Britain Aided Iraq Terror Renditions, Government Admits

[Hissyspit]

Source: Guardian UK

Britain aided Iraq terror renditions, government admits

Two Pakistani men were handed to US and taken to Afghan jail, defence secretary tells Commons after year of official denials

Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 February 2009 13.27 GMT

The government admitted today that British troops in Iraq handed over terror suspects to the US, which then secretly rendered them to a prison in Afghanistan.

After a year of allegations and repeated ministerial assurances to the contrary, the admission was made in the Commons by John Hutton, the defence secretary, who apologised to MPs for inaccurate information ministers had previously given them.

He said British soldiers, believed to have been SAS troops, handed over two terrorist suspects to the US in Iraq in February 2004. The men had been captured outside the UK-controlled zone covering south-eastern Iraq. Hutton said the pair, believed to be Pakistanis, were still being held in Afghanistan. He said they were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned organisation that he said was linked to al-Qaida. The US had assured Britain the two continued to represent "significant security concerns" and it was "neither possible or desirable to transfer them to either their country of detention or country of origin", Hutton told MPs.

The US had assured him the men were being held in humane conditions and had access to the Red Cross, Hutton said. The admission is hugely embarrassing to the government, coming in the wake of the continuing dispute over the suppression of evidence of UK collusion in the alleged torture of former British residents, including Binyam Mohamed, who was released by the US last week after more than four years in Guantánamo Bay.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/26/britain-admits-terror-renditions

[Solly Mack]

1. So...that's what they're willing to admit

Wonder what they aren't willing to admit?

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. "after more than four years in Guantánamo Bay." - wow ya think he might dislike the USA now??

.
.
.

President Obama should close that prison NOW - not in a year, not in a month

NOW

Then the World would REALLY think that the USA is becoming humane

But I digress

JFK moved too quickly to try to bring decency to the USA

So did MLK

I think I need say no more . . .

Walk soft, Barack

PLEASE . .