http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050314-072824-5309r
Brits warned US of detainee abuse in 2002 By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 3/15/2005 5:11 PM WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- In January 2002, one day after the British Secret Intelligence Service was granted access to U.S.-held detainees in Afghanistan, the agency became so concerned about prisoner treatment that it warned its personnel not to take part in coercive interrogations, documents show. The British government's "stated commitment to human rights makes it important that the Americans understand that we cannot be party to such ill treatment nor can we be seen to condone it," reads a memo from the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. "In no case should (detainees) be coerced during or in conjunction with an (MI6) interview of them," states the memo, cited in a report last week from the British parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee. MI6 management circulated the memo to all its personnel deployed to Afghanistan, suggesting that abuses should be drawn to the attention "of a suitably senior U.S. official locally" and warning that officials could face jail time if they were involved in mistreatment. "As a representative of a U.K. public authority, you are obliged to act in accordance with the Human Rights Act 2000 which prohibits torture, or inhumane or degrading treatment. ... (Y)our actions incur criminal liability in the same way as if you were carrying out those acts in the U.K." The note was an immediate response to a cable from an MI6 operative who had interrogated a U.S.-held detainee. Although he told his superiors that the interrogation was conducted in accordance with Geneva Convention standards, the report says, he also made some "observations" about the "the handling of (the) detainee by the U.S. military before the beginning of the interview." His observations are redacted from the report, but the committee describes the concerns he raised as "potentially serious abuse." On Jan. 11, 2002, one day after receiving the operative's cable, MI6 replied and sent copies to all his colleagues. "It appears from your description that (U.S.-held detainees) may not be being treated in accordance with the appropriate standards," the memo reads. "That doesn't surprise me in the slightest," former British government official Tom Parker told United Press International. "The British intelligence services have a totally different ethos from their American counterparts." These differences were thrown into sharp relief when President Bush announced Feb. 7, 2002, that captured Taliban fighters would not be accorded the protection of the Geneva Conventions. They would, he added, be treated humanely "to the extent consistent with military necessity." Parker, who now lectures on international terrorism at Yale University, said the British learned about the need for a tight regime governing interrogations "the hard way" by being "slapped down pretty severely" by the European Court of Human Rights over the methods used on suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland. The committee found that, despite several reports during 2002 of detainee abuse in both Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, British intelligence did not brief the ministers to whom they were supposedly reporting until the summer of 2004, after the revelations about abuse at Abu Ghraib, and complaints from several Britons released from Guantanamo Bay aroused public concern about detention issues. British intelligence personnel on the ground did raise several of the 2002 reports from Afghanistan -- each characterized as "an isolated incident" -- with U.S. authorities at the time, the report finds, but there was no effort to follow up. One former British intelligence official who has worked with the U.S. military in Iraq told UPI that raising such issues was venturing into tricky territory. "You have to do it," he said. "You have to cover yourself. You absolutely have to be very clear that this is not good enough and you can't be a party to it. But then you have to go back and try to resume the good working relationship you had with them. They are the people whose job it is to keep you alive." Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a spokesman for the Pentagon, told UPI that he could not provide details of any communication the U.S. military might have received from British personnel. But he said he was sure that "in the spirit of the close alliance with Britain, those concerns, observations, inputs, would have been treated very seriously." "We know very little about what techniques the U.S. government authorized for use on detainees held in Afghanistan," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "We believe the government is withholding key documents that show who is responsible for the widespread abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody there." She added that the president's February 2002 announcement suspending the Taliban's Geneva protections "set the stage for the systemic and widespread abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo, Afghanistan and Iraq." A former defense official involved with detainee policy cautioned -- without any details of the various incidents that caused concern -- that it was impossible to judge how serious the abuse the British had complained about might have been. "Coercion can mean a lot of different things," he told UPI. "Shouting at people, banging your fist on the table. Those are technically coercion." But the former British intelligence official said that he and other British personnel who had witnessed U.S. detention and interrogation techniques in Iraq and Guantanamo had been "appalled" at some of what they saw. "My sense was that -- as far as the detainees we had access to (at Guantanamo) was concerned -- it was a futile exercise. The individuals were not of particularly high quality, and the techniques the Americans were using were counter-productive." The former official told UPI that in Iraq, "I told the people working with me not to have anything to do with the interrogations of high-value detainees." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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