Letter to the Herald
Let me see if I understand the facts correctly on these "rendition flights".
It is not disputed that the CIA uniformly charters flights which stop off at UK airports. This is in the course of its "normal business" and it has done so for many years. The CIA also insists it is entitled, as a legitimate part of its "war on terror", to pick up "suspects" all over the world and to interrogate them. Indeed, it admits it often transports persons it wishes to question from country A to country B. Country B is often preferred because it allows more "robust interrogation" techniques than other states which appear to respect the UN Charter on Human Rights.
Several former "suspects" of the CIA, now released, allege they were kidnapped and flown to interrogation centres abroad in Syria, Romania, Uzbekistan or Egypt and claim to have landed at various European cities en route. But our government insists that on all the 400-plus occasions that Scottish airports were used by the CIA none included "extraordinary rendition"/torture flights. All were rather part of the normal spying business of the Americans.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is indignant that people even suggest that he would allow such practices, although he concedes that the CIA is not obliged to tell him if these flights are being used for nefarious purposes and he never asks. And we now understand that in the late 1990s, when Bill Clinton asked to use UK airports for rendition flights, two out of three were allowed by the Blair government.
Am I the only one who gets the impression the British government knows full well what its "coalition forces" partner is involved in here and is desperately trying to cover for them?
The Scottish Socialist Party demands an immediate investigation into these flights because we do not believe the British government has so far supplied the facts.
Colin Fox, MSP, Scottish Socialist Party national convener, The Scottish Parliament.
