The BS Meter is Working Overtime (Stephen Hadley)

[Nbadan]

04/12/2005 17h59

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States does not send terrorist suspects abroad to be tortured and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address reports of secret CIA prisons in Europe during her upcoming visit there, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said. Rice "is going to be addressing these issues in a comprehensive way," Hadley told Fox News Sunday. "One of the things she will be saying is 'Look, we are all threatened by terror. We need to cooperate in its solution.'

"As part of that cooperation for our part, we comply with US law," he added. "We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal. And we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured."

Rice leaves Monday for a trip to Berlin, Bucharest, Kiev and Brussels. Her visit comes amid European concern over reports of "black hole" interrogation centers and clandestine CIA flights for terror suspects. The European Union last week sent Washington a request for clarification of the reports of the prisons and the transport flights in Europe.

US officials have refused to confirm or deny the existence of the secret facilities. But they have defended in general terms the country's use of tough tactics in its global war on terror. In an interview with CNN, Hadley said there are certain kinds of operations "one cannot talk about."

APF

At some point, the MSM has to start calling these guys on these lies don't they? Don't they?

[Nbadan]

Ummm...ok, but...

THE German government has listed of at least 437 flights operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency in German airspace, the news magazine Der Spiegel claimed in its edition to be published on Monday. The number includes both movements by planes of the CIA spy agency in German airspace and landings at German airports, it says.

"Such planes could be used to transfer presumed terrorists and place them in secret locations," Der Spiegel writes. The report comes on the eve of a visit to Germany by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The list was handed over by the national air navigation security agency at the request of the Left Party. Der Spiegel says that in 2002 and 2003 two CIA aircraft alone accounted for 137 and 146 uses of German airspace or landings, chiefly at Frankfurt in the west, Berlin or the US base at Ramstein in western Germany.

Germany has the largest number of US bases in Europe.
In an interview published yesterday in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper the secretary general of the German branch of the human rights organisation Amnesty International claimed the German government knew of the CIA flights. The United States have been accused since the beginning of last month of having operated since September 11, 2001 CIA flights using European airspace or airports carrying terrorism suspects to countries practising torture.

Berlin has also been asked to inform the 46-member Council of Europe by February 21 what action it has undertaken in specific cases of "kidnappings" after being told about them, the magazine says. Since June 2004 the foreign ministry has had a do ent from a German citizen of Lebanese origin, Khaled al-Masri, reporting ill-treatment aboard a CIA flight. According to Der Spiegel the US authorities informally confirmed the "kidnapping" in early 2005.

The Australian

....nothing to see here folks, move along.