Boycott of UK Torture Inquiry by Human Rights Groups is Official

Originally posted at FDL/The Dissenter

The British press is reporting that ten major human rights and anti-torture organizations have announced they will not be cooperating or participating in the United Kingdom Torture Inquiry, headed by Sir Peter Gibson. The organizations, who sent a letter on August 3 to Sara Carnegie, Solicitor to the Detainee Inquiry, cited a lack of transparency and credibility in the proposed investigation, noting, "Plainly an Inquiry conducted in the way that you describe and in accordance with the Protocol would not comply with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights."

Other serious problems cited included the fact that any information released would be subject to governmental approval, i.e., censorship. Additionally, there wasn't going to be any "meaningful participation" by former torture victims or "interested third parties." The letter concluded, "we do not intend to submit any evidence or attend any further meetings with the Inquiry team."

The letter was signed by The AIRE Centre, Amnesty International, British Irish Rights Watch, Cageprisoners, Freedom from Torture, Human Rights Watch, Justice, Liberty, Redress, Reprieve.

A separate press release by Reprieve summarized the problems with the inquiry:

First, the definition of evidence that will remain classified forever is hopelessly overbroad....

Second, there is no meaningful, independent (preferably judicial) review of what should be kept secret....

Third, the Inquiry is left toothless due to a lack of powers to compel the attendance of witnesses or the provision of evidence or information from any party or organisation. Notably, the inquiry has refused to consider evidence against UK based corporations with alleged links to the US rendition program.

The reference to the US rendition program reminds us that much of what the British government wants hidden has to do with collaboration with the US rendition and torture program. Indeed, just yesterday, the UK Guardian released a heretofore secret document describing how the British intelligence agencies should address US torture when they encounter it.

Or we might wish to recall how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned the UK government there would be serious repercussions to the US/UK security relationship if UK courts released any secret information in the Binyam Mohamed case. This British inquiry has certainly been constructed with the distant, all-seeing eye of the U.S. intelligence agencies and Pentagon.

Andy Worthington reports, there was a second letter written by attorneys for some of the detainees:

A second letter, written jointly by Imran Khan and other prominent human rights lawyers who have represented Guantánamo prisoners — including Gareth Peirce, Louise Christian, Irene Nembhard and Tayab Ali — reinforced the criticism of the government.

“We consider it impossible to advise those whom we represent that the structure and protocols now confirmed for the Gibson inquiry can achieve what are essential ingredients for a public inquiry into grave state crimes,” the letter stated, noting that the former prisoners would not even know “if the individuals being questioned are the right ones,” and adding that the lack of input “simply serves to demonstrate that there is no comprehension on the part of the government of the gravity of the crimes which representatives of the state may have committed.”

The letter continued, “We had hoped as lawyers to assist in a transparent exercise of vital importance. It is a matter of profound regret that our assessment is that the inquiry does not provide the means by which this can be realised. In the absence of there being any alteration to the protocols, our advice is compelled to be that it is inappropriate for our clients to submit evidence.”

As Andy reports, the British government is maintaining a brave face, and states the inquiry will go forward. Malcolm Rifkind, the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, stated:

The inquiry will go ahead. It will examine the relevant documentation held by government. It will hear the key government witnesses. The inquiry offers the detainees and anyone else with evidence relevant to its terms of reference the only opportunity for them to give evidence to an independent inquiry. The detainees and the NGOs have alleged the involvement or awareness of the UK government and its security and intelligence services in relation to the mistreatment and rendition of detainees held by other countries. The inquiry would welcome such evidence.

It took less than a month from my prediction of the collapse of the UK torture inquiry, due to the British government's bad faith in constructing a real torture investigation, for the end to essentially come. While the inquiry is still officially on, the pull-out of all the major human rights NGO's in England involved in detainee affairs and torture means the government investigation will have no credibility in the eyes of the British public, or the world. What we see now in the UK is a simulacrum of an investigation, a farce only, without hope for resuscitation, not in this form.

However, instead of the issue being relegated to the back pages, or slinking away into obscurity, the struggle over accountability in Britain will enter a new and sharper phase, and the spill-over to the fight for justice and against torture in the United States will inevitably be affected.

