Re: British MPs seek monitoring of US use of Indian Ocean base

On Aug 11, 10:31 am, PakistanPal <pakistan...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Daily Times

* Lawmakers call for Washington to reveal scope of activities it
undertakes on Diego Garcia

LONDON: Britain should more closely monitor US activity on the Indian
Ocean island of Diego Garcia to ensure American officials are not
using the British territory for the rendition or interrogation of
terror suspects, a group of UK lawmakers said on Sunday.

A committee of parliamentarians said the UK needs to press its ally to
reveal the full extent of its activities on the remote but
strategically important air base - halfway between Africa and
Southeast Asia - which has been leased to the US to be used as a
military base since the 1970s.

Britain's Foreign Office had claimed the US offered assurances that
the outpost has not been used to detain suspects. But in February 2008
the US acknowledged that previous denials that the island had been
used by so-called extraordinary rendition flights had been wrong. The
State Department said it had misled the British government, and
confirmed that two suspects had been on flights that refueled on Diego
Garcia en route to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002.

The move deeply embarrassed the British government, which insisted
until early last year that the practice did not happen. Lawmakers on
the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in a report that
it is "deplorable that previous US assurances about rendition flights
through Diego Garcia have turned out to be false" and said the
incident had undermined Britain's trust in US assurances.

It said the government should keep a closer eye on what the US is
doing on Diego Garcia - for example by keeping meticulous records of
US planes and ships transiting through the island and by demanding the
names, so far held secret, of the two men transferred through Diego
Garcia in 2002. The report also pressed the government to clarify
whether the 2002 incident broke British law.

Britain's relationship with Pakistan also came under the microscope.
The report warned that using information supplied by foreign
intelligence agencies implicated in the torture could amount to
complicity in the abuse - and singled out Pakistan's intelligence
service as a particularly problematic partner. It recommended that
Britain be emphatic with its foreign partners that torture is
unacceptable.

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain did not
collude in torture, but acknowledged the country could not guarantee
how detainees were treated by foreign governments. "Operations have
been halted where the risk of mistreatment was judged to be too high.
But it is not possible to eradicate all risk. Judgments need to be
made," he said in an article co-written with Home Secretary Alan
Johnson in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. ap

Article Source :http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\08\10\story_10-8-2009_pg4_5



Hello,
UK is bound to see its interest as well as other countries generally
do at the international level. As per article, UK's is skeptical about
our role in the region. I do not understand why UK looks at us in
doubt? Is it because we are harbouring terrorism at our soil? Or is
it because our growing relationship with United States, particularly
with CIA? We have to be very circumspect to make any move in the
international level. A wrong move can worsen our relationship with old
friend like UK. To choose between US and UK, I prefer to improve our
ties with UK because it serves our national interest at global level.
This kind of friendship will help us to become a trusted nation which
is blackening due to our relationship with US. Can we learn lessons
from our historical ties?


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