APNewsBreak: UK torture panel to study rendition (AP)

LONDON – A British inquiry will investigate CIA prisoner transfer practices as part of a probe into claims that terrorism suspects were tortured after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, officials confirmed Wednesday.

The three-member panel, commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron to carry out a sweeping review of the country's role in the "war on terror," will scrutinize alleged British complicity in the secret U.S. rendition program.

Officials confirmed that the inquiry could see the heads of Britain's main spy agencies questioned in public for the first time.

The panel won't seek evidence from the U.S. or foreign allies, disappointing campaigners who hoped the study would be the most thorough yet of alleged murky practices by Western military and intelligence officials.

"Without a comprehensive examination of rendition, the drip-drip of allegations will continue. Far better to deal with it all now, draw a line and move on," said Conservative Party lawmaker Andrew Tyrie, who leads a parliamentary group that has led calls for greater scrutiny of the use of so-called extraordinary rendition — which involved the beyond-the-law transfer of terrorism suspects from country to country by the CIA.

Details of the inquiry's remit were announced publicly on Wednesday. Before the release, two people familiar with the issue had disclosed to The Associated Press that the rendition program would be scrutinized.

Human rights advocates allege that the CIA used the program to outsource torture of detainees to countries where it is permitted.

In a 2007 probe conducted on behalf of the Council of Europe, Swiss politician Dick Marty accused 14 European governments of permitting the CIA to run detention centers or carry out rendition flights between 2002 and 2005.

Last year, Cameron ordered former appeals court judge Peter Gibson to lead a study into alleged British complicity in torture and mistreatment of terrorist suspects held overseas.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said the inquiry was necessary to "clear the stain from our reputation as a country."

Britain has previously acknowledged that Diego Garcia, a British atoll in the Indian Ocean that hosts a U.S. military base, was twice used by the U.S. as a refueling stop during the 2002 secret transfers of two terrorism suspects.

It has also said that two suspected Pakistani militants detained by British troops in Iraq in 2004 were handed over to the U.S., and later covertly transferred to Afghanistan.

"The inquiry will be looking at whether U.K. government personnel were aware of, or involved in, the rendition of detainees from one country to another, and whether U.K. airports and U.K. airspace were used for this purpose," the panel said in a statement issued following publication of its remit.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, a former head of domestic spy agency MI5 who retired in 2007, has said previously that she believes the U.S. deliberately misled its allies over its handling of detainees.

In a document outlining its plans, the inquiry said spy agency chiefs and other key witnesses would be questioned in public unless to do so would compromise national security.

British spy chiefs are rarely seen in public and unlike their U.S. counterparts give evidence to legislative scrutiny committees in private.

"The heads and former heads of the security and intelligence agencies will be invited to give evidence on these issues, as far as possible, in public," the inquiry said.

Junior spies will be questioned in private, but ministers and other public officials will be expected to testify in public — unless dealing with sensitive matters of national security.

"The potential for embarrassment to these witnesses will not justify secrecy," the inquiry said.

Cameron has said the inquiry will not begin until police complete an investigation opened in 2009 into allegations that an intelligence officer with the country's MI6 spy agency was complicit in the mistreatment of detainees overseas.

Some rights groups have complained that the final decision on whether or not evidence studied by the inquiry can be made public will be taken by senior government officials — not the panel itself.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of rights group Reprieve, said the decision would effectively "give America a veto on much of what should be public."

The inquiry confirmed that — despite calls from some campaigners — it would not examine instances where detainees captured by British military forces were moved to other locations inside the same country. Britain's defense ministry is already studying those cases, it said.

Last year, Britain paid out settlements to a number of former Guantanamo Bay detainees who alleged U.K. complicity in their harsh treatment overseas, though the government did not admit any liability.

