British intelligence prosecution fear over US torture memos

[cal04]

Source: TimesOnline

Fresh revelations about the CIA’s torture techniques have thrown the spotlight on British intelligence, which gained valuable insight into terror networks from confessions extracted by American officers. They have raised further fears that British agents could be prosecuted for their indirect role in the abuse of detainees.

Documents declassified last night by the Obama Administration - four US Justice Department memos authorising “harsh interrogation” - show that the CIA based more than 3,000 intelligence reports on the questioning of “high-value” terror suspects between September 11 2001 and April 2003.

They were sanctioned by US government lawyers during the Bush presidency and MI5 and MI6 would have had access to huge amount of such material.

The newly released memos show that the majority of these reports - some of which would have been passed to the British as part of intelligence-sharing arrangements between the two countries - came “from detainees subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques”.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6115286.ece

[MetaTrope]

1. Only thing missing is evidence that the information gained WAS "crucial"

Did they catch any of the supposed terrorists that the 400 troops at Heathrow were deployed against? And the "terrorist cargo" aboard the MV Nisha turned out to be 26,000 tons of raw sugar.

Just another propaganda plant from the mainstream media. Shame on you, Times.

[Duer 157099]

4. The opposite implication could also apply

The fact that information obtained under such conditions is often suspect if not completely fabricated in order to stop the interrogation, is widely known.

So, they could be worried about the quality of the info that was obtained, not having known the conditions under which it had been extracted.

Getting false intel is more of a problem then getting no intel, and I wonder if this is really what's of conern.

[winyanstaz]

2. and so just were are all those terrorists they captured as a result?

Oh thats right...we dont know do we. We will never know if none of the people being tortured and imprisoned never go to court.

[EFerrari]

3. Exactly. We don't know. We don't know if the black sites really are closed.

We don't know what is happening at Bagram. We've now had three separate reports that conditions at Gitmo are WORSE not better. But, we don't know.

[Ghost Dog]

7. Bagram, yes. And Diego García, and others...

And of course Blair and others in the British 'establishment' knew plenty of details.

[EFerrari]

8. Yes, they do. And just today I heard a report of two secret prisons

in the midwest -- CMUs. Communication is severely restricted, the prisoners there call them "little gitmos".

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/17/little_guantanamo_secretive_cmu_prisons_designed

It will be a long, long time before our house is clean again. :(

[Vidar]

5. Apparently laws are occasionly enforced in Britain. In the US,

cases against the rich & influential are seldom even prosecuted, while the poor provide the highest per capita prison population in the world.

[Downwinder]

6. How many deaths can we ignore

if they are the result of bad intelligence gained by torture?

[Blackhatjack]

9. IT's going to be interesting if British MI5/MI6 agents are prosecuted/imprisoned & US agents are not

... especially since the acts that would form the basis for British prosecutions would be the same acts for which that US agents are getting immunity.

How will that look to the rest of the world? Hmmmm.....