European reaction split on secret CIA camps
European reaction split
By Brian Knowlton
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: September 7, 2006
WASHINGTON Reaction in Europe to the transfer by the United States of 14 top terror suspects from secret CIA camps for trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been sharply mixed, welcomed by some but termed a half-measure by others.
The top State Department lawyer, John Bellinger 3rd, said Thursday that he expected U.S. allies to react positively to the changes.
"The desire is to move forward on these issues," said Bellinger, the legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "to turn a page with respect to many of them."
Disclosure of the camps' existence last year had generated widespread outrage abroad. Several European legislators and human rights groups said Thursday that while President George W. Bush's acknowledgment of the camps was helpful, it underscored concerns about clandestine U.S. practices and the complicity of some governments.
Dick Marty, who led a Council of Europe investigation of the camps and of the secret moving of suspects from one country to another for questioning, said that Bush had provided "just one piece of the truth."
Manfred Nowak, the United Nations special investigator on torture, called the transfer of 14 top prisoners an improvement, but added, "Of course, there are many others."
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain, one of the few world leaders to offer an opinion, bluntly criticized CIA practices, The Associated Press reported. The fight by democracies against terrorism, he said in Madrid, "is not compatible with the existence of secret prisons."
But European Union spokesmen insisted that there was still no proof of secret camps on European soil and officials in countries suspected of housing such camps issued new denials.
"It wasn't specified where these prisons were or are," said Friso Roscam Abbing, a European Commission spokesman, and the commission repeated an earlier request to member states that they investigate.
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in Copenhagen that "all the information that I have is that no country in the EU, or candidate country, as far as I know, has had secret prisons."
In revealing the CIA program in November, The Washington Post said that eight countries were involved, but did not name them. Romania and Poland, often mentioned in other reports as being hosts of CIA sites, again denied this Thursday. But both countries could face pressure for greater clarity from the European Union; Poland is a relatively new member and Romania is seeking membership.
Human rights groups generally welcomed the administration's steps but said that it had not gone far enough.
Marianne Heuwagen, head of the German chapter of Human Rights Watch, was quoted on Der Spiegel's Web site that Bush's admission was a tactical move, designed to defuse the CIA prisons as an issue before the November elections.
She said she was not surprised that Bush declined to name the countries with prisons. "That would only bring difficulties to the countries in which these prisons are located," Heuwagen said.
In a statement from Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed "the transfer of these detainees from secret places of detention to an official place of detention," and said that it planned a visit to Guantánamo soon. But it questioned whether other prisoners might still be held clandestinely, condemning the practice.
European investigators have concluded in an interim report that the CIA or other U.S. services abducted and imprisoned terror suspects in Europe. But they have produced no concrete evidence of secret prisons in Europe.
Bush said Wednesday that all the CIA camps were now empty, but he reserved the right to reopen them.
Some European Parliament members of an investigating committee, who will soon travel to Bulgaria and Romania as part of their own months-long inquiry, harshly criticized the president's comments and renewed their demands to know where the camps were.
"Bush exposes not only his own previous lies," said Sarah Ludford, a British member, "he also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition," as the secret prisoner transfers are known, Reuters reported.
In Afghanistan, one human rights leader welcomed the U.S. move. "We have been looking for an improvement in the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo and Bagram," the Afghan base where a U.S. military prison is located, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "It will build more confidence in the war on terror," he told The Associated Press.
The Bush announcement about the prisoners and the issuance of new, stricter Pentagon procedures for interrogation also left many questions unanswered:
What has become of other so-called high-value suspects not included among the 14? Will the president gain needed congressional support to allow tribunals in Guantánamo under rules that still give suspects lesser legal protections than many critics say international standards demand?
When and how will those tribunals be held, and what will they reveal? Does the president face a new confrontation on these issues with the Supreme Court?
The president's announcement left European allies in an awkward position. They had denied knowledge of the camps, and in some cases of the CIA flights carrying suspects to or from the camps through their airports or airspace.
But Bush said that information derived from the program had been shared with other countries, and Bellinger, the State Department lawyer, said that European lives had been saved.
"My hope would be that our allies would welcome the statements made by the president," Bellinger told reporters.
The German opposition party criticized the government in Berlin for not pushing harder to unravel Germany's role in the affair. "The Merkel government, at no time, showed a real will to seek clarification," said the deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Free Democratic Party, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
The government, she said, still owed an answer to the question, "What did the federal government know about these secret prisons?"
Bush has delivered a series of recent speeches on national security, as he did again Thursday in Atlanta, and Democrats suggested that they are aimed in part at seizing a platform favorable to his party with elections due in November.
