People's Democracy

CIA’s secret prisons operated in Romania and Poland even last month (and) 11 top Al-Qaida terror suspects held in European countries have been moved to Africa after US scrambled to get them out before the start of secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s tour of the region which is presently on….

The channel also said that the CIA secret prisons have existed since March 2002, the first one being in Thailand with another facility opening in a North African nation last year.

The agency moved the suspects on a small fleet of planes around, from Afghanistan and the Middle East to Eastern Europe.

--- The Statesman, December 7

The torture methods of the CIA were revealed on Sunday (December 4), provoking a new row over US flights carrying alleged terror suspects passing through Britain.

Six ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ have been authorised for use by the US intelligence agency in secret prisons in Eastern Europe and on the British island of Diego Garcia. None of them would be legal if used by American authorities inside the US and all are outlawed in Britain……

The nature of the treatment handed out to some detainees provoked fierce condemnation from human rights groups in Britain.

The six methods range from the fairly mild --- such as grabbing a prisoner’s shirtfront and shaking him, or slapping him around the face --- to inflicting serious hardship.

The two most severe tortures are the ‘cold treatment’ in which a prisoner is constantly soaked with cold water and ‘water boarding’ in which a prisoner head is forced under water.

--- The Times of India, December 6

THE Transatlantic row over the secret transfer of terror suspects by the Bush administration took a new twist when it emerged that more than 300 flights operated by the CIA had landed at European airports.

According to the flight logs, Britain was second only to Germany as a transit hub for the CIA, which stands accused of operating a covert network of interrogation centers in eastern Europe.

The CIA visited Germany 96 times. Britain was second with more than 80 flights by CIA-owned planes, although when charter flights are added the figure rises to more than 200. France was visited just twice and neutral Austria not at all.

--- Hindustan Times, December 2

EVEN as the State Department and the USAID pay contractors millions of dollars to help train journalists and promote a professional and independent Iraqi media, the Pentagon is paying millions more to the Lincoln Group for work that appears to violate fundamental principles of western journalism.

In addition to paying newspapers to print government propaganda, Lincoln has paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists hundred dollars a month, a person who had been told of the transactions said.

Those journalists were chosen because their past coverage had not been antagonistic to the US, said the person, on the condition of anonymity. Also, the military storyboards have in some cases copied verbatim text from publications and passed it on to be printed in the Iraqi press without attribution.

--- The Times of India, December 2

TWO of America’s allies in Iraq are withdrawing forces this month and a half-dozen others are debating possible pullouts or reductions, increasing pressure on Washington as calls mount to bring home US troops.

Bulgaria and Ukraine will begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops by mid-December. If Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland and South Korea reduce or recall their personnel, more than half of the non-American forces in Iraq could be gone by next summer.

Japan and South help with reconstruction, but Britain and Australia provide substantial support forces and Italy and Poland train Iraqi troops and police. Their exodus would deal a blow to American efforts to prepare Iraqis to take over the most dangerous peacekeeping tasks and craft an eventual US exit strategy.

--- The Statesman, December 3