Secrecy and National Security

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the CIA has been using secret facilities throughout Eastern Europe and Asia to hide and interrogate captives on the Bush Administration's "War on Terror". Who is being kept and what interrogation techniques are being used? No one seems to know. Answers to questions and requests are readily declined on the grounds of potentially compromising national security.

As I have mentioned previously, "national security" is a fairly common and convenient excuse used by various intelligence and governmental groups to deny allegations and access to information, material, or resources. The reasons somethings are kept secret may be completely unrelated to security. It may very well be due to the legal or ethical ramifications.

From the WP article:

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

This appears to be nothing new. The decision to use the secret detention facilities arose from the knee-jerk responses to the September 11th attacks.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

The article continues:

The idea of holding terrorists outside the U.S. legal system was not under consideration before Sept. 11, 2001, not even for Osama bin Laden, according to former government officials. The plan was to bring bin Laden and his top associates into the U.S. justice system for trial or to send them to foreign countries where they would be tried.

"The issue of detaining and interrogating people was never, ever discussed," said a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, during that period. "It was against the culture and they believed information was best gleaned by other means."

So, did the president know or not? Back to the article:

The agency set up prisons under its covert action authority. Under U.S. law, only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal advisers.

Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world.

It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did not have to.

Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black-site program was approved by a small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials, according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials.

There appears to be legal wiggle room, as always, for those at the highest levels while the Lewis Libbys of the world take the heat. That's not to say those taking the heat are innocent, most likely they were the implementors of the unwritten, verbal signals from on high.

What are others saying about this latest revelation (which is not really a surprise based on all the documentation of illegal renditions having occurred over the last several years)?

From the Scotsman article "Terror suspects held in secret CIA prisons":

The CIA is already known to use Glasgow and Prestwick airports to stop off en route to other destinations when transporting prisoners who have been snatched under its programme of "extraordinary rendition". The US is understood to use the programme to transport prisoners to countries which are prepared to use unconventional methods, including torture, to extract information.

US planes have landed at a number of UK airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, but Prestwick - with 75 recorded flights - and Glasgow - with 74 - are among the most popular stopping-off points.

From the ABC News article "EU Probing Report of Secret CIA Prisons":

The governments of the EU's 25 members nations will be questioned informally about the allegations, EU spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing said.

"We have to find out what is exactly happening," Roscam Abbing said. "We have all heard about this."

He said such prisons could violate EU human rights laws and other European human rights conventions. The commission is responsible for ensuring that EU rules are followed.

"As far as the treatment of prisoners is concerned … it is clear that all 25 member states having signed up to European Convention on Human Rights, and to the International Convention Against Torture, are due to respect and fully implement the obligations deriving from those treaties," Roscam Abbing told reporters.

He cautioned, however, that the EU head office could not take action against member states if they violated human rights codes.

From an AFP article "US on the defensive over reported secret CIA prisons":

The White House refused to confirm or deny that the CIA operates secret prisons, known as "black sites," for al-Qaeda captives in eastern Europe and other countries around the world.

"I am not going to discuss any specific intelligence activities," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "I would say that the president's most important responsibility is to protect the American people."

The refusal to discuss the matter was echoed by US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the Central Intelligence Agency.

And these are not actions which occurred in the past. Note the following from the above article, this is still going on!

Czech Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan was quoted by the on-line news outlet Aktualne.cz as saying that the Czech Republic recently turned down a US request to set up a detention center on its territory.

"The negotiations took place around a month ago," he was quoted as saying. The Americans "made an effort to install some of the sort here, but they did not succeed."

It appears as if this is the case. The CIA does have secret detention facilities and continue to actively use them, yet it may prove to be a challenge to get the governments to take any action against the agency to cease the activity, never mind to be held accountable for any humanitarian violations which most likely occurred during the period since September 11th.

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