Mark Landler of The New York Times contributed reporting from Berlin.
WASHINGTON Reaction in Europe to the transfer by the United States of 14 top terror suspects from secret CIA camps for trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been sharply mixed, welcomed by some but termed a half-measure by others.
The top State Department lawyer, John Bellinger 3rd, said Thursday that he expected U.S. allies to react positively to the changes.
"The desire is to move forward on these issues," said Bellinger, the legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "to turn a page with respect to many of them."
Disclosure of the camps' existence last year had generated widespread outrage abroad. Several European legislators and human rights groups said Thursday that while President George W. Bush's acknowledgment of the camps was helpful, it underscored concerns about clandestine U.S. practices and the complicity of some governments.
Dick Marty, who led a Council of Europe investigation of the camps and of the secret moving of suspects from one country to another for questioning, said that Bush had provided "just one piece of the truth."
Manfred Nowak, the United Nations special investigator on torture, called the transfer of 14 top prisoners an improvement, but added, "Of course, there are many others."
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain, one of the few world leaders to offer an opinion, bluntly criticized CIA practices, The Associated Press reported. The fight by democracies against terrorism, he said in Madrid, "is not compatible with the existence of secret prisons."
But European Union spokesmen insisted that there was still no proof of secret camps on European soil and officials in countries suspected of housing such camps issued new denials.
"It wasn't specified where these prisons were or are," said Friso Roscam Abbing, a European Commission spokesman, and the commission repeated an earlier request to member states that they investigate.
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in Copenhagen that "all the information that I have is that no country in the EU, or candidate country, as far as I know, has had secret prisons."
In revealing the CIA program in November, The Washington Post said that eight countries were involved, but did not name them. Romania and Poland, often mentioned in other reports as being hosts of CIA sites, again denied this Thursday. But both countries could face pressure for greater clarity from the European Union; Poland is a relatively new member and Romania is seeking membership.
Human rights groups generally welcomed the administration's steps but said that it had not gone far enough.
Marianne Heuwagen, head of the German chapter of Human Rights Watch, was quoted on Der Spiegel's Web site that Bush's admission was a tactical move, designed to defuse the CIA prisons as an issue before the November elections.
She said she was not surprised that Bush declined to name the countries with prisons. "That would only bring difficulties to the countries in which these prisons are located," Heuwagen said.
In a statement from Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed "the transfer of these detainees from secret places of detention to an official place of detention," and said that it planned a visit to Guantánamo soon. But it questioned whether other prisoners might still be held clandestinely, condemning the practice.
European investigators have concluded in an interim report that the CIA or other U.S. services abducted and imprisoned terror suspects in Europe. But they have produced no concrete evidence of secret prisons in Europe.
Bush said Wednesday that all the CIA camps were now empty, but he reserved the right to reopen them.
Some European Parliament members of an investigating committee, who will soon travel to Bulgaria and Romania as part of their own months-long inquiry, harshly criticized the president's comments and renewed their demands to know where the camps were.
"Bush exposes not only his own previous lies," said Sarah Ludford, a British member, "he also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition," as the secret prisoner transfers are known, Reuters reported.
In Afghanistan, one human rights leader welcomed the U.S. move. "We have been looking for an improvement in the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo and Bagram," the Afghan base where a U.S. military prison is located, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "It will build more confidence in the war on terror," he told The Associated Press.
The Bush announcement about the prisoners and the issuance of new, stricter Pentagon procedures for interrogation also left many questions unanswered:
What has become of other so-called high-value suspects not included among the 14? Will the president gain needed congressional support to allow tribunals in Guantánamo under rules that still give suspects lesser legal protections than many critics say international standards demand?
When and how will those tribunals be held, and what will they reveal? Does the president face a new confrontation on these issues with the Supreme Court?
The president's announcement left European allies in an awkward position. They had denied knowledge of the camps, and in some cases of the CIA flights carrying suspects to or from the camps through their airports or airspace.
But Bush said that information derived from the program had been shared with other countries, and Bellinger, the State Department lawyer, said that European lives had been saved.
"My hope would be that our allies would welcome the statements made by the president," Bellinger told reporters.
The German opposition party criticized the government in Berlin for not pushing harder to unravel Germany's role in the affair. "The Merkel government, at no time, showed a real will to seek clarification," said the deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Free Democratic Party, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
The government, she said, still owed an answer to the question, "What did the federal government know about these secret prisons?"
Bush has delivered a series of recent speeches on national security, as he did again Thursday in Atlanta, and Democrats suggested that they are aimed in part at seizing a platform favorable to his party with elections due in November.
Mark Landler of The New York Times contributed reporting from Berlin.