___

Britain's detainee inquiry: http://www.detaineeinquiry.org.uk/

__

David Stringer can be reached at twitter.com/david_stringer

View the original article here

Senate panel agrees on defense budget blueprint (AP)

WASHINGTON – A blueprint for defense programs approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee would write into law the handling of captured terrorist suspects, including a permanent ban on building facilities in the United States to house those currently at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We are in the middle of a war that doesn't have an end," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. It's important that the law cover the people who are captured, he said.

The panel completed work on the $683 billion spending blueprint Thursday at a closed meeting. Details of the legislation, which now goes to the Senate floor, were outlined Friday.

Levin said that the compromise on detainees would write into law a requirement that al-Qaida members and those engaged in attempted attacks against the United States must be kept in military detention. It would also put into the law books restrictions on the treatment of foreign militants that Congress in the past has mainly attached to annual defense and other spending bills.

It would establish permanent limitations on transferring Guantanamo detainees to foreign countries, to ensure that steps are taken to prevent those released from resuming terrorist activities. The Pentagon would be required to provide a military judge and a military lawyer for determining the status of detainees subject to long-term custody.

It does not address the issue of closing the prison at Guantanamo. "Because I believe Guantanamo Bay is the appropriate place to detain and try terrorists, I will continue my legislative efforts to keep the facility open for current and future terrorist detainees," said committee member Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.

The bill, which comes in at $6 billion under what President Barack Obama requested in his budget proposal and $7 billion under the defense bill passed by the House last month, also puts some spending restraints on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the largest defense acquisition program in history.

It requires the defense secretary to come up with a fixed price contract for the next production stage of the project under which the contractor absorbs 100 percent of the costs above the target cost. There is no money in the bill for an alternative engine for the fighter plane that the Pentagon says is unnecessary, but Levin said there was still room for competition in the future. The maker of the terminated second engine, General Electric/Rolls Royce, said last month it would spend its own money to build the engine.

That wasn't enough for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the committee, who said the panel "rejected my efforts to stop the out-of-control cost overruns of the F-35 program."

McCain wanted to put the entire F-35 program on probation if the current stage of production was 10 percent over cost at the end of this year and to terminate the program if the costs were still 10 percent above target at the end of next year.

Since the program began in 2001, the cost of each aircraft has gone from $69 million to $133 million.

The committee, in approving the bill unanimously, avoided some of the divisive issues that made it into the House bill. The House called for a delay in implementing the policy of allowing gays to serve openly in the military, criticized the Obama administration's military actions in Libya, and would put conditions on the carrying out of the new nuclear warhead reduction treaty with Russia called New START.

Levin said there were provisions in his bill requiring the administration to report on New START activities, but nothing that would limit its ability to reduce the number of nuclear weapons.

Once the Senate passes a defense bill, lawmakers will have to reconcile differences between it and the House version.

Levin expressed frustration with the administration for not giving more guidance on how Congress should begin to achieve Obama's goal of cutting $400 billion in spending over the next 12 years from defense, security and intelligence programs.

The Senate bill reduces the White House budget proposal made last February by $6 billion, including a $1 billion reduction in spending for military construction and a $400 million cut to terminate the Medium Extended Air Defense System.

The measure meets the president's request for a 1.6 percent pay raise for members of the uniformed services, and increases by 6 percent, to $10.4 billion, funds for the U.S. Special Operations Command.

The bill includes $547 billion for the base budget of the Pentagon, $117 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and $18 billion for national security programs under the Department of Energy.

View the original article here

House panel OKs defense bill, limits Pakistan aid (AP)

WASHINGTON – Frustrated with Pakistan's fight in the war on terrorism and the long-running war in Afghanistan, a House panel on Tuesday approved a defense spending bill that would impose limits on U.S. aid to Islamabad and would create a special bipartisan group to examine America's future role in the conflict.

By voice vote, the House Appropriations Committee approved the legislation that would provide $530 billion to the Pentagon and $119 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill is $9 billion less than President Barack Obama requested.

