately there were grounds for a criminal investigation.
However, they were told by a senior SIB officer not to pursue the soldiers as possible suspects and to treat them simply as witnesses, a move that seriously hampered subsequent investigations into the killings.
“They went to the scene and quickly established some suspicious markers,” the source said. “From what they could gather, Sergeant Roberts had been shot by one of his own men.
“There had been a huge amount of rounds fired, lots of empty cases. No rounds [were] being reported as fired at them. There was no body [found] but they talked to enough locals to say that an Iraqi had been shot and killed and it happened at the same time that Sergeant Roberts died.
“The Iraqis were claiming that there had been a protest by locals who had come to remonstrate with the patrol. Things got to a point where this local threw a stone at a tank and threw another one, and then at some point he gets shot.”
There were Iraqi eyewitness claims that Roberts had ordered his men to shoot the man, that there was no return fire and that he died in the resultant shooting as an indirect effect of his order to fire on the unarmed Iraqi.
The lead SIB investigator, a warrant officer, wanted to interview the soldiers under caution, but he was ordered by the senior SIB officer to take witness statements and compile a report later, the source alleges.
The senior officers who decided the investigation should not go ahead “very nearly succeeded in making any subsequent investigation impossible due to the loss of primary evidence,” the source said.
When the report was received in Germany, in summer 2003, the head of the SIB went to see Wall on a number of occasions and told him there had to be a proper investigation. Wall allegedly wrote to the army’s UK headquarters questioning the need for the case to be investigated and the right of his own SIB to tell him an investigation must take place, the source said.
“He sought legal advice on his powers to halt the investigation into the death of Sergeant Roberts, pointing out that the SIB were ‘ultimately under the chain of command’ and not on any independent ‘statutory footing’.”
The army’s senior legal adviser, known as Brigadier Advisory, replied that the decision not to launch a criminal investigation at the time of the killings was flawed.
Goldsmith told Hoon that even after the “clear advice” from the senior legal adviser, there was further correspondence which “shows the chain of command intervening to prevent investigations by the Special Investigation Branch”.
The SIB carried out a fresh investigation, but when the results were handed to the Army Prosecuting Authority in April 2004 officials there felt compelled to consult Goldsmith, who decided the civilian justice system must deal with the case.
He told Hoon that “as well as ensuring that justice is done there is also a need to ensure that justice is seen to be done, hence the justification for moving these matters to the civilian court”.
It was subsequently re-investigated by the Met and is now back with the Crown Prosecution Service, which is considering possible charges.
The MoD declined to comment but senior defence officials said Wall had been faced with two conflicting pieces of legal advice and “extremely correctly, sought policy advice and further legal advice about the case”.
The soldier’s widow, Samantha Roberts, said she had no knowledge of any attempt by senior officers to prevent the investigation going ahead and was not in a position to speculate on the circumstances of her husband’s death.
Zbigniew Brzezinski: The Voice of Reason?
Do These Two Have Anything in Common?: "Zbigniew Brzezinski"
"..Miami bureau of the FBI, Hector Pesquera, in the planning of that murder..."
Left I on the News: "Miami bureau of the FBI, Hector Pesquera, in the planning of that murder."
The U.S. war of terror
The trial over the murder of Danilo Anderson has received virtually no coverage in the United States (the last mention of "Danilo Anderson" in the New York Times is more than a year ago). Who is Danilo Anderson? He was a Venezuelan prosecutor who was preparing possible charges against as many as 400 people in connection with the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, and who was murdered by a C-4 bomb attached to his car just over a year ago.
And why is the U.S. in the title of this post? Because testimony in the trial has now implicated the former head of the Miami bureau of the FBI, Hector Pesquera, in the planning of that murder.
And what else do we know about Pesquera? Instead of doing his job and possibly preventing the horrendous occurence of Sept. 11, 2001 by tracking the 14 out of 19 hijackers who had spent time in Miami, Pesquera was busy persecuting (and prosecuting) five people who had dedicated their lives to fighting terrorism, the Cuban Five. Five courageous men who are still being held in American prisons, convicted of trumped-up charges when their actual work was tracking people like Pesquera (and Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch) who were busy planning (or carrying out) acts of terrorism against the people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama.