By Brian Knowlton
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: September 7, 2006
WASHINGTON Reaction in Europe to the transfer by the United States of 14 top terror suspects from secret CIA camps for trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been sharply mixed, welcomed by some but termed a half-measure by others.
The top State Department lawyer, John Bellinger 3rd, said Thursday that he expected U.S. allies to react positively to the changes.
"The desire is to move forward on these issues," said Bellinger, the legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "to turn a page with respect to many of them."
Disclosure of the camps' existence last year had generated widespread outrage abroad. Several European legislators and human rights groups said Thursday that while President George W. Bush's acknowledgment of the camps was helpful, it underscored concerns about clandestine U.S. practices and the complicity of some governments.
Dick Marty, who led a Council of Europe investigation of the camps and of the secret moving of suspects from one country to another for questioning, said that Bush had provided "just one piece of the truth."
Manfred Nowak, the United Nations special investigator on torture, called the transfer of 14 top prisoners an improvement, but added, "Of course, there are many others."
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain, one of the few world leaders to offer an opinion, bluntly criticized CIA practices, The Associated Press reported. The fight by democracies against terrorism, he said in Madrid, "is not compatible with the existence of secret prisons."
But European Union spokesmen insisted that there was still no proof of secret camps on European soil and officials in countries suspected of housing such camps issued new denials.
"It wasn't specified where these prisons were or are," said Friso Roscam Abbing, a European Commission spokesman, and the commission repeated an earlier request to member states that they investigate.
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in Copenhagen that "all the information that I have is that no country in the EU, or candidate country, as far as I know, has had secret prisons."
In revealing the CIA program in November, The Washington Post said that eight countries were involved, but did not name them. Romania and Poland, often mentioned in other reports as being hosts of CIA sites, again denied this Thursday. But both countries could face pressure for greater clarity from the European Union; Poland is a relatively new member and Romania is seeking membership.
Human rights groups generally welcomed the administration's steps but said that it had not gone far enough.
Marianne Heuwagen, head of the German chapter of Human Rights Watch, was quoted on Der Spiegel's Web site that Bush's admission was a tactical move, designed to defuse the CIA prisons as an issue before the November elections.
She said she was not surprised that Bush declined to name the countries with prisons. "That would only bring difficulties to the countries in which these prisons are located," Heuwagen said.
In a statement from Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed "the transfer of these detainees from secret places of detention to an official place of detention," and said that it planned a visit to Guantánamo soon. But it questioned whether other prisoners might still be held clandestinely, condemning the practice.
European investigators have concluded in an interim report that the CIA or other U.S. services abducted and imprisoned terror suspects in Europe. But they have produced no concrete evidence of secret prisons in Europe.
Bush said Wednesday that all the CIA camps were now empty, but he reserved the right to reopen them.
Some European Parliament members of an investigating committee, who will soon travel to Bulgaria and Romania as part of their own months-long inquiry, harshly criticized the president's comments and renewed their demands to know where the camps were.
"Bush exposes not only his own previous lies," said Sarah Ludford, a British member, "he also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition," as the secret prisoner transfers are known, Reuters reported.
In Afghanistan, one human rights leader welcomed the U.S. move. "We have been looking for an improvement in the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo and Bagram," the Afghan base where a U.S. military prison is located, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "It will build more confidence in the war on terror," he told The Associated Press.
The Bush announcement about the prisoners and the issuance of new, stricter Pentagon procedures for interrogation also left many questions unanswered:
What has become of other so-called high-value suspects not included among the 14? Will the president gain needed congressional support to allow tribunals in Guantánamo under rules that still give suspects lesser legal protections than many critics say international standards demand?
When and how will those tribunals be held, and what will they reveal? Does the president face a new confrontation on these issues with the Supreme Court?
The president's announcement left European allies in an awkward position. They had denied knowledge of the camps, and in some cases of the CIA flights carrying suspects to or from the camps through their airports or airspace.
But Bush said that information derived from the program had been shared with other countries, and Bellinger, the State Department lawyer, said that European lives had been saved.
"My hope would be that our allies would welcome the statements made by the president," Bellinger told reporters.
The German opposition party criticized the government in Berlin for not pushing harder to unravel Germany's role in the affair. "The Merkel government, at no time, showed a real will to seek clarification," said the deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Free Democratic Party, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
The government, she said, still owed an answer to the question, "What did the federal government know about these secret prisons?"
Bush has delivered a series of recent speeches on national security, as he did again Thursday in Atlanta, and Democrats suggested that they are aimed in part at seizing a platform favorable to his party with elections due in November.
Mark Landler of The New York Times contributed reporting from Berlin.