For a Fair, Just UK Torture Inquiry

Amnesty International and eight British NGOs have written a letter to the Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Gibson, who has been picked -- despite his close ties to the intelligence world -- to head the UK inquiry into alleged UK involvement in the mistreatment of detainees held abroad. Here's a link to the HTML announcement page on the joint letter at Amnesty International. Here's the link to the PDF of the letter.
What follows are selected portions of the letter, dated 8 September 2010:

Dear Sir Peter

Following the announcement by Prime Minister David Cameron on 6 July of an inquiry into allegations of UK involvement in the mistreatment of detainees held abroad, the AIRE Centre, Amnesty International, British Irish RIGHTS WATCH, Cageprisoners, Justice, Liberty, Redress, Reprieve, and the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, write to offer a number of constructive comments to ensure the success of the inquiry.

A sufficiently empowered and transparent inquiry could discharge the United Kingdom’s duty to effectively investigate damaging allegations of knowledge and/or involvement by state actors or agents in the torture, ill-treatment or rendition of individuals that have arisen in the last decade. Such an inquiry could also play an important role in clarifying how involvement in torture, ill- treatment or rendition might be prevented in the future.

It is incumbent on governments to promptly and effectively investigate all allegations of torture and other related human rights abuses. In order to comply with basic human rights standards, it is essential that the inquiry be:

(1) Prompt. The earliest events that this inquiry must consider occurred at least a decade ago. Delay has increased the damage caused by allegations of involvement in torture and ill- treatment and has already reduced the potential for the inquiry to uncover the truth.

(2) Independent. The persons responsible for and carrying out the inquiry must be fully independent of any institution, agency or person who may be the subject of, or are otherwise involved in, the inquiry. Where allegations of involvement in torture and ill-treatment have been made, an independent response is particularly important in order to preserve confidence in the administration of justice.

(3) Thorough. The inquiry must be sufficiently empowered, staffed, and resourced to be thorough, wide-ranging and rigorous. It must be able to pronounce on state responsibility for knowledge and involvement in the serious human rights violations that have been alleged and to identify any individuals responsible for such abuses, including establishing the responsibility of superior officers for crimes committed by subordinates under their effective control. The inquiry must be capable of determining whether any conduct was unlawful and thus must be empowered to: secure all relevant evidence and testimony; interview victims and their families; question any eye witnesses; take statements of any officials alleged to have been involved in violations; secure appropriate medical reports; and consider any evidence which implicates any public officials or agents of the state.

(4) Subject to public scrutiny, with the participation of victims. The inquiry must be open to adequate public scrutiny. Survivors or victims must be involved in the process to ensure their right to effective investigation and redress, and special measures must be adopted to ensure this participation is supportive, safe and effective; non-governmental organizations have an important role to play in this regard. The participation of survivors, victims and civil society ensures the adherence of the inquiry to the rule of law, prevents any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of illegal acts, and helps safeguard victims’ rights to an effective remedy and reparations....

In order for the inquiry to fulfil its purposes, we recommend the following:

(1) The inquiry must appoint a strong legal team with sufficient expertise to deal with the range of human rights, intelligence, and secrecy issues that it is likely to face;

(2) The presumption must be that each stage of the inquiry will be public, with as much evidence as possible to be heard and considered in public;

(3) The inquiry must ensure that survivors and victims have standing as parties to the inquiry and have a right to legal representation funded by the inquiry. Survivors, victims and their representatives must be kept informed of all information relevant to the investigation and have access to hearings and the ability to make submissions;

(4) Other interested parties, including the intelligence services, must also have standing and the right to legal representation funded by the inquiry. They and their representatives must be kept informed of all information relevant to the investigation; and have access to hearings and the ability to make submissions;

(5) The inquiry must require that all relevant documents be disclosed to the inquiry by the government; the head of the inquiry must have the power to decide whether or not to make such documents public;

(6) The inquiry must aim to achieve maximum possible disclosure. Any determination that certain information should be kept confidential, including on the grounds of national security, should be made applying limited and precisely defined grounds that are specified in advance; an independent mechanism should be developed to ensure that any decision by the inquiry panel to withhold such information is in the public interest;

