28 April 2006

Why the CIA's secret flights irk Europeans

CSM:
...an interim report by a committee investigating such activity alleges that the CIA occasionally snatched suspects from city streets and whisked them away to far countries or to the US detention facility in Guantánamo, Cuba. ~ ...the response does indicate that the US has a black eye not so much with European governments, but with European publics ~ "These investigations and the fact that in this case it's coming out of the European Parliament suggest how this is more a reflection of European public opinion - and the publics here are very suspicious of what the US is doing," says Karen Donfried, an expert in transatlantic relations at the German Marshall Fund in Washington. ~ ...the CIA has responded to the European Parliament report by reiterating that transferring international terror suspects - a practice known as 'rendition' - has been CIA policy for decades. But it denies undertaking what is called 'extraordinary rendition,' or the transfer of suspects to third countries where torture is known to be used. ~ ...European countries still are more apt to see the fight against terrorism as a police and intelligence matter and eschew calling it a "war" as the US does.

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