WASHINGTON Reaction in Europe to the transfer by the United States of 14 top terror suspects from secret CIA camps for trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been sharply mixed, welcomed by some but termed a half-measure by others.
The top State Department lawyer, John Bellinger 3rd, said Thursday that he expected U.S. allies to react positively to the changes.
"The desire is to move forward on these issues," said Bellinger, the legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "to turn a page with respect to many of them."
Disclosure of the camps' existence last year had generated widespread outrage abroad. Several European legislators and human rights groups said Thursday that while President George W. Bush's acknowledgment of the camps was helpful, it underscored concerns about clandestine U.S. practices and the complicity of some governments.
Dick Marty, who led a Council of Europe investigation of the camps and of the secret moving of suspects from one country to another for questioning, said that Bush had provided "just one piece of the truth."
Manfred Nowak, the United Nations special investigator on torture, called the transfer of 14 top prisoners an improvement, but added, "Of course, there are many others."
Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain, one of the few world leaders to offer an opinion, bluntly criticized CIA practices, The Associated Press reported. The fight by democracies against terrorism, he said in Madrid, "is not compatible with the existence of secret prisons."
But European Union spokesmen insisted that there was still no proof of secret camps on European soil and officials in countries suspected of housing such camps issued new denials.
"It wasn't specified where these prisons were or are," said Friso Roscam Abbing, a European Commission spokesman, and the commission repeated an earlier request to member states that they investigate.
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in Copenhagen that "all the information that I have is that no country in the EU, or candidate country, as far as I know, has had secret prisons."
In revealing the CIA program in November, The Washington Post said that eight countries were involved, but did not name them. Romania and Poland, often mentioned in other reports as being hosts of CIA sites, again denied this Thursday. But both countries could face pressure for greater clarity from the European Union; Poland is a relatively new member and Romania is seeking membership.
Human rights groups generally welcomed the administration's steps but said that it had not gone far enough.
Marianne Heuwagen, head of the German chapter of Human Rights Watch, was quoted on Der Spiegel's Web site that Bush's admission was a tactical move, designed to defuse the CIA prisons as an issue before the November elections.
She said she was not surprised that Bush declined to name the countries with prisons. "That would only bring difficulties to the countries in which these prisons are located," Heuwagen said.
In a statement from Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed "the transfer of these detainees from secret places of detention to an official place of detention," and said that it planned a visit to Guantánamo soon. But it questioned whether other prisoners might still be held clandestinely, condemning the practice.
European investigators have concluded in an interim report that the CIA or other U.S. services abducted and imprisoned terror suspects in Europe. But they have produced no concrete evidence of secret prisons in Europe.
Bush said Wednesday that all the CIA camps were now empty, but he reserved the right to reopen them.
Some European Parliament members of an investigating committee, who will soon travel to Bulgaria and Romania as part of their own months-long inquiry, harshly criticized the president's comments and renewed their demands to know where the camps were.
"Bush exposes not only his own previous lies," said Sarah Ludford, a British member, "he also exposes to ridicule those arrogant government leaders in Europe who dismissed as unfounded our fears about extraordinary rendition," as the secret prisoner transfers are known, Reuters reported.
In Afghanistan, one human rights leader welcomed the U.S. move. "We have been looking for an improvement in the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo and Bagram," the Afghan base where a U.S. military prison is located, said Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "It will build more confidence in the war on terror," he told The Associated Press.
The Bush announcement about the prisoners and the issuance of new, stricter Pentagon procedures for interrogation also left many questions unanswered:
What has become of other so-called high-value suspects not included among the 14? Will the president gain needed congressional support to allow tribunals in Guantánamo under rules that still give suspects lesser legal protections than many critics say international standards demand?
When and how will those tribunals be held, and what will they reveal? Does the president face a new confrontation on these issues with the Supreme Court?
The president's announcement left European allies in an awkward position. They had denied knowledge of the camps, and in some cases of the CIA flights carrying suspects to or from the camps through their airports or airspace.
But Bush said that information derived from the program had been shared with other countries, and Bellinger, the State Department lawyer, said that European lives had been saved.
"My hope would be that our allies would welcome the statements made by the president," Bellinger told reporters.
The German opposition party criticized the government in Berlin for not pushing harder to unravel Germany's role in the affair. "The Merkel government, at no time, showed a real will to seek clarification," said the deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Free Democratic Party, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
The government, she said, still owed an answer to the question, "What did the federal government know about these secret prisons?"
Bush has delivered a series of recent speeches on national security, as he did again Thursday in Atlanta, and Democrats suggested that they are aimed in part at seizing a platform favorable to his party with elections due in November.
Mark Landler of The New York Times contributed reporting from Berlin.
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