How nice to see Nanny apologising, for once, over something that she said that she said that was based on "incorrect" information.
Nanny has been very embarrassed, and a tad pissed off with her chums in the Bush administration, over the revelation that previous denials about the US using British airports for rendition flights were in fact bollocks.
Can you guess what the problem was?
Yes, that's right; seemingly the US has been using British airports for rendition flights!
Gosh, what a surprise!
David Millipede, Nanny's foreign secretary, told MPs that contrary to "earlier explicit assurances" two flights landed at Diego Garcia, the British Indian Ocean territory where the US has a large air base, in 2002. He said the flights had been mistakenly overlooked in previous US internal inquiries carried out at the UK's behest.
Ah, "mistakenly overlooked"; yes that must be the reason for the earlier denials!
Seemingly the US only found out about the renditions when CIA flight crews were interviewed directly. John Bellinger, chief legal adviser in the US state department, said CIA officials were now "as confident as they can be" that no other detainees had been flown through Britain on secret rendition flