Government accused of 'hear no evil, see no evil' policy on terror flights
13.12.05
Assurances by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that the government has no record of so-called US rendition flights were dismissed last night as a policy of 'hear no evil, see no evil'.
Downing Street pointed out that, during the Clinton administration, 3 rendition flight requests - the transporting of al Qaeda suspects via UK airfields to third countries - were made of Britain, with only 2 being granted. It said the foreign secretary had accepted the word of Condoleezza Rice, his US counterpart, that there had been no requests for stopovers since the terror atrocities of September 11, 2001.
'We have checked the records as carefully as we can and I believe the answer we have given from the records suggest that there have been no such flights through United Kingdom territory,' Mr Straw said. He added there was a 'pretty clear picture' that no suspects were being brought through the UK.
But when No. 10 was asked about the reported 400 flights by the CIA stopping off at 18 British airfields, including Prestwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Inverness and Wick, for refuelling, Tony Blair's spokesman described them as 'normal CIA business' and not related to rendition. Asked what normal CIA business was, he replied: 'It's something we don't talk about, for obvious reasons.'
Questioned on the same subject later, the spokesman again insisted the CIA flights had nothing to do with rendition. Asked if the government therefore knew what they were for, he replied: 'We know what they are not for.'
Asked if this was good enough, given the level of public concern on the issue, the spokesman stressed he would not engage in security matters. Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, however, was not satisfied and insisted that far more detailed investigation was still required.
'I do not doubt the good faith of the foreign secretary in this matter, but because there are no records and because there are no requests doesn't mean to say that extraordinary rendition may not have been taking place,' said the Fife MP.
'We now know, because it's a matter of admission, that there have been a substantial number of CIA flights. We know that there are allegations that some of these flights may have been concerned with moving people from one jurisdiction to another so that they could be subject to, shall we put it euphemistically, rather more vigorous cross-examination than would otherwise be the case; in fact, possibly subject to torture.'
'Against that background, I'm pretty certain it's not enough for the government to have a kind of 'hear-no-evil, see-no-evil' policy".'
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