US Fears Backlash Over Terror Flights
By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
February 22, 2008
Page 2 of 2
Governments that ask will be told roughly what CIA Director Michael Hayden acknowledged Thursday: that two rendition flights carrying suspected terrorists did refuel at a U.S. naval base on Diego Garcia, despite what the agency had earlier maintained.
Hayden said in a message to CIA staff that the information previously given to the British ''turned out to be wrong.''
''The refueling, conducted more than five years ago, lasted just a short time,'' he said. ''But it happened. That we found this mistake ourselves, and that we brought it to the attention of the British government, in no way changes or excuses the reality that we were in the wrong.''
Hayden said neither man was tortured. He denied there has ever been a holding facility for CIA prisoners on Diego Garcia. Both men remained on their respective planes during the brief stops, according to a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
One of the two prisoners is now jailed at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and the other was released to his home country, where he has since been freed, the official said. Neither man was part of the CIA's interrogation and detention program, according to the official, who said the CIA only moved them from one country to another through Diego Garcia.
Rights groups demanded a full accounting of the CIA's rendition program, under which suspects are transported from one country to another, usually in secrecy, without the benefit of open legal proceedings.
''It's high time the agency is held accountable,'' said Julia Hall of Human Rights Watch. She also sought an investigation into the British role in the program. ''The U.S. flew hundreds of flights across Europe so the only way to have full accountability is for (Britain) to launch a thorough, national investigation.''
Hayden delivered the news to the British government last weekend on a previously scheduled trip to London. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Wednesday and was told he would announce the discovery in Parliament.
Amid the uproar over the detention program, Rice told reporters in December 2005 that the United States respects the sovereignty of foreign countries when conducting intelligence operations within their borders, suggesting the CIA conducts rendition flights with the permission of the governments involved.
But Rice sidestepped a specific question about the role of Britain in such flights in an interview on Dec. 6, 2005, with British television.
''We have obligations under our international conventions and we are respecting the sovereignty of our allies,'' she told Sky News. ''We are not using the airspace or the airports of any of our partners for activities that would lead renditions to torture. We don't send people to be tortured.''
---
Associated Press writer Pamela Hess contributed to this report.
>> Back -- Page 1 2
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
++ Discuss this topic in The Forum
Current rating:  5.0 out of 5.0 (2 total votes)
| 