(7) The inquiry must ensure that any invocation of secrecy or confidentiality on the part of the government, its agents, or the inquiry does not: prevent an independent, impartial, and thorough investigation of alleged human rights violations; prevent the government and individual perpetrators from being held accountable; prevent a victim from receiving an effective remedy, including reparation; or prevent full and public disclosure of the truth;

(8) The inquiry must be empowered to require the production of evidence, subject to ordinary rules of admissibility, and must also be able to require a person to attend the inquiry to give evidence or to provide a written statement. It must be an offence for a person to fail to do anything that is required of him or her regarding the production of evidence. It must be an offence to do anything to distort or alter evidence provided to the inquiry;

(9) The inquiry panel must request the cooperation of agents and officials of foreign states who can provide relevant evidence, and that the government should support such requests;

(10) The inquiry panel should be empowered to enforce cooperation from corporations doing business in the UK who are alleged to have had knowledge of or been involved in any abuses that are the subject of the inquiry;

(11) It is imperative that the inquiry report be published, and that any redactions for national security reasons be agreed by the inquiry panel and be subject to review by a court. The inquiry must be empowered to not only establish particular facts, practices and policies, but should also consider the adequacy of measures in place to prevent the occurrence of any wrongdoing in the future. The final report must be made public and should at a minimum include the conclusions and recommendations based on findings of fact and applicable law, in sufficient detail to satisfy the requirement of full and public disclosure of the truth about UK responsibility for the human rights violations in question.

Amnesty and the other organization also ask for close NGO participation and scrutiny, as such organizations, deeply involved with the torture issue are "in a position to assist the inquiry in designing its scope and in pursuing certain lines of inquiry." The letter should be read in its entirety, and it is up to U.S. and British civil society to back the clear, reasonable, and essential roadmap for a successful inquiry laid out so well by Amnesty and the other NGOs.

I don't usually ask this, but pass this story or link on where you think it will do the most good. H/T to mzchief at FDL for the story.

9th Circuit Adopts "State Secrets" Defense Against Jeppensen Rendition-Torture Victims

In yet another outrage in the torture scandal, according to an ACLU press release, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ostensibly the most liberal such court in the nation, has ruled Wednesday in an en banc hearing that the lawsuit of five men kidnapped and tortured by the United States government is dismissed, as trespassing upon "state secrets" privileges by the government. The ruling follows an appeal by the Obama administration, who has proven the worthy successor to the Bush/Cheney executive, striving to keep secret state actions of rendition and torture.

The five men include former prisoner Binyam Mohamed, whose case has been covered extensively by the press, and whose torture is a key reason the government of Great Britain recently announced that there would be an investigation of British collaboration with the United States on the torture and rendition programs. A UK Guardian story reported on protests by the legal charity Reprieve over the appointment of the intelligence-linked Sir Peter Gibson to head the inquiry. I'd made much the same exception to Gibson's appointment in my coverage of the announcement of the inquiry back in July. Of course, the British government claims no conflict of interest for the 76-year-old Gibson, who is Intelligence Services Commissioner, responsible for monitoring secret bugging operations by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (Britain’s version of the NSA).

The 9th Circuit's final vote was tight, 6-5, and the decision and the dissents are well-worth reading (PDF). But this ruling is an outrage, and another indication of the anti-democratic nature of this supposed democratic state, made more ironic and sickening when you consider that the U.S. military spills the blood of hundreds of thousands, and makes refugees out of millions more, all in the name of spreading "Democracy." It would be funny, if it weren't so... so criminal and disgusting.

