America And Britain Asked Poland To Host Secret CIA Gulag
Britain's collusion with the CIA rendition and black sites program has been well documented. However, what seems to be emerging now is not so much a story of collusion but full involvement.
POLAND -- The CIA operated an interrogation and short-term detention facility for suspected terrorists within a Polish intelligence training school with the explicit approval of British and US authorities, according to British and Polish intelligence officials familiar with the arrangements.
That sounds like more than just turning a blind eye and allowing CIA torture flights to use British airspace and territory. If this is true then it looks like Tony Blair will have more questions to evade. It would be interesting to hear his response to this:
According to a confidential British intelligence memo shown to RAW STORY, Prime Minister Tony Blair told Poland's then-Prime Minister Leszek Miller to keep the information secret, even from his own government.
Hmm! So much for Tony's enthusiasm for open government. Not only does he mislead the British Government but he's telling leaders of other countries to behave as badly. And this news comes just weeks after the European Parliament voted to approve the report conducted by MEPs (.pdf) into the collusion of EU states in rendition and black sites. In that report, the UK was slammed for its lack of co-operation with the investigation as well as being second in the list of the ten countries accused of allowing stopovers (Germany came first). Back in January Margaret Beckett was forced to admit that the Government knew about the secret prisons used by the CIA.
So can we now expect another admission from Margaret Beckett, in which she tells us that Britain along with the USA, actively encouraged the Polish Prime Minister to use a Soviet-era compound and intelligence centre as a gulag for the CIA and to keep it secret from the Polish government? I doubt it somehow, but the question still needs to be asked. And whoever answers will have to be a bit more convincing than in previous responses because the Americans don't seem to be denying the story apart from protesting (a little too much I think) about how it does not conduct or condone torture.
US intelligence officials confirmed that the CIA had used the compound at Stare Kiejkuty in the past. Speaking generally about the agency’s program, a former senior official said the CIA had never conducted unlawful interrogations.
“We never tortured anyone,” one former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. “We sent them to countries that did torture, but not on this scale.”
Despite denials by the Polish authorities that the country is involved with the rendition program, the former head of Polish intelligence, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, has gone on record as saying that the CIA had access to two internal zones at the Stare Kiejkuty training school. When the EU delegation went to Poland as part of their investigation, they reported that key government officials refused to meet with them after having previously agreed to do so. The delegation wanted to investigate both Szymany airport and the facility at Stare Kiejstuty. Mariola Przewlocka, the then airport manager at Szymany revealed that:
...whenever one of the suspected flights was scheduled to land, “orders were given directly by the regional border guards… emphasizing that the airport authorities should not approach the aircraft and that military staff and services alone” would handle landings.
“Money for the services was paid in cash, sometimes as much as four times the normal charge,” the former airport manager added. “Handling of the passengers aboard was carried out in a remote corner of the Szymany airstrip. People came in and out from four-wheel drive cars with shaded windows.”
The cars were seen traveling to and from the Stare Kiejkuty intelligence facility, where British and Polish intelligence officials say US agents conducted short-term interrogations before shuffling prisoners to other locations.
Sounds like a really legitimate operation doesn't it? And if Blair not only knew but also requested this, it begs the question: how much further was he involved in this program? Presumably he intends to obfuscate until he is out of Downing Street, but the questions are not going away and details continue to emerge. If the operation was as innocent as the Americans are insisting, why did they try to silence the EU over rendition flights? And why would the Bush administration seek to prevent suspected terrorists who have been abducted and 'interrogated' from revealing details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that were used on them?
Well Done, Blairwatch for
Well Done, Blairwatch for exposing this!
It is what Craig Murray has been saying all along, and it is about time people came out of denial. British Foreign Policy under Blair, since Robin Cook was replaced, has been not at all nice. We, the British citizens, have been shielded from this by what can only be described as collusional media reporting.
Uh huh. This kind of
Uh huh. This kind of revelation puts the whole Blair-Bush relationship in a new light, doncha think? Mid to high-level New Labour spinnery would have us believe that Blair has been either coerced into toeing the Washington line, or that he does Washington's bidding while holding his nose (mucky business but needs must etc). But this story shows that Blair is in so deep, is so committed to the Bush agenda, that we have to start asking just where his core loyalties lie. Persuading (read; arm-twisting) the leader of another country to keep CIA interrogations secret from his own government? - if he`s prepared to pressure someone else to that, what is he prepared to do HIMSELF in his own country? Truly, this sends a shiver down the spine.
There can be no doubt that the governing elite of the US is deeply corrupt, and its looking similar over here.
Well, the Tony party wheels
Well, the Tony party wheels have well and truly come off the gravy train this time!
How can they possibly spin out of this one? Apart from even more out of control that is!
Wonderful. The more we learn
Wonderful. The more we learn about Blair, the more it appears that whatever you think of him, the truth is actually worse!
How fitting that the phrase "you couldn't make it up" seems to have arrived at the same time as the person for whom it could have been invented...
Congress woman Jane Harman
Congress woman Jane Harman can see no reason why we can’t fight the War on Terror and live up to our obligations under US law and the Geneva Conventions.
Which of course is quite true.
My personal feeling is that the unravelling Bush will also be the undoing of Blair and his cronies, but it will be instigated state-side rather than the uk.
Or do I just have more faith in American justice than I do in the British equivalent??? At the moment!
I particularly found this
I particularly found this comment from an article on the BBC to be particularly reprehensible, made by Bush
Dear God help us I am lost for words, I mean heaven help us if this pr1ck decides to stop being compassionate and quiet.
I'd just like to point out
I'd just like to point out that the use of the word gulag in the original posting is incorrect - though a common misconception. Gulag was the name given to the administration body, controlling the work camps of soveit russia, not the name given to the work camps themselves, such as saltmines. So, unless the CIA is opening an office in Poland then you are simply contributing to ignorance - keep up the good work!
Orpman, While the term
Orpman,
While the term "gulag" is originally an acronym from Glávnoe upravlénie ispravítel?no-trudovýkh lageré? which does mean "Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps", the term has also come to mean:
or:
Source
I think that "any prison or detention camp, esp. for political prisoners." or "A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp." reasonably describe what the CIA is doing in Poland and other places.
I just dont know why people
I just dont know why people continue to believe that Blair is just the yes man, the poodle.
He has quite clearly stated that it was he who first suggested only hours/days after 9/11 that Iraq should be on the table.(Its on the record and can be found in the BBC archives if not in the news media in general).
It serves Blair to have him depicted as the Poodle but he isnt, hes fully paid up the partner in crime.