[Peace-discuss] When thieves fall out

[C. G. Estabrook]

	'24', a diplomatic row and a spy chief's lecture on torture
	US fury at ex-MI5 chief's claims that Jack Bauer
	inspired interrogation techniques
	By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent
	Thursday, 11 March 2010

American officials have reacted with dismay to the charge by the former head of 
MI5 that US authorities deliberately concealed mistreatment of terror suspects 
from their British colleagues. The unexpected public statement by Dame Eliza 
Manningham-Buller is said to have significantly added to the strains in the 
relationship between the two countries on intelligence matters.

At the same time, the former secret service chief faced criticism from human 
rights groups who expressed scepticism about her claims of being kept in the 
dark by Washington. Amnesty International said it was "extremely surprising" 
that she and her organisation were unaware of the allegations of abuse which 
were being widely aired.

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said Dame Eliza's 
"revelations make an unanswerable case for a judicial inquiry into the alleged 
mistreatment and torture by security services".

Dame Eliza's condemnation of American conduct during the war on terror comes in 
the wake of consternation in Washington over a decision by High Court judges in 
London to release sensitive, US-supplied information on the Guantanamo detainee 
Binyam Mohamed. There was also angry condemnation across the Atlantic of the 
release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

During a lecture given at a meeting in the House of Lords, Dame Eliza said the 
British government had made an official complaint to Washington over the abuse 
of detainees. But no futher details have emerged on either side of the Atlantic 
of when this complaint was made, or what form it took.

In her speech, highly critical of the US's conduct during the war on terror, the 
former secret service chief implied that the leadership in Washington was 
inspired by watching the TV espionage thriller 24. She said: "Bush, Cheney and 
Rumsfeld certainly watched 24". Dame Eliza said: "The Americans were very keen 
that people like us did not discover what they were doing." She insisted that 
she had been unaware of what was going on until her retirement in 2007.

One of her retrospective discoveries was the interrogation method used on Khalid 
Sheikh Mohammed. When she asked her subordinates why the senior al-Qa'ida member 
was offering so much information, they told her he was "very proud of his 
achievements when questioned". She added: "It wasn't actually until after I 
retired that I read that he had been water-boarded 160 times."

The White House refused to comment on Dame Eliza's allegations yesterday. 
However, US security officials were said to feel particularly let down that the 
charges had come from someone in her senior position, and denied that American 
intelligence had used subterfuge with British colleagues.

A senior Pentagon official said there was "a degree of understanding" in the 
cases of Binyam Mohamed and Mr Megrahi, because the hands of the British 
authorities had been forced by the courts. The official added: "It is not 
correct to say that we had kept relevant information from the Brits. There are 
also a number of other points to consider. Khalid Mohammed was not a British 
subject and not a British responsibility.

"Things are also done on a need-to-know basis. What was there to say that, in 
that case, too, the courts would not have directed agencies in the UK to 
disclose sensitive material? I would also like to point out that the Brits were 
always very happy to receive information we gave them emanating from Mohammed."

Asked whether President George W Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence 
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld watched 24, the official said: "We are not aware of 
their television habits. It's quite an image though. These three busy guys 
sitting down together at a very busy time to get their lead from Jack Bauer."

Tim Hancock, UK campaigns director of Amnesty International, said: "Numerous 
allegations of US mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and Bagram were 
emerging from the beginning of the war on terror. Did MI5 learn nothing of this, 
even when members of the security service interviewed nine British nationals at 
Guantanamo in 2003?

"We also know from the Binyam Mohamed case that the security service was told by 
US officials that Mr Mohamed was kept shackled, deprived of sleep and threatened 
with being 'disappeared' by his US interrogators."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/24-a-diplomatic-row-and-a-spy-chiefs-lecture-on-torture-1919444.html

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