 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will inflame the transatlantic row over America's alleged torture of terror suspects in secret jails by telling Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and other European officials to 'back off'.
Rice, who arrives in Brussels tomorrow for a meeting with Nato foreign ministers, has been under pressure to respond to claims the US has been using covert prisons in Eastern Europe to interrogate Islamic militants. Human rights groups have alleged the CIA is flying terror suspects to secret jails in planes that have used airports throughout Europe, including Britain.
| They haven't offered up any proof of course, but they still expect Condi to respond, hoping that she'll let something out. Condi is too smart for that. |
Rice's refusal to answer detailed questions on what has become known as 'extraordinary rendition' will anger many in Europe.
| Oh horrors! Perhaps they'll need some of Ethel's pills! |
Last week Straw wrote to Rice asking for clarification about some 80 flights by CIA planes that have passed through the UK. European politicians and human rights groups claim the flights and use of a network of secret jails breach international law.
| Which international law? Which protocol? Besides not offering any proof that we're doing this, they can't even tell us which law. |
State Department officials have hinted that Rice's response to Straw and other European ministers will remind them of their 'co-operation' in the war on terror. She is expected to make a public statement today stressing that the US does not violate allies' sovereignty or break international law. She will also remind people their governments are co-operating in a fight against militants who have bombed commuters in London and Madrid.
| And murder citizens in the Netherlands, and splash acid in the faces of citizens in Belgium, and set up car-B-Qs in France ... |
She will drive home her message in private meetings with officials in Germany and at the EU headquarters in Brussels.
Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said Rice told him in Washington she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses.
An unnamed European diplomat who had contact with US officials over the handling of the scandals told Reuters yesterday: 'It's very clear they want European governments to stop pushing on this... They were stuck on the defensive for weeks, but suddenly the line has toughened up incredibly.'
Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who will be chairing a Commons committee of MPs along with Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, has said Rice needs to make a clear statement. She 'does not seem to realise that for a large section of Washington and European opinion, the Bush administration is in a shrinking minority of people that has not grasped that lowering our standards [on human rights] makes us less, not more, secure'.
| No, but lowering your expectations of behavior in your citizens certainly does. |
In Britain, human rights group Liberty is to table an amendment to the Civil Aviation Bill that would oblige the Home Secretary to force any aircraft travelling through UK airspace suspected of extraordinary rendition to land and be searched by police and customs.
Straw is also facing calls to allow MPs and human rights groups access to Diego Garcia, the British island in the Indian Ocean being used as a US military base. It has long been suspected that the island has been used to hold or transfer terror suspects to secret US jails.
| I dunno if we're doing any of this, but if so it might be time for a few Esquimaux-flagged cruise ships, really secure, that just sail 'round and 'round in the South Pacific ... |
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