Rice Says Intel Thwarted Attacks in Europe--Does anyone actually believe this ?

Rice Says Intel Thwarted Attacks in Europe

Monday December 5, 2005 1:16 PM

By ANNE GEARAN

AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice turned the tables on European critics of tough U.S. tactics in the war on terror Monday, maintaining that intelligence gathered by the CIA has saved European as well as American lives.

Responding for the first time in detail to the outcry over reports of secret CIA-run prisons in European democracies, Rice said the United States ``will use every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists.''

But in remarks delivered as she got ready to leave on a trip to Europe, she steadfastly refused to answer the underlying question of whether the United States had CIA-operated secret prisons there.

``We cannot discuss information that would compromise the success of intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations. We expect other nations share this view,'' Rice said in a statement at suburban Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

President Bush has denied that the United States engages in torture in the war against terrorists, but Rice's statements Monday represented the most detailed public comment the administration has yet offered on this vexing issue.

Information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies from a ``very small number of extremely dangerous detainees,'' the secretary said, and has helped prevent terrorist attacks and saved lives ``in Europe as well as in the United States and other countries.''

Reports of the existence of the secret prisons has caused a trans-Atlantic uproar. The European Union has asked the Bush administration about these reports.

By suggesting whatever the United States did had the cooperation of European nations, Rice may have imposed pressure on their governments to explain to their people whether they violated national or international laws.

And that could make Rice's stops in Europe even more difficult.

``It is up to those governments and their citizens to decide if they wish to work with us,'' she said, ``and decide how much sensitive information they can make public.''

``They have a sovereign right to make that choice,'' she said.

Britain, which holds the revolving presidency of the EU, sent a two-paragraph letter to Washington late last month demanding more information about reports that the CIA detained and interrogated terrorism prisoners in Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe.

Rice said the United States does not permit or tolerate torture under any circumstances.

``The United States has fully respected the sovereignty of other countries that have cooperated in these matters,'' the secretary said. ``The United States is a country of laws. My colleagues and I have been sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. ... The United States must protect its citizens.''

The reference to sovereignty implies that any European democracies that may have provided secret prisons did so willingly.

``So now before the next attack,'' Rice said, ``we should all face the hard choices that democratic governments face.''

Human rights organizations and legal groups, both in the U.S. and abroad, have accused the United States of allowing a practice known as ``rendition to torture,'' in which suspects are taken to countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia where harsh interrogation methods are used.

Rice did say the United States has long participated in the movement of terror suspects between countries.

European governments have expressed outrage over reports of a network of secret Soviet-era prisons in Eastern Europe where detainees may have been harshly treated and that flights carrying al-Qaida prisoners went through European airports.

In Berlin, a government spokesman said Monday that Germany has a list of more than 400 overflights and landings by planes suspected of being used by the CIA that it plans to ask Rice about during her visit to the German capital.

Several countries have denied they provided prison sites. If the United States did operate them, or is still doing so, the information would be classified.

Rice's five-day itinerary includes a stop in Romania, a country identified as a likely site of a secret U.S.-run detention site. Romania denies it.

The general issue of U.S. treatment of detainees in the war on terror has been an irritant in relations with Europe and other parts of the world since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It gained new immediacy last month with a Washington Post report about a network of CIA prisons overseas, including some in Europe, and claims by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch that it had tracked CIA flights into Eastern Europe.

The European Union's justice commissioner said such prisons and detainee mistreatment would violate European human rights law, and he warned last week than any host countries could lose voting rights in the powerful 25-nation bloc.

Secret prisons and many harsh methods of interrogation would be illegal on U.S. soil. It has been long assumed that the United States holds some of its more valuable and potentially dangerous captives - such as alleged terror mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - outside the country and beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

Rice's trip to Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Belgium is meant to build on generally improved relations between Europe and the United States after a period of strain over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The war remains widely unpopular in Europe, as does Bush.