Wednesday
Feb042009
US Threatens UK to Keep Gitmo Torture Secret
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 20:58
(thanks to Ali Yenidunya for co-writing this entry)
The British High Court ruled this afternoon that evidence of the torture of a Britain resident at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and the British intelligence services' knowledge of that torture, must remain secret because of US threats to stop sharing intelligence with Britain.
The judges unhappily and reluctantly issued their decision in the case of Binyam Mohamed, who has been held in Guantanamo since 2002. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had claim that the disclosure of evidence, originally contained in documents given to him by the US government, would threaten British national security.
The judges made clear that they had been told the US threat remained in place under the Obama Administration. This outweighed their assessment that there was "no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters" in the American documents:
David Davis, Conservative Member of Parliament and former Shadow Home Minister, has taken the issue to the House of Commons. He wants to investigate whether the UK was threatened by the US officials and whether Britain had taken part in tortures: “David Miliband, the UK Foreign Minister, should explain what degree of complicity we have in this.”
The British High Court ruled this afternoon that evidence of the torture of a Britain resident at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and the British intelligence services' knowledge of that torture, must remain secret because of US threats to stop sharing intelligence with Britain.
The judges unhappily and reluctantly issued their decision in the case of Binyam Mohamed, who has been held in Guantanamo since 2002. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had claim that the disclosure of evidence, originally contained in documents given to him by the US government, would threaten British national security.
The judges made clear that they had been told the US threat remained in place under the Obama Administration. This outweighed their assessment that there was "no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters" in the American documents:
Indeed, we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be.
David Davis, Conservative Member of Parliament and former Shadow Home Minister, has taken the issue to the House of Commons. He wants to investigate whether the UK was threatened by the US officials and whether Britain had taken part in tortures: “David Miliband, the UK Foreign Minister, should explain what degree of complicity we have in this.”
Reader Comments (8)
I'm not quite sure the angle that the U.S. has threatened the UK over this is correct. Miliband has said that the UK national security would be threatened. The reason is simple and, I would argue, involves an implicit and not an explicit threat. Governments share information with each other on condition that the government receiving the information never release it. For Britain to allow out confidential U.S. material would cause the U.S. to limit what is sent the UK and since the UK is in a dependent position would hurt the UK. There is also the risk that British material sent to the U.S. could come out in a tit for tat situation. There was a connected case over a "friendly fire" incident in which the British government would not release U.S. military information. It was later leaked to The Sun.
Just to add that this principle applies to all information shared between governments, regardless of whether it is top secret or not. The British government would expect the same, including over documents supplied decades ago. The Blair government fought to prevent information the British government gave the FBI about John Lennon in the early 1970s from being released to a researcher under the American Freedom of Information Act.
From a story in The Independent:
"That embarrassment also extends very specifically to the Blair government. According to FBI records, the unnamed "foreign government" was asked for permission to release its documents on Lennon back in September 1997, just a few months after Mr Blair first took office. The foreign government said no, saying that secrecy remained necessary to avoid "serious and demonstrable harm to its sources, which remain sensitive"."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-lennon-files-the-fbi-and-the-beatle-429429.html
And now Miliband has said that there was no threat from the U.S.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7870896.stm
Again, I think it is implicit.
Quoting Canuckistan -- "Governments share information with each other on condition that the government receiving the information never release it. For Britain to allow out confidential U.S. material would cause the U.S. to limit what is sent the UK and since the UK is in a dependent position would hurt the UK."
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That's discussed in my FCO files of the early 1970s.
"Difficulties with the US would only arise if we wished to pass on to our European partners high-grade intelligence material and experience based on our collaboration with the United States...........we might have to accept, as a result, a drastic curtailment of our intelligence collaboration with the Americans."
FCO 7/1427 (1970)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff HAVE AN ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY to stand behind Guantanamo Military Judge James Pohl UNTIL OBAMA OVERCOMES “RES IPSA LOQUITUR” BY SUPPLYING HIS LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND PROVING HIS ELIGIBILITY TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE US CONSTITUTION.
Canuck, would it then be adequate paraphrasing of your point to say that it's not because of a particular threat to stop sharing intelligence, but the general risk of losing future access to intelligence that has influenced this decision?
That is supported by a section (part 6) of yesterday's ruling wherein it states: "[The Foreign Secretary] provided a Public Interest Immunity Certificate dated 26 August 2008 identifying a real risk of serious harm to the national security of the United Kingdom if the documents were disclosed; he expressed the view that in the light of those concessions the 42 documents should not be disclosed to BM’s lawyers, as disclosure would seriously harm the existing intelligence arrangements between the United Kingdom and the United States."
Doesn't really make the decision any more palatable and it's certainly not what Norton-Taylor implies in his first paragraph, talking about "serious threats the US has made against the UK". It also conflicts fairly directly with the rest of the tone of the article, from Davis' statement to the judge's.
However, Norton-Taylor does not justify his position that there have been such "serious threats" at all. The latest judgement (which considers amendments to the open judgement set forth in August last year) concludes with a paragraph that summarises the concern at hand, but nowhere within the pages of the documents does it suggest that there has been any overt action on the part of the US besides the withholding of information. There are expressions of frustration at the decision to withhold, but no accusations of overt manipulation of diplomatic processes through threatening behaviour.
So, whether this is a result of "capitulation to blackmail" in an active sense or simple diplomatic cowardice cannot be determined from the information that Norton-Taylor currently provides. It seems that Miliband is the only one who could confirm or deny Norton-Taylor's particular charge as he has been the agent responsible for the eventual pursuance (or non-persuance) of disclosure.
Given the article linked to by Canuckistan above, it does seem that Miliband is taking the cowardice route. Doubtless a more kind assessor might call it prudence, but I'm not sure that Miliband has done anything to demonstrate shrewdness, or fierce righteousness, as a more dominant behavioural characteristic than timid compliance to the status quo.
Sorry, I just see this as an absolute non-story. Governments do not let other governments release their secrets (regardless of their nature) without their permission full stop. The U.S. doesn't. Britain doesn't Canada doesn't etc. To do so without the other country's permision would a. jeopardize the receiving of information in the future and b. potentially lead to your own secrets being exposed. Since Britain is more dependent on the U.S. than the reverse Britain would be adversely affected. The U.S. is no better or worse than any other country in this respect. That doesn't make it right, but that is the reality and the tone of the stories, which Miliband has now tried to quash, has a little bit of U.S. bashing to them even though the British government would do absolutely the same thing (and has in the past as I pointed out earlier re: John Lennon). For all of its faults, the American political system (particularly for researchers) is far more transparent than that of Britain's or Canada's.
and i should add that i think it is in the U.S.'s interest to allow the managed release of the material and thus some control from a p.r. standpoint because the failure to do so increases the chance (as in the case of the coroner's inquiry where material that the u.s. refused to release was leaked to The Sun) of someone leaking it.