CIA corrects itself on rendition flights
WASHINGTON (AP) - February 21, 2008 Hayden told agency employees that information previously
provided to the British "turned out to be wrong."
The spy agency reviewed rendition records late last year and
discovered that in 2002 the CIA had in fact refueled two separate
planes, each carrying a terror suspect, on Diego Garcia, a British
island territory in the Indian Ocean.
"The refueling, conducted more than five years ago, lasted just
a short time. But it happened. That we found this mistake
ourselves, and that we brought it to the attention of the British
government, in no way changes or excuses the reality that we were
in the wrong. An important part of intelligence work, inherently
urgent, complex, and uncertain, is to take responsibility for
errors and to learn from them," Hayden stated in the message
obtained by The Associated Press.
Hayden said neither man was tortured and denied there has ever
been a holding facility for CIA prisoners on Diego Garcia. Both men
remained on their respective planes during the brief stops,
according to a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Hayden delivered the news to the British government last weekend
on a previously scheduled trip to London.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced the rendition
flights earlier Thursday. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said
he "shared the disappointment that everybody has" about the
stops, and that it was important to ensure they would not happen
again.
The State Department's top lawyer, John Bellinger, flew to
London overnight to deal with potential diplomatic and political
fallout, according to a senior State Department official.
One of the two prisoners is now jailed at Guantanamo Bay Naval
Base and the other was released to his home country, where he has
since been freed by that government, the U.S. intelligence official
said.
The CIA didn't interrogate or imprison either man, according to
the official. In this case, the CIA only moved the two men from one
country to another.
The CIA has held and interrogated fewer than 100 prisoners in
its detention program, using "enhanced" or harsh interrogation
techniques on about a third of them, Hayden has told Congress.
The rendition program secretly transfers alleged terrorists from
one country to another without formal extradition proceedings. It
can involve moving prisoners to the custody of governments where
harsh interrogation techniques, including torture, are known to be
used. The U.S. government insists it does not move prisoners to
third countries without assurances that torture will not be used.
The British government had previously insisted it had no
evidence to support allegations that Britain had been involved in
rendition.
At the time of the 2002 flights in question, the United States
and Britain did not have an agreement regarding the use of the
Diego Garcia facility for renditions, and the refueling stops did
not require permission from British authorities, the State
Department said.
However, that began to change in 2003 with an "evolving"
series of understandings that now require the United States to seek
and receive British permission to use Diego Garcia for renditions,
spokesman Sean McCormack said.
A "final mutual understanding" appears to have been in place
by late 2005, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the
United States respects the sovereignty of foreign countries when
conducting intelligence operations within their borders, suggesting
that the CIA conducts rendition flights with the permission of the
governments involved.
In a Dec. 6, 2005, interview with Sky News from Berlin, Rice
publicly sidestepped a question about whether British airports or
airspace were being used in rendition, and whether the British
government was aware of it.
"We have obligations under our international conventions and we
are respecting the sovereignty of our allies," she said. "We are
not using the airspace or the airports of any of our partners for
activities that would lead renditions to torture. We don't send
people to be tortured."
McCormack said Rice spoke to Miliband about "the administrative
error" on Wednesday.
"Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, unfortunately,
even with the most rigorous searches and, unfortunately, with good
technology, sometimes administrative errors occur and this was the
case," McCormack said. "We regret that there was an error in
initially providing inaccurate information to a good friend and
ally."
McCormack said the review last year was "self-generated."
A U.S. intelligence official said the review was prompted by
fresh allegations in the press last fall that Diego Garcia was
being used as a secret detention site.
"We, in taking a look in particular at the issue of Diego
Garcia, asked ourselves a few questions and as a result generated
this search," he said.
Gordon Johndroe, National Security Council spokesman for
President Bush, said the incident was "unfortunate" but will not
damage U.S.-British cooperation.
"Mistakes were made in the reporting of the information," he
said. "But we will continue to have a good counterterrorism
cooperation between the United States and United Kingdom."
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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report
from Washington.