In January the European Parliament released a report deploring the Central Intelligence Agency for “illegal transportation and detention” in Europe. Abducting suspected terrorists and questioning them in secret foreign locales has been a CIA strategy since 1995, when the Clinton administration first began to recognize al-Qaida as a serious threat to U.S. citizens. The European Parliament’s report said that “enforced disappearance” is contrary to European Union treaty resolutions guaranteeing the “right to liberty, … freedom from torture, and … the right to an effective remedy.” Heeding these words, Italy and Germany have brought kidnapping charges against U.S. agents for snatching up suspects in their jurisdictions.
To consider the Europeans’ complaints, the House foreign affairs committee held a lively hearing last month. The star witness was Michael F. Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit and author of Through Our Enemies’ Eyes and Imperial Hubris. Scheuer, who created and implemented the rendition policy, and who is not one to mince words, delivered a blunt defense of the program. His opening statement (below and on the following page) accused the European Union of having presided these past 25 years “over the earth’s single largest terrorist safe haven” (Page 2). Scheuer predicted that the European Parliament’s criticisms of the rendition program would sacrifice “the protection of Americans” in order to reassure “effete sanctimonious Europeans who take every bit of American protection offered to them while publicly damning and seeking jail time for those who risk their lives.”
Scheuer also lambasted Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., John McCain, R-Ariz., Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., as “lamentable” politicians who have behaved “disgracefully” by criticizing the rendition policy. He also slammed Washington Post reporter Dana Priest (who won a Pulitzer Prize for her 2005 reporting on the program) as a “venal, prize-hungry” reporter who “damaged US national security … abetting America’s enemies.” Yes, Mr. Scheuer, but what do you really think?
To watch Scheuer’s complete April 17 testimony, click here and fast-forward to 2:46:41.
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