Consider this story from just one of the five defendants, Ahmed Agiza, seeking damages against Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc, the Boeing subsidiary that leased the planes used in some of the torture renditions. He was kidnapped by the CIA from Sweden and sent to Egyptian torturers three months after 9/11. Note, too, that Sweden had negotiated with Egypt guarantees of humane treatment (for all of you who believe the Obama administration's claims that getting guarantees regarding conditions of imprisonment and interrogation from "host" countries makes rendition "safe"). From the court's ruling:

Plaintiff Ahmed Agiza, an Egyptian national who had been seeking asylum in Sweden, was captured by Swedish authori- ties, allegedly transferred to American custody and flown to Egypt. In Egypt, he claims he was held for five weeks “in a squalid, windowless, and frigid cell,” where he was “severely and repeatedly beaten” and subjected to electric shock through electrodes attached to his ear lobes, nipples and geni- tals. Agiza was held in detention for two and a half years, after which he was given a six-hour trial before a military court, convicted and sentenced to 15 years in Egyptian prison. According to plaintiffs, “[v]irtually every aspect of Agiza’s rendition, including his torture in Egypt, has been publicly acknowledged by the Swedish government.”

From the ACLU press release:

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court today dismissed a case against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc. for its role in the Bush administration's extraordinary rendition program. The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Northern California filed the lawsuit in May 2007 on behalf of five men who were kidnapped by the CIA, forcibly disappeared to U.S.-run prisons overseas and tortured. The Bush administration intervened in the case, improperly asserting the "state secrets" privilege in an attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out.

In April 2009, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the government must invoke the state secrets privilege with respect to specific pieces of evidence – not over an entire lawsuit. The Obama administration appealed that ruling, and in December the appeal was heard by an en banc panel of all 11 Ninth Circuit judges. According to the ACLU, today's ruling all but shuts the door on accountability for the illegal program. The ACLU intends to seek Supreme Court review of the decision.

The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU, who argued the case before the Ninth Circuit:

"This is a sad day not only for the torture victims whose attempt to seek justice has been extinguished, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our nation's reputation in the world. To date, not a single victim of the Bush administration's torture program has had his day in court. If today's decision is allowed to stand, the United States will have closed its courtroom doors to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers. The torture architects and their enablers may have escaped the judgment of this court, but they will not escape the judgment of history."

Attorneys on the case are Wizner, Steven Watt, Steven R. Shapiro and Jameel Jaffer of the national ACLU, Julia Harumi Mass of the ACLU of Northern California, Paul Hoffman of the law firm Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP and Hope Metcalf of the Yale Law School Lowenstein Clinic. In addition, Margaret L. Satterthwaite and Amna Akbar of the International Human Rights Clinic of New York University School of Law and Clive Stafford-Smith and Zachary Katznelson represent plaintiffs in this case.

Others are responding to this terrible decision by the Ninth Circuit, including Marcy Wheeler, Nick Baumann, Josh Gerstein, and Garrett at Daily Kos. For more on the rendition story, see my article at Firedoglake last July, UK on U.S. Rendition: “Is it clear that detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation?” For an even longer historical perspective, read The Real Roots of the CIA's Rendition and Black Sites Program by H.P. Albarelli and Jeffrey Kaye, published at Truthout.org last February.

Bottom line? Ben Wizner described it well, calling it a sad, sad day for all torture victims, as well as those who care about the rule of law. Marcy Wheeler put it more acerbicly:

So basically, the government can kidnap you and send you to be tortured – as they did with Binyam Mohamed – yet even if your contractors acknowledge what they were doing, if the government wants to call their own law-breaking a secret, the most liberal Circuit Court in the country agrees they can.

In a related story, see Adam Goldman's AP piece on the torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at a CIA black site prison in Poland, where he had been sent via rendition back in 2002 and 2003. Al-Nashiri famously had both a gun and a drill held threateningly to his head during the torture. Ostensibly, according to the article, the torturer in question was an ex-FBI agent and CIA interrogator named "Albert." The article looks meant to warn DoJ prosecutor John Durham not to bother with a prosecution of the CIA agents involved, as doing so would open a can of worms, since previously DoJ declined prosecution, and "Albert" went on to work for the CIA for years after his "reprimand" in the Nashiri case.

As al-Nashiri's attorney said about her client's case:

"Terrorizing a hooded, shackled prisoner is torture," [Nancy] Hollander said. "I will do everything in my power to make sure the world knows that agents of the U.S. government tortured my client and have now held him in violation of U.S. and international law for over eight years."

UK on US Rendition: “Is it clear that detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation?”