The bill provides the money for the military's ships, aircraft, tanks and personnel, and largely tracks the defense blueprint that the House approved last month. It reflects both the war fatigue even among the most hawkish lawmakers and the widespread doubts about Pakistan's reliability in counter-terrorism. The U.S. raid and killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan has left many lawmakers questioning Islamabad's eagerness and whether billions in American financial assistance is being wasted.

The defense spending bill would withhold 75 percent of the $1.1 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan until the administration reports to Congress on how it would spend the money. The committee on Tuesday went a step further, adopting an amendment by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., that would give Congress 30 days to review the report before deciding whether the money should be spent.

Pakistan's "performance or non-performance rubs a lot of people the wrong way," Flake said. The panel approved the amendment by voice vote.

With the Afghanistan war approaching its 10th year, sentiment is growing in Congress for the U.S. to speed up the withdrawal of the 100,000 American troops in the country. The committee adopted an amendment by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., that would create an Afghanistan-Pakistan Study Group, a bipartisan organization to conduct an independent assessment of the conflict and U.S. interests.

The group would be modeled on the Iraq Study Group, the blue-ribbon panel that in 2006 called for a gradual troop pullback and stepped-up diplomacy to help extricate the United States from Iraq.

"We basically need fresh eyes," Wolf said.

In a fresh sign of the war weariness, Rep. Norm Dicks of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Appropriations defense subcommittee who consistently has stood with the White House on national security, said the administration "has to accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan." Dicks said the question is whether the nation helps its citizens or "does nation building."

The death of bin Laden and the billions of dollars in foreign aid as the nation struggles economically have provided impetus to the push to move out troops from Afghanistan.

"Although we are engaged in wars on several fronts, there is also a battle being waged at home — against skyrocketing, dangerous deficits," said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the Appropriations Committee. "No bill or department should be immune from scrutiny during these difficult financial times."

Against that backdrop, Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., succeeded in persuading the committee to limit the amount of money for military bands and other musical operations to $200 million.

She was unable, however, to get the committee to adopt an amendment targeting the millions the military spends to sponsor NASCAR races, fishing and wrestling. McCollum said two wars and a fiscal crisis make the cuts imperative, but Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., argued that the sponsorships were effective recruiting tools for the all-volunteer force.

The committee also rejected an amendment by Flake that would have prohibited funds for past earmarks, the home-state projects that now fall under a House moratorium. Flake said he was targeting some of the projects that the House Armed Services Committee put in its defense blueprint legislation. But some lawmakers argued that there were worthy earmark projects in the past, including the Predator program.

View the original article here

Hill panel backs limits on detainee transfers (AP)

WASHINGTON – A House panel is backing limits on President Barack Obama's authority to transfer terrorist suspects from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to foreign countries.

By voice vote, the House Armed Services Committee early Thursday rejected an amendment to undo the limits. The panel's top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, sponsored the amendment, saying the U.S. shouldn't hold low-level terrorist suspects for an undetermined period of time.

The committee is working through the night on a Pentagon budget for next year.

View the original article here

Senate panel OKs anti-terrorism nominees (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate panel on Thursday approved two top Treasury officials to lead the department's anti-terrorism unit that aims to deprive insurgents of funds through financial sanctions.

The panel voted 18-4 in favor of David Cohen to serve as the Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes and voted overwhelmingly in favor of Daniel Glaser as assistant secretary for terrorist financing.

But two senators, Democrat Robert Menendez and Republican Mark Kirk, expressed concerns that the department was not properly enforcing an Iran sanctions law.

"We need to have a robust enforcement of our sanctions law," said Menendez, comparing weak enforcement to a toothless tiger. "It sends the wrong message to countries like Iran," he said.

The law, passed last year, aims to cut off funds that could support Iran's nuclear program by effectively requiring banks to choose between dealing with the U.S. financial system or doing business with Iran.

The full Senate must now vote on the White House nominations.

(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

View the original article here