- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

Concern Whether UK Turned Blind Eye to CIA Torture

© Flickr / Truthout.orgTorture victim
Torture victim - Sputnik International
Subscribe
A British parliamentary committee is requesting that the United States hand over any material documenting the UK's role in the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation programme.

Suspicions about MI5 and MI6 complicity in torture were stoked last week, with the publication of a 525-page summary of a report exposing “brutal” and “ineffectual” CIA interrogation techniques. The report has raised uncomfortable questions in Britain, Poland and other countries, about how much their leaders knew.

Although the summary contains no reference to UK agencies, there are concerns that Britain was implicated in some of the redacted passages. A Freedom of Information request by the charity Reprieve earlier this year showed the UK government had met members of the Senate Committee on Intelligence 24 times since 2009 – and no details were given about what was discussed.

Downing Street claims that material was only redacted to protect Britain’s national security and that no redactions related to British involvement in the mistreatment of prisoners were requested. But Britain’s reticence about its part in the programme is giving rise to increasingly heated questions and concerns.

People deserve to be embarrassed

To uncover the truth about Britain’s role in the torture, Sir Malcom Rifkind is launching a full parliamentary inquiry.

Sir Malcolm – who chairs the Intelligence Committee — says that if British intelligence officials were present when people were being tortured then they were "complicit in that torture" which would be “against all the standards” of Britain. He added: "If people deserve to be embarrassed, it's our job to embarrass them."

News of the inquiry comes as the former Labour security minister, Admiral Lord West, admitted that some British intelligence officers will have been aware of torture. 

In the most frank official acceptance yet of potential complicity, Lord West of Spithead accepted there may have been an “odd case” where British agents knew of mistreatment. He added that some may even have been in the building when it happened. 

Campaigners say his comments prove the need for a full judicial inquiry to get to the truth.

Labour's shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, says she has concerns that Sir Malcom Rifkind’s Intelligence Committee does not have the capacity to reach any answers. Clare Algar, from the charity Reprieve, points out that even Prime Minister David Cameron has previously said that only a judge-led inquiry could get to the bottom of the UK's involvement.

And Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, added his voice to the chorus, calling for the government to "reconstitute a judge-led inquiry".

Mea culpa vs reticence

Suspicions flared when it was revealed that Britain had asked for the report be redacted. Downing Street has said the excisions were requested purely on national security grounds. But the contrast between the US’s mea culpa over the use of torture and Britain’s reticence is stark. 

British MPs want to know if all of the redactions are strictly necessary, why they were requested and by whom. 

John McTernan, a former senior adviser to Tony Blair, encapsulates some of the concerns: "If the US can come clean, why can’t we? If this is not done, then a suspicion hangs over our security services. We have a right to know.” 

He went on to affirm that the Intelligence and Security Committee is not up to the task of proper scrutiny, pointing to Britain’s “failure to rise to the occasion after the Snowden leaks and the question of GCHQ’s role in monitoring citizens.” 

Meanwhile, charities and campaigners are heaping the pressure on David Cameron to appeal to the US for a full un-redacted report. “We need to know precisely what was done in our name”, Tom Davies of Amnesty said. “The British public is tired of being fobbed off with lies, half-truths and inadequate investigations.” He went on to say that anything other than full disclosure amounted to “not rolling over a rock for fear of what you might find underneath.” 

Fight about values 

It is likely that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Labour foreign secretaries Jack Straw and David Miliband will be called up to answer questions from Sir Malcom’s Committee.

Mr Straw said that he would "be delighted to give evidence". And Tony Blair's office has issued a statement saying the ex-Prime Minister "has always been opposed to the use of torture. He believes the fight against radical Islamism is a fight about values, and acting contrary to those values — as in the use of torture — is therefore not just wrong but counter-productive."

There are a growing number of voices that undermine Britain’s protestations of innocence. The Metropolitan police have been investigating claims that UK secret services helped in the extraordinary rendition of two men to Libya in 2012. A Libyan dissident asserts that he and his pregnant wife were kidnapped by U.S. forces in 2004 with the help of MI6, and handed over to Muammar Gaddafi’s government, which tortured him. And a Pakistani man also says he was waterboarded by British Special Forces in Iraq in 2004.

Diego Garcia lease

In addition, there are fresh questions about the role of the obscure British overseas territory, Diego Garcia, which human rights groups say played a key role in facilitating the CIA’s extraordinary rendition programme – which moves terrorist suspects to “black sites” around the world, without legal oversight. The news site Al-Jazeera reported earlier in the year that the Senate committee had seen evidence that Diego Garcia had been used for extraordinary rendition “with the full cooperation” of the UK.

However, when the report was published, it made no mention of Diego Garcia. That raised questions about whether references to it had been inked out, at Britain’s request.

The possible exposure of British collusion is timely. The UK is about to start talks with the US about the future of Diego Garcia, and whether to renew the US lease on the Island. Campaigners say any decision should be postponed until the full details of Britain’s part in the CIA rendition programme is exposed.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала