CIA misled Britain over rendition plan

Source: Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor

The CIA misled British intelligence chiefs over the arrest and treatment of terrorist suspects who were the subjects of rendition to Guantanamo Bay, an Intelligence and Security Committee report to the Prime Minister warned.

It said the deception threatens to undermine confidence in the exchange of intelligence between the CIA and MI6.

Coming only days before the Prime Minister flies to Washington for a summit with President George Bush, the report could prove embarrassing for Gordon Brown. However, he brushed aside the committee's criticism of the US over rendition. "Where people are at risk of being tortured we have made very clear about our rejection of such a policy... But I am not going to condemn the US authorities," he said.

The MPs found no evidence of complicity by the UK in secret CIA rendition flights, but it said ministers should never agree to suspects being handed over to the US authorities where there is no prospect of a proper trial.

Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2802627.ece

A parliamentary report released Wednesday criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for ignoring British concerns and sending two British residents to Guantanamo Bay more than four years ago.

Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee said the incident had ''serious implications for the intelligence relationship'' between the two countries.

The committee said British spy agencies passed on intelligence about British residents Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, who were detained in Gambia in 2002, on the understanding that no action would be taken by U.S. authorities.

''The Security Service did not foresee that the U.S. authorities would disregard the caveats, given that they had honored the caveat system for the past 20 years,'' the report said.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Rendition.html

British concerns did not appear to "materially" affect US actions in its "war on terror", the UK's intelligence and security committee has said.
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The committee said it had found no evidence that the UK was directly involved in rendition flights - the transportation of terror suspects to foreign prisons where they could face torture.

But Britain's security services had "inadvertently" helped in one case after the US ignored caveats placed on supplied information.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6915652.stm

Hopefully things will now change following the departure of The Tiny Blur. I don't think Brownie will be able to exercise the degree of control over the Cabinet that Blur did.

But let's not condemn the people who lied to you and then tortured folks. Tut, tut and all that. Carry on. Stiff upper lip, you know. Let's not act too hasty. Besides it was just some brown chaps, nobody civilized, wot?

It's what would come next if he did challenge Bush publically on the lie that we can only speculate about, but I'd guess it would not be pretty.