Adapted from original posting at FDL/The Seminal

A series of documents released on July 14 in the UK Binyam Mohamed civil case, Al Rawi and Others v Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Others, have produced a series of explosive revelations, reported in Britain and as yet unknown here in the U.S. The story has been reported at the UK Guardian, while the British advocacy group Reprieve has posted links to all the documents on its site.

The fate of the "ghost prisoners" in the U.S. rendition torture program has been the subject of much speculation. It was a central mystery explored in the recently released best-selling thriller by Barry Eisler, Inside Out, which takes the CIA’s secret black site torture and disappearances as the real-world scandal around which the book’s plot revolves. Eisler’s book implies that there were more killings in the secret prisons than we know.

Now, one of the most incendiary revelations in the documents concerns instructions given to MI6 Special Intelligence Service (SIS) over detention operations. According to Chapter 32 of MI6’s general procedural manual, "Detainees and Detention Operations", "the following sensitivities arise" (PDF – bold emphasis added):

a. the geographical destination of the target. Where will she or he be held? Under whose jurisdiction? Is it clear that detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation?

b. what treatment regime(s) for the detainees can be expected?

c. what is the legal basis for the detention?

d. what is the role of any liaison partner who might be involved?

The "objective" of "killing" points to the existence of extrajudicial murders carried out by the intelligence services. It’s not clear if the killings are by UK or liaison — including United States — forces. "Liaison partners" refers to instances of operational cooperation with non-UK intelligence agencies.

Both the Guardian and Reprieve make it clear, as does a perusal of the documents themselves, that official British policy was to cooperate with the U.S. rendition program. At more than one point, the UK government, led then by Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, intervened to facilitate the rendition of prisoners, including UK citizens. At one point, in 2002, British officials discuss how to spin the leaks about UK cooperation with the rendition program: "Our line — that we are seeking information and reassurances and that the US is aware of our opposition to the death penalty — is not strong, but a stronger line is difficult until policy is clearer."

From the Reprieve report:

In a January 10, 2002, telegram from the FCO [Foreign Office], officials made clear that the Blair Government wanted British nationals taken to lawless detention in Guantanamo Bay: “we accept that the transfer of UK nationals held by US forces in Afghanistan to the US base in Guantánamo is the best way to meet out counter-terrorism objective by ensuring that they are securely held"….

An FCO official recognized in an August 22, 2002, email that “we are going to be open to charges of concealed extradition” and that as a result of direct interference by Number 10 “we broke our policy” on consular access by failing to help Martin Mubanga. Mubanga, who was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing after years in lawless detention without charge, was rendered first to Afghanistan and then to Guantanamo because Number 10 specifically refused to allow him to come home.

The Guardian article details a number of other details about "the Labour government’s involvement in the illegal abduction and torture of its own citizens." The UK government says it has identified half a million documents relevant to the Mohamed disclosure requests. The government’s request to stop the release of documents and force mediation with the plaintiffs was turned down by the British court.

Cameron Touts Secrecy for UK Torture Inquiry

The avalanche of documents has not escaped the notice of the new Cameron/Clegg coalition government. Just last week they announced the formation of a UK "judge-led investigation" regarding the complicity of intelligence personnel in the torture and rendition of detainees. The investigation is being conducted by a panel of three, whose head is the intelligence-connected Sir Peter Gibson, who is Intelligence Services Commissioner, responsible for monitoring secret bugging operations by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (Britain’s version of the NSA). Many questions have been raised by the appointment of Gibson, and it is startling to think that British human rights groups will accede to the appointment, given Gibson’s likely bias, not to mention his track record in other "judge-led" investigations.

In any case, the six cases involved in the Mohamed civil proceedings are among those to be considered by the Gibson inquiry. While the government may not be able to stop the flow of documents in the Mohamed case, the Prime Minister was not going to let this be a precedent for the upcoming torture investigation.

From the UK Guardian:

Cameron also made clear that the sort of material that has so far been made public with the limited disclosure in the Guantánamo cases would be kept firmly under wraps during the inquiry. "Let’s be frank, it is not possible to have a full public inquiry into something that is meant to be secret," he said. "So any intelligence material provided to the inquiry panel will not be made public and nor will intelligence officers be asked to give evidence in public."

