MI5 historian: Guantanamo and long grievances
The treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib by the US authorities has been “hugely detrimental” to the fight against terrorism, “creating long-lasting grievances” against the West, the official historian of MI5 said today.
Christopher Andrew, whose authorised book on the history of the Secret Service has just been published, said: “There may be worse policies to have, but I can’t think of many." Use of torture, he added, was not only morally wrong, but created the danger of getting answers from suspects which were incorrect.
Allegations that MI5 agents had condoned the torture of Binyam Mohamed al-Habashi, a British resident, by foreign intelligence agencies, is the subject of an ongoing investigation by Scotland Yard.
Dr Andrew stressed that his trawl of thousands of classified documents did not reveal any instances of MI5 allowing torture by its operatives. However, he pointed out that a former Director-General, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, has acknowledged that “It is pretty well impractical always to check whether something has been derived from torture unless you have reason to suspect it at the beginning. Literally thousands of pieces of intelligence are shared daily between the UK, our allies and people who might not be so reasonably be described as our allies.”
In his book, The Defence Of The Realm, Dr Andrew stated that there had been scepticism within MI5 about George W Bush’s call for a "War on Terror". An in-house review lampooned it as "The War on Terry (WOT)". And the then-chief, Sir Stephen Lander, had to reassure his staff that although a military response was being considered, “You should be reassured that that political, humanitarian, intelligence and law enforcement responses are also high on the UK agenda.”...
Read entire article at The Independent (UK)
Christopher Andrew, whose authorised book on the history of the Secret Service has just been published, said: “There may be worse policies to have, but I can’t think of many." Use of torture, he added, was not only morally wrong, but created the danger of getting answers from suspects which were incorrect.
Allegations that MI5 agents had condoned the torture of Binyam Mohamed al-Habashi, a British resident, by foreign intelligence agencies, is the subject of an ongoing investigation by Scotland Yard.
Dr Andrew stressed that his trawl of thousands of classified documents did not reveal any instances of MI5 allowing torture by its operatives. However, he pointed out that a former Director-General, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, has acknowledged that “It is pretty well impractical always to check whether something has been derived from torture unless you have reason to suspect it at the beginning. Literally thousands of pieces of intelligence are shared daily between the UK, our allies and people who might not be so reasonably be described as our allies.”
In his book, The Defence Of The Realm, Dr Andrew stated that there had been scepticism within MI5 about George W Bush’s call for a "War on Terror". An in-house review lampooned it as "The War on Terry (WOT)". And the then-chief, Sir Stephen Lander, had to reassure his staff that although a military response was being considered, “You should be reassured that that political, humanitarian, intelligence and law enforcement responses are also high on the UK agenda.”...