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Jack Straw Re-Defines 'Aware'

Posted December 13th, 2005 by ringverse
in

We have listened to Jack Straw's radio interview from this morning again, and are struck by the lengths Jack goes to to demonstrate his ignorance, and his resolute confidence in that ignorance.
[archived here as a 10min 4mb LoFi mp3]

Remember Jack's previous statements on rendition to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee?

The British Government is not aware of the use of its territory or airspace for the purposes of 'extraordinary rendition'....

The British Government has not received any requests, nor granted any permissions, for the use of UK territory or airspace for these purposes...

Although when questioning got a little too specific, he did qualify it with:

The Government has also explained that it is not in a position to respond to all of the questions posed by the Committee without reference to information Parliament has decided is a matter for the Intelligence and Security Committee

Today he was much more loose about defining the extent of the government's knowlege:

Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Careful research has been unable to identify any occasion... when we have received a request for permission by the United States for a rendition through the United Kingdom territory or airspace.
"Nor are we aware by other means of any such case. Our people have checked through all the detail of the Liberty suggestions.

We have checked the records as carefully as we can, and I believe that the answer we have given from the records suggests that there have been no such flights from the united kingdom.

As far as I am aware[sic], you do not need a documentary record to be aware of something.

And as for the records Jack and his staff have dilligently searched leading to Jack's conclusion that there have been no rendition flights passing through the UK.
Do those records include the "information Parliament has decided is a matter for the Intelligence and Security Committee"?