CIA torture: Tony Blair and Jack Straw must account for what they knew In an interview with The Telegraph, Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, intensifies the pressure on Tony Blair and Jack Straw over their knowledge - or otherwise - of the US policy Tony Blair should give a full account of what he knew about the CIA’s torture and rendition programme during his time in Downing Street, Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, has said. In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Fallon intensified the pressure on Mr Blair and the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw over their knowledge - or otherwise - of the US policy. In a further swipe at Mr Blair and his support for President George Bush, Mr Fallon also called for the urgent publication of the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry into the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Following the publication last week of the US Senate’s damning inquiry into the CIA’s torture programme, a Telegraph investigation can also disclose: * how a highly-critical parliamentary report expressing concern that MPs were apparently misled over the UK’s role in torture was suppressed by the Labour government; * that the secret report also alleged MI5 withheld key information suggesting the intelligence services knew about the torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident; * Britain had its own interrogation teams working in at least three US detention centres where torture by American agents took place - a disclosure that raises questions over British claims that they did not know about the US torture programme. Mr Fallon said in his interview with The Telegraph it was time for Mr Blair to explain what he knew. “This was under a previous government,” Mr Fallon said of the US Senate report into torture, “Obviously it’s for them, it’s for former ministers to account for the relationship then.” Asked whether Mr Blair and Mr Straw should account publicly for what they did and didn’t know, he replied: “Yes. It’s for ministers in that government to account for their actions. That is our tradition and that’s the expectation. I hope they will cooperate with any parliamentary inquiry.” Mr Fallon also called for the urgent publication of the findings of the inquiry led by Sir John Chilcot into the Iraq war. The report is long overdue amid new fears it will not now be published until after the election in May. Mr Fallon said: “The public expect to see it. Chilcot was about one central issue, whether our country was taken to war on a false prospectus. That needs to be resolved. It’s important for the credibility of the government at the time. “Taking military action is a very serious business. If it turns out it was done on a false prospectus then that’s a very serious charge that Blair and his ministers will have to answer. “It has been delayed long enough. Let’s see it.” Yvette Cooper: We need truth on British torture allegations The previous Labour government is now also under the spotlight over its knowledge of the CIA torture programme and the possible complicity of British intelligence and of senior politicians in that. A highly-critical report from parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in which MPs expressed deep concern that they were apparently being misled over Britain’s role in torture was suppressed by Labour during Gordon brown’s premiership, a source has told The Telegraph. In the secret report, completed on 17 March 2009, the committee said MI5 withheld key information suggesting that the service knew about the torture of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident interrogated by MI5 in Pakistan and Morocco and by the CIA in Pakistan, Morocco and a “black prison.” The committee described MI5’s “failure to make full disclosure” as “very worrying” and said it had been done without any “convincing explanation.” The report was submitted to Mr Brown, then prime minister, for publication but he exercised his power not to release it. It has still never been published. One member of the committee at the time said: “It is firmly worded. We were troubled that it never saw the light of day.” In 2006, during an earlier ISC inquiry on detainees, MI5 told the committee that it did “not know” whether Mohamed had been tortured. However, the MPs later learned the service knew in 2002 that Mohamed was tortured by the CIA and the Pakistanis. He was hung up by his wrists, starved, beaten and deprived of sleep. His is among the cases recounted in last week’s devastating Senate intelligence committee report. An MI5 officer interviewed Mohamed under US detention in Pakistan on May 17 2002 and told him that the UK would not help him in his plight unless he co-operated with the Americans. Over the next two years, MI5 sent the CIA dozens of questions to ask Mohamed, who was tortured on and off throughout this time. After they learned the truth, ISC members summoned MI5 for questioning and launched what they described publicly only as a “further detailed investigation” into “new information” that had come to light with a “far wider significance that went beyond an individual case.” Unlike other parliamentary committees, however, the ISC reports to the Prime Minister, not to Parliament. Number 10 has the power to censor its reports or block them entirely. Unnoticed until now, though, some of the committee’s conclusions were mentioned last year in a report by Sir Peter Gibson, a former High Court judge who began an abortive inquiry into the detainee issue. The issue has now been returned to the ISC, which announced its inquiry in December 2013 but only began to call for evidence in September this year. In 2010, a second ISC report on the subject, about the adequacy of MI5 and MI6 guidelines for handling prisoners, was also suppressed by Mr Brown and the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. The committee’s website says it was finished on 5 March 2010 and it was “intended that the report would be published by 18 March.” However, it was not released after Mr Miliband “sought an opportunity to discuss some of the issues in the report.” It has still never been published. The suppression of the two reports will add to growing calls for the reform of the ISC, criticised by all parties as toothless. Instead, however, the committee has now been handed full responsibility for investigating all torture cases, despite demands for a full judge-led inquiry. It can also be revealed that Britain had its own interrogation teams, working in at least three US prisons where torture and degrading treatment by American agents took place – including one mentioned in last week’s Senate report. The disclosure raises questions over whether the intelligence agencies’ claims that they did not know about US torture at the time. By 2005, according to the ISC, the British intelligence services had taken part in more than 200 American-led interrogations of detainees at Bagram, in Afghanistan – one of the sites mentioned in the Senate report – and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A British military interrogation team also worked in Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison between January and March 2004. MI6 officers raised concerns with their superiors at least a dozen times from January 2002 onwards about the treatment of detainees they witnessed or learned about at Guantanamo and Bagram, according to the Gibson report. They were told not to take any action by London. On one occasion, the officer was told: “The law does not require you to intervene to prevent this.” In at least one case, which later became the subject of a British police inquiry, an MI6 officer at Bagram is alleged to have taken part in the interrogation under torture of a detainee. The investigation, Operation Iden, collapsed after police were refused access to the alleged victim by his US jailers. Intelligence chiefs and ministers have consistently claimed that they had no idea mistreatment was taking place until the second half of 2003 or early 2004, long after these events. Responding to Mr Fallons comments, Mr Straw said: I was never complicit in any of the CIA illegal processes. I consider it to be revolting, unlawful and also unproductive, as has come out in the Senate report. Of course, when it is possible for legal reasons for full inquiries to take place I will cooperate fully with them, as I always have done. Writing in The Telegraph, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the new current ISC chairman, said his committee’s inquiry into whether Britain’s intelligence services were involved in torture and rendition would largely be completed by the end of 2015. “We will publish our findings without fear or favour,” he writes.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 09:13:07 +0000
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