War on terror? No, it's a war of terror that the U.S. is carrying out against the people of the world.
The U.S. war of terror
The trial over the murder of Danilo Anderson has received virtually no coverage in the United States (the last mention of "Danilo Anderson" in the New York Times is more than a year ago). Who is Danilo Anderson? He was a Venezuelan prosecutor who was preparing possible charges against as many as 400 people in connection with the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, and who was murdered by a C-4 bomb attached to his car just over a year ago.
And why is the U.S. in the title of this post? Because testimony in the trial has now implicated the former head of the Miami bureau of the FBI, Hector Pesquera, in the planning of that murder.
And what else do we know about Pesquera? Instead of doing his job and possibly preventing the horrendous occurence of Sept. 11, 2001 by tracking the 14 out of 19 hijackers who had spent time in Miami, Pesquera was busy persecuting (and prosecuting) five people who had dedicated their lives to fighting terrorism, the Cuban Five. Five courageous men who are still being held in American prisons, convicted of trumped-up charges when their actual work was tracking people like Pesquera (and Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch) who were busy planning (or carrying out) acts of terrorism against the people of Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama.
War on terror? No, it's a war of terror that the U.S. is carrying out against the people of the world.
Conservatives Agree: Bush Misleads
LiberalOasis: Archives For The Week of November 27, 2005: "Conservatives Agree: Bush Misleads"
Truthdig - Reports - How Bush Created a Theocracy in Iraq
Truthdig - Reports - How Bush Created a Theocracy in Iraq: "The most troubling aspect of the Bush Administration�s decision for an Iraq invasion and occupation is that the most probable outcome of such an invasion, as described by Mr Cole, certainly should have been understood by the Bush Administration at the time it was taking this momentous decision. Most informed and reasoning persons, even those outside government (see, B. Scowcroft and R. Scheer), certainly understood this was the most probable outcome at that time, why wouldn�t the Bush Administration? None of the reasons given for the invasion seemed to add up as favoring invasion. This resulted in the conclusion of most informed reasoning persons that either:
1. The Bush Administration had some very credible classified intelligence which could not be disclosed, of such great weight that it would support justify a high stakes gamble in the face of the most probable outcome,
2. The true reason for the invasion could not be disclosed for political reasons since the publicly stated reasons could not be reconciled with the most probable outcome (thus the speculation that the reason for invasion was for oil, empire, etc.), or
3. the Bush Administration simply did not know what it was doing, was so incompetent it had no way to assess or desire to understand the most probable outcome, and the decision was taken soley on unexamined ideological/religious grounds.
When the invasion occurred, I assumed either of the first two possibilities were most likely. I am now convinced that, sadly, it appears the third is most probable. Sadly because, at the least, it does not auger well that the Bush Administration has the skill and knowledge to depart the region with our national security being greater, or even equal to, what it was before the invasion for a very"
1. The Bush Administration had some very credible classified intelligence which could not be disclosed, of such great weight that it would support justify a high stakes gamble in the face of the most probable outcome,
2. The true reason for the invasion could not be disclosed for political reasons since the publicly stated reasons could not be reconciled with the most probable outcome (thus the speculation that the reason for invasion was for oil, empire, etc.), or
3. the Bush Administration simply did not know what it was doing, was so incompetent it had no way to assess or desire to understand the most probable outcome, and the decision was taken soley on unexamined ideological/religious grounds.
When the invasion occurred, I assumed either of the first two possibilities were most likely. I am now convinced that, sadly, it appears the third is most probable. Sadly because, at the least, it does not auger well that the Bush Administration has the skill and knowledge to depart the region with our national security being greater, or even equal to, what it was before the invasion for a very"
As The Army Stands Down, The Contractors Will Stand Up
Hullabaloo: "As The Army Stands Down, The Contractors Will Stand Up"
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