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Gambia News: UK Report Criticizes U.S. Treatment Of Terror Suspects arrested in The Gambia
On the eve of the first visit to Washington by the new British prime minister, Gordon Brown, a report by a high-level parliamentary committee sharply criticized the Bush administration's practice of seizing terrorism suspects for interrogation in other countries, and found that in one case the Americans showed a lack of concern for the position of the British, their closest ally.
The practice, known as rendition, presented “some ethical dilemmas” for the British and led them to conclude that they had different approaches from the Americans, the report by the Intelligence and Security Committee said.
One British official told the panel that he did not believe the early reports of American torture against terror suspects in mid-2003. But after the abuses at Abu Ghraib emerged, the British government was “fully aware of the risk of mistreatment associated with any operations that may result in U.S. custody of detainees,” the report found.
“When you are talking about sharing secret intelligence, we still trust them, but we have a better recognition that their standards, their approaches, are different, and therefore we still have to work with them, but we work with them in a rather different fashion,” an official of one of the security services told the committee in March, the report said.
The report comes as Brown is to meet President Bush at Camp David on Sunday. Brown said he wanted to be a steward of the close American-British alliance. But he has also indicated he wants to establish a different tone from that of his predecessor, Tony Blair, who maintained a personal bond with the American president. By scheduling a visit to the United Nations on Monday immediately after Camp David, Brown was already showing a little distance.
On the positive side, the parliamentary report found that some of the information the Americans obtained during interrogations of al-Qaida suspects and passed to the British helped thwart some terrorist attacks in Britain.
Britain has pulled out of some planned covert operations with the CIA, including a major one in 2005, when it was unable to obtain assurances that the actions would not result in rendition and inhumane treatment, the report said. Portions of the report dealing with these operations have been redacted. “We have in all cases with respect to those issues operated with full respect of the sovereignty of our partners and allies,” said David Johnson, the deputy chief of mission at the American Embassy in London.
The Intelligence and Security Committee Report on Rendition was completed and sent to Brown during his first days in office in late June. On Wednesday, the prime minister sent it to Parliament and it became a public document. (The report is available at www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/intelligence. )
The report looks at America's rendition policy and the degree to which the British and intelligence agencies cooperated with it. It examines in more depth the case of Jamil el-Banna and Bisher al-Rawi. The two were arrested by the CIA in Gambia, in 2002, on the basis of information provided by the British intelligence service, even though the British said clearly that they should not be arrested. “The case shows a lack of regard, on the part of the U.S., for U.K. concerns,” the committee says.
After the two men were taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the British government did not push for their release. Both men were longtime British residents, but they were not British citizens, and therefore, the government said, it had no obligation to help them.
Al-Rawi was released earlier this year. El-Banna has been cleared for release by the Pentagon but remains at Guantanamo because the British will not allow him to return to Britain. The government says he should be sent to his native Jordan.
The report criticizes the British intelligence agencies for not having obtained assurances from the United States that detainees would be treated humanely, and for being slow to recognize that the rendition policy had changed since the Clinton administration. At that time, criminal suspects seized abroad were either brought to the U.S. for trial, or taken to a country where they were wanted on criminal charges. Under Bush, suspects seized abroad were taken to third countries, not for trial, but to be interrogated, raising the possibility of torture.
British intelligence agencies began having concerns about the rendition program and the use of CIA prisons in mid-2003, following the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. He had been seized in Pakistan, and was being held by the CIA at an unknown location. There were news reports that he was being subjected to “waterboarding,” which involves putting a person under water, blindfolded, and making him think he is going to drown.
At first, the British did not believe that torture was being employed. “It never crossed my mind,” a senior British intelligence official, who is not identified in the report, told the committee. “We are talking about the Americans, our closest ally. This now, with hindsight, may look naive, but all I can say is that is what we thought at the time.”
The concerns of the British intelligence agencies grew in early 2004, the report says, after the reports of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. The British intelligence agencies then began to seek “assurances on humane treatment” for any operation that might result in rendition.
The committee said it had “strong concerns” about a planned operation in early 2005. The operation had been approved by the British Cabinet, but “subject to assurances on humane treatment and a time limit on detention,” according to the report.
When these were not forthcoming, the operation was dropped, the report says. It is not clear whether the operation was dropped completely, or only the British participation.
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