MPs recall Straw as air traffic controllers confirm 200 CIA flights

[deminks]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1715866,00.html?gusrc=rss

MPs will today chastise ministers over their stance on the US practice of "extraordinary rendition" amid the first official admission that 200 suspect CIA flights had used British airspace.

In a report highly critical of the government's attitude towards human rights abuses, the Commons foreign affairs committee accuses ministers of failing in their duty to find out whether Britain has been complicit in the US policy of secretly transferring detainees to places where they risked being tortured.

Members of the committee say they have not been told the full story despite months of trying. They are to summon the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to give evidence again on an issue which has serious political and legal implications. The move was agreed after Mr Straw suggested he would be questioned in private only by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, Paul Keetch, a Liberal Democrat member of the Commons foreign affairs group, said yesterday.

National Air Traffic Services (Nats) confirmed yesterday that two aircraft believed to have been chartered by the CIA made "around 200 journeys" through British airspace within the past five years.

[CountAllVotes]

1. add another 50 torture flights in/out of Shannon

>> Over 300,000 US troops went through Shannon in 2005 (and over half a million since the war on Iraq began). Over 100,000 Iraqi's, mostly innocent civilians, and over 2,000 US troops have been killed due to the war.

CIA planes have used Shannon Airport at least 50 times in the last four years in the illegal US 'rendition' programme (i.e. kidnapping prisoners for transport to Guantanamo Bay & other torture sites).

Claims about weapons of mass destruction and promises to liberate Iraq have all proven to be false. The US occupation is now threatening a civil war. 85% of Iraqi's want the US and western troops to leave their country. A majority of US and British citizens also want a firm timetable for the withdrawal of their troops from Iraq.

The US is now threatening Iran over nuclear weapons. But the US has over 10,000 nuclear warheads and Israel has over 200. The US and Britain are both building a new generation of nuclear weapons. The US has a first strike policy with nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. This is encouraging a new global arms race. <<

more ...


http://irishantiwar.org/index.adp

:dem: :kick:

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. official admission that 200 suspect CIA flights had used British airspace

.
.
.

So I wonder

How many are they NOT admitting to?

Cuz they won't admit ALL of them IMO

Just the ones they figure that are easily proved

I wonder how many people have been "disappeared" thru this rendition thing

TOO many I'm afraid . . .

(sigh)

[Drum]

3. 200? Dammy, that's a lot!

Just how many prisoners has our country taken in te last 5 years? Could we ever find out?

Sad it's the US we're talking about as having this policy, shameful....

[spindrifter]

4. Even accepting that

not all of the CIA flights probably had prisoners, this is only talking about the flights through British airspace. There are others that don't go through there.

[EuroObserver]

5. Hmm. Is it possible the British parliament

is going to be allowed do the right thing, for once?

[magellan]

6. Labour have adopted GOP's practice of ducking responsibility

The Ministry of Defence, Department for Transport, the Home Office and the Foreign Office have all said in answers to parliamentary questions...that they are unaware of any rendition flights since 1998, that they do not keep records, or that records they did have had been destroyed.

How convenient. Labour Re-:puke:s