Blair under fire over leaked memo

[cal04]

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is under increasing pressure to reveal how much he knows about the US using airports in the United Kingdom as transit points for terrorism suspects. A leaked memo has revealed that Mr Blair was advised to avoid giving detailed answers on the transit issue, known as rendition. The four-page memo, dated December 7, 2005, was sent to Mr Blair's Downing Street office by Britain's Foreign Office.

It advised ministers to avoid giving details on rendition and to stress their anti-terrorist purpose. Human rights groups accuse the United States of secretly moving prisoners to countries where they could be tortured.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has told Parliament there have only been two requests by the US to land in Britain. But the leaked memo says there could be more. Civil rights group Liberty wants the Government to launch an inquiry immediately. Mr Blair is not commenting on the memo. He has repeatedly denied having a detailed knowledge of the flights.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1551454.htm

Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up: Leaked memo reveals strategy to deny knowledge of detention centres
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1689852,00.html

[rodeodance]

1. a memo found to deny the action. wonderful.

[struggle4progress]

2. British Role in U.S. Policy on Detainees Raises Storm

By ALAN COWELL
Published: January 20, 2006
LONDON, Jan. 19 - The British government may have permitted the use of its airspace and airports for clandestine American transportation of foreign prisoners more frequently than it initially acknowledged, according to a leaked document published Thursday in two British publications.

The document - a memo said to have been written around Dec. 7 by a Foreign Office official, Irfan Siddiq, to Grace Cassy, an official in the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair - seems likely to deepen concerns across Europe about the extent of the flights, operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Britain denies authorizing the use of its airspace or airports in recent years for what Washington calls extraordinary rendition, in which the prisoners are taken, without court approval, to third countries, where human rights groups say they might face torture or what Britain calls "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.

On Dec. 12, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told lawmakers in the House of Commons that officials had discovered evidence of two instances in which Britain had authorized American rendition flights. Both were before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he said. On Thursday, a government spokesman said Mr. Straw's statement on Dec. 12 had been "comprehensive." <snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/international/europe/20rendition.html

[struggle4progress]

3. Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up

Leaked memo reveals strategy to deny knowledge of detention centres

Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday January 19, 2006
The Guardian

The government is secretly trying to stifle attempts by MPs to find out what it knows about CIA "torture flights" and privately admits that people captured by British forces could have been sent illegally to interrogation centres. A hidden strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about rendition - the US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they are at risk of being tortured - is revealed in a briefing paper sent by the Foreign Office to No 10.

The document shows that the government has been aware of secret interrogation centres, despite ministers' denials. It admits that the government has no idea whether individuals seized by British troops in Iraq or Afghanistan have been sent to the secret centres.
Dated December 7 last year, the document is a note from Irfan Siddiq, of the foreign secretary's private office, to Grace Cassy in Tony Blair's office. It was obtained by the New Statesman magazine, whose latest issue is published today ...

"We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail", Mr Siddiq writes, "and to try to move the debate on, in as front foot a way we can, underlining all the time the strong anti-terrorist rationale for close cooperation with the US, within our legal obligations." <snip>

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1689855,00.html

[struggle4progress]

4. Letters: We did not mislead on rendition

Friday January 20, 2006
The Guardian

... We have found no evidence whatsoever of other cases of detainees being rendered through the UK, UK overseas territories or sovereign bases since 1997. Since well before September 2001 we have worked closely with the US to achieve our shared goal of fighting terrorism. As part of that cooperation, we have made clear to the US authorities, including recently, that we expect them to seek permission to render detainees via all UK territory and airspace; that we will grant permission only if we are satisfied the rendition would accord with UK law and our international obligations; and how we understand our obligations under the UN convention against torture. We are also clear that the US would not render a detainee through any UK territory or airspace without our permission. The US has sought such permission in the past.
Dr Kim Howells MP
Minister of state, Foreign Office

Recently Amnesty published information concerning 800 flights into European airspace by CIA planes between 2001-05. This relates to just six of the CIA's reported fleet of 30 leased aircraft, so is only the tip of a potentially very big iceberg. In 2002 one of these planes took Maher Arar, a Canadian-Syrian, from JF Kennedy airport in New York to Jordan, where he was shackled and beaten before being passed to the Syrians. In Syria he was held in an underground cell without charge for over a year and suffered further torture. He is now suing the US government. The government should allow an investigation into any UK complicity over rendition flights.
Stephen Bowen
Amnesty International

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Blair must find who leaked that memo

and punish that person severely. The person is a traitor! And must be silenced!

[xchrom]

6. another day -- another fire -- eh blair?

you're getting what you deserve.