US article on extra-ordinary rendition

Zaccardelli the RCMP chief did not resign because of the screwups revealed by the O'Connor inquiry. He resigned because of his own screwup while testifying before committees. In effect he gave contradictory testimony or less politely perjured himself. That is why he resigned. In fact he pointedly refused to resign earlier and defended the RCMP's actions for the most part even after the O'Connor report showed their mistakes. No one has ever been punished for misleading mistaken and even libelous reports on Arar sent to the US authorities. Several have been promoted however.


This is from TomPaine.com

Umm, Torture Is A Bad Idea
John Prados
February 16, 2007


John Prados is a senior fellow with the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. His current book is Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA.

This week the European Parliament finished its investigation into the CIA’s use of “extraordinary renditions” to kidnap European citizens and residents and subject them to torture and imprisonment without trial. The EU condemned both the practice and 14 member nations for complying with it, frequently under the direction of non-elected intelligence officials without knowledge or consent from government representatives, let alone the public.

Today an Italian court has decided to grant warrants to arrest 26 CIA personnel allegedly involved in the February 2003 kidnapping in Milan of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. The chief of the Italian military intelligence service and his deputy are defending themselves before courts in the case. German courts in Munich recently issued arrest warrants against 13 alleged CIA officers and contract employees in the January 2004 rendition of German citizen Khaled al-Masri. The German parliament is reviewing its intelligence service’s collaboration with the CIA. There is widespread outrage in both Europe and the Muslim world over these practices.

What is the Bush administration response? Shoot the messengers. General Michael V. Hayden, the current CIA director, was asked a few months ago about the agency’s foreign intelligence partnerships, given the mounting investigations of CIA activities. Without touching the controversial U.S. operations at all, his response was, “If an ally believes—fears—that we can’t keep such activities private, then that ally is going to be much more reluctant to deal with us.”

Much as in the bad old days, the CIA persists in the delusion that what people say—not what it does—is the issue. The agency is riding for a fall. Ham-handed American spooks—who depend, by their own admission, on foreign intelligence services in up to 90 percent of their operations—have muddied the waters even with our best friends. The controversial “rendition” program that is at the centerpiece of Bush counterterrorism efforts has swept up many innocents along with known terrorists and has sparked trouble for our allies.

In Canada, citizen Maher Arar was apprehended in October 2002 while making an airline connection in the U.S.—but then rendered to Syria by the CIA. The chief of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was forced to resign as a result of Canadian security’s contribution to this travesty. And the Swedish intelligence service was appalled at high-handed CIA behavior in snatching two Egyptian nationals in that country in December 2001.

Aside from the U.S. denials and wholesale evasions of responsibility—the Bush people have refused to take Maher Arar off the U.S. terrorist watch list (or even apologize), even though the man has been cleared by a massive royal commission investigation. The effect of these operations can only sour foreign cooperation with the CIA.

A response in the form of a new long-term development plan at the CIA is in progress. The plan has two elements relevant here: First, the agency intends to increase its capability to act unilaterally; second, the procedure for approving covert operations is to be modified. Although it is also true the CIA’s dependence on foreign services is excessive and should be reduced, unilateral efforts bear their own burdens (the Bay of Pigs was such an operation). More important is the Covert Action Review Group, the unit responsible for approving proposed activities, which in the new order would not be answerable to the chief, but to the CIA’s deputy director. Today that person would be Stephen R. Kappes, who, while he is not the top boss and is not invested with the chief’s private vision and knowledge, has experience picking up the pieces after covert disasters—unlike General Hayden, with no covert ops background whatever. Moreover, both Kappes and Hayden are heavily committed to a welter of review boards and progress management committees required by the new strategic development plan.

Above the level of the CIA, covert operations proposals are supposed to be approved by higher authorities, reviews that seem to be cursory in the Bush administration. Tyler Drumheller, former chief of the CIA’s European Division, recounts how he once had to brief Condoleezza Rice on a rendition operation. “Her chief concern,” Drumheller told Der Spiegel earlier this month , “was not whether it was the right thing to do, but what the president would think about it.” There were no deliberations on the value of the target or the potential flap that could be caused by such an intervention.

In addition, the head of the National Clandestine Service—the former CIA Directorate of Operations—which produces the proposals for covert operations, is the same cowboy who presided over the agency’s Counterterrorism Center at the height of the renditions program. It was on his watch that the Masri, Arar and Nasr affairs began. As for the action teams, Drumheller says they “are drawn from paramilitary officers who are brave and colorful ... If they didn’t do paramilitary actions for a living, they would probably be robbing banks.” These officers did courageous things in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they should not be expected to take a broad view of the missions being proposed. When these officers see themselves in danger of arrest in foreign lands, that, too, must have an impact.

The broad international support for the United States after 9/11 has evaporated, and the old Cold War attitudes in America that accepted the use of these techniques are long gone. The Bush administration’s covert operations have been as catastrophic as its conventional military campaign in Iraq, yet it is now posturing itself for unilateral action. This is a disaster waiting to happen. America needs a rational foreign policy. The country cannot be saved by a new posse of covert cowboys.