Maybe Cameron will be mollified if he looks at released documents like this one (PDF), in which almost 29 of 36 pages are totally redacted.

Exposing U.S. Torture

While on the surface this appears to be a story about Britain and torture, it is really about the United States. Tony Blair bent British rules and policies, including adherence to international treaties, such as the Convention Against Torture, at the behest of and to placate and cooperate with the United States.

At many points in the documents, it’s evident that British intelligence agents were witnessing serious abuse of prisoners. While they were told not to participate (actively) in the torture and cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment, the policies were written such that cooperation could proceed with ministerial approval.

Meanwhile, in other countries, news of CIA murders of foreign nationals is surfacing. Vanity Fair reported recently that the CIA sent a Blackwater (now Xe) team to Hamburg to “find, fix and finish” Syrian-born Mamoun Darkazanli. A UN report earlier this year on secret detentions reported on the disappearances of anonymous U.S. rendered prisoners in Syrian and Egyptian prisons. But these and other details rarely even make a stir in the corridors of American government. As this Human Rights Watch report noted, the Bush administration never even briefed the appropriate congressional intelligence oversight committees on the workings of the rendition program. Scandalously, neither the Democratically controlled Congress or Democratic administration has investigated the Bush-era rendition program.

The silence meeting these latest revelations in the U.S. press, the lack of ongoing interest in the UK torture inquiry, the failure by the so-called "progressive" components of the Democratic Party to strenuously take up the call by the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, and other human rights groups for greater accountability and official investigations over torture is an ominous development. One can only hope at this point that the continuing revelations about great crimes and cover-up will reach a tipping point, and the outrage over other issues — the BP massive oil blowout, Mel Gibson, etc. — will attach to the torture issue, which goes right to the heart of what this nation is. And right now, that heart is rotten.

[See also Andy Worthington's story, UK Sought Rendition of British Nationals to Guantánamo; Tony Blair Directly Involved]

U.S. Legal Actions, UK Inquiry: Noose Tightens on Torture Criminals

Originally posted at Firedoglake/The Seminal

Before taking up the question of the UK torture inquiry, announced the other day, we should consider other important developments on the anti-torture front today.

Omar Khadr, captured as a child, abused, mistreated and tortured for years at Guantanamo, has fired his military attorneys -- most likely because he seeks some method to exert control over his situation. God knows how we would respond if placed in his situation.

Meanwhile, Daniel Shulman at Mother Jones has posted an article describing two new actions taken to strip licensure from two former Guantanamo psychologists, Major John Leso and retired Colonel Larry James. James is now dean of the professional psychology program at Wright State University in Ohio, and was the subject of a complaint against him in Louisiana, which was dismissed by the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, and subsequently brought to the Louisiana Court of Appeal. Leso is the infamous "Maj. L" in the interrogation log released by Time Magazine some years ago in the torture case of Mohammed Al-Qahtani.

Both Leso and James were members of the Behavioral Science Consultant Team, or BSCT, at Guantanamo. Indeed, James was in charge of the BSCT while he was there. The complaint against Leso, filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability, can be viewed here. The James filing -- the work of Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic -- is available in PDF format.

These filings were separate from yet another complaint, this one filed with the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, against James Mitchell, one of the principals for CIA torture contractors Mitchell-Jessen and Associates, who has also been identified as one of the interrogators involved in reverse-engineering SERE techniques for the interrogation-cum-torture experiments made upon Abu Zubaydah in the spring and summer of 2002. (PDF link to full document here.)

These actions have been taken in the context of the refusal of the Obama administration to undertake the necessary criminal investigations against the work of torturers under governmental employ during the Bush/Cheney era. While there is a secret investigation supposedly underway in the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, congressional oversight and action on the subject of interrogations has been minimal. While the Senate Armed Services Committee conducted a wide-ranging investigation of the spread of SERE-style torture in the military, the committee refuses to release a less-redacted version of their report, and moreover, issued their findings without recommendations. Even worse, they allowed SERE psychologists, like James Mitchell, to remain in charge of Special Operations battlefield interrogations and detention.

Keeping the lid on the torture scandal is the SOP of the Obama administration lately. According to a July 2 report by Mike Scarcella at The Blog of Legal Times, the Holder Justice Department has filed hundreds of papers in court arguing against an ACLU suit "that blacked-out passages in the [Office of Professional Responsibility] report [on the Office of Legal Counsel torture memos] should remain confidential in the interest of national security and the privacy of government lawyers."

It is in the context over this war over information and accountability that we must look across the Atlantic to see what is unfolding in the United Kingdom, where the new British administration of Prime Minister David Cameron (with coalition partner Nick Clegg) announced that there would be a "judge-led investigation" of the complicity of UK intelligence personnel in the torture of detainees in the U.S.-led rampage that incarcerated an untold number of prisoners, rendered them to countries that would torture, or sent them into CIA secret prisons. These crimes were committed in part to coerce "intelligence" and confessions that would link Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda, the better to drum up fake evidence to justify an unprovoked attack upon Iraq.

UK Torture Inquiry Questions

The announcement of the UK inquiry has been met with a mostly uncritical positive reception in the U.S. And who can blame the American human rights, anti-torture and civil liberties movement? They've had to put up with the "don't look back" policy of President Obama, not to mention the latter's embrace of Bush-era positions on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, indefinite detention, support for the Army Field Manual's Appendix M, governmental secrecy, and even this administration's own operation of black site prisons (run now by JSOC, not, apparently, the CIA).

A press release by the ACLU captured the general attitude of U.S. opponents of the Pentagon/CIA torture program:

"An investigation into the role of government personnel in the abuse and torture of prisoners is exactly what the Obama administration should be initiating. And while we welcome Prime Minister Cameron's commitment to ensuring that torture survivors are acknowledged and compensated, this announcement also serves as a reminder of how little has been done here in the United States to reckon with the abuses of the last nine years," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU Deputy Legal Director.

While the sentiment is understandable (see a similar statement by Tom Parker at Amnesty International), even though we dearly need an investigation, it is not certain that the UK inquiry is exactly what the doctor ordered. The British press and human rights agencies, while approving of Cameron/Clegg's decision to make good on their campaign promise and initiate an investigation into UK intelligence services complicity with torture, are dubious about the details of how the investigation will proceed.

For one thing, proceedings will be held in secret. While the three-person investigating panel will have ample access to UK documents, they will not be allowed to study U.S. documents. Moreover, the inquiry cannot begin until all current criminal and civil complaints are settled. This led U.S. blogger-commentator Marcy Wheeler to wonder if the inquiry weren't meant in part to limit the disclosures that could still surface if the cases now outstanding were adjudicated fully.

The investigation panel is supposed to include Dame Janet Paraskeva, head of the civil service commissioners, and retired journalist Peter Riddell. No less a UK government critic than Craig Murray finds these two to be independent-minded and fair (though some question their experience in these matters). But Murray -- and as we'll see, many others -- is concerned about the ex-judge Sir Peter Gibson, named to head the investigation.

The 76-year-old Gibson is an odd choice, especially, as John Ware at BBC Panorama put it, "for an inquiry deemed to be fully independent." He is closely linked to intelligence circles, as he is Intelligence Services Commissioner, responsible for monitoring secret bugging operations by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ (Britain’s version of the NSA). In the past, Gibson has refused to say how many instances of bugging have taken place, because it would “assist those hostile to the UK”. There has also been some criticism regarding Gibson’s propensity for secrecy.

Peter Oborne at the UK Daily Mail has more to say about Gibson and "judge-led" "independent inquiries:

Sir Peter is a thoroughly acceptable figure to British spies because he has been Commissioner of the Intelligence Services since 2006, and was reappointed only last year.

Most of his work is carried out away from the public eye, but I have heard no reports of Sir Peter asking probing questions of MI5 and MI6 bosses over the past few years, despite the publication of a mass of troubling material during that period.

This is not the first time Gibson has been asked to head a secretive investigation, as he also led the inquiry into the 1998 IRA Omagh bombing, after a BBC report that GCHQ withheld info from the police that could have led to an interdiction of the bombers. The report itself was, of course, kept secret, but there were many questions about how Gibson conducted the affair. According to John Ware:

Sir Peter's report, published in January 2009, angered relatives of Omagh's victims and survivors when it focused only on whether the Omagh bombing could have been stopped. He concluded it could not have been.

Sir Peter later acknowledged he "deliberately did not" investigate why intercepts that he found had been shared between GCHQ and Special Branch were not also shared with the CID.

He told MPs on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (NIAC) that he had not seen it as part of his remit to "go into questions like why certain things were done or not done".

An mixture of hopefulness and ominous foreboding emanates from British anti-torture human rights groups. Addressing worries that the inquiry will focus on lower-level interrogators and let government officials like former Prime Minister Tony Blair off the hook, London director of Human Rights Watch said, "To be credible and to get to the bottom of what went wrong, any inquiry must be as public as possible, examine all cases of alleged complicity that are brought to its attention and examine the degree to which decisions by UK ministers and officials contributed to abuse."

The British human rights group, Reprieve, who like the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights, sponsors many attorneys currently defending Guantanamo prisoners, noted a number of concerns about the proposed inquiry. Top on the list of concerns is the pervasive secrecy surrounding the investigation. Not only will they be held in secret, but only the Prime Minister can decide what will be made public in the proceedings or final report. "Under the Government’s plan," Reprieve reports, "there is no formal mechanism for civil participation -- so Reprieve and other civil organisation[s] will not be allowed access to documents and proceedings."

Another outstanding demand is that the government produce the old, secret official policy that governed UK intelligence agents. The new policy, itself recently published, still allows unnamed "ministers" the ability to approve "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment": "...a wide spectrum of conduct and different considerations and legal principles may apply depending on the circumstances and facts of each case." What, Reprieve asks, were in the old rules, if these are the new rules? Any real inquiry would make this public.

What Now?

The no-accountability policy of the Obama administration has proven bankrupt, and recent legal actions taken against Leso, James, and Mitchell are laudable and hopefully will provide a decent chill among those health care providers who serviced (or still serve) the CIA and Pentagon torture and human experimentation programs. The UK inquiry certainly is a response to a societal repulsion in Great Britain against crimes against humanity, and perhaps, at a remove, to the widespread hatred of Britain's participation in the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it would be naive to believe that the British government, which sees itself as the best ally of the U.S. intelligence services, will open itself up to the kind of scrutiny needed -- not without a fight. To agree to the form in which the investigation is now proposed threatens to direct the fight for accountability and justice into a blind alley. As Peter Oborne reminds us, we should remember that other "judge-led" inquiry/cover-up in 2003, when "Lord Hutton’s investigation into the death of government scientist David Kelly... failed to ask the right questions, while reaching conclusions that flew in the face of evidence."

In addition, instead of sparking a renewed bid for a real investigation in the U.S., which is the fond hope of many anti-torture activists, a limited hang-out in the UK will only stifle the movement for accountability in the U.S., as enthusiasm for an open inquiry and prosecutions of high government officials is buried by demoralization and a feeling of futility.

It doesn't have to be that way. Activists can support the moves by Britain to have an investigation into Britain's role in torture, while demanding that it be a real investigation, with open, televised hearings (as much as is feasible), the inclusion of civil organizations, such as Reprieve, and a published protocol that includes a programmatic insistence that all lines of evidence will be followed, no matter how high up the governmental ladder such inquiry leads, and no matter what other countries' crimes may also be implicated. One could start by refusing to accept the appointment of Peter Gibson as head of the investigating panel.

Those who sponsored, support, and defend the torture and rendition programs of the past ten years must feel the noose of real justice tightening ever further around them, and they will fight with all their might and subterfuge to protect themselves and the monopoly of state violence and terror they administer. We must take this opportunity and push even harder to have a real investigation, one that will truly bring justice, and a giant step toward the complete abolition of torture and cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment of prisoners everywhere. That was the program of the European and American Enlightenment, and over 200 years later, it must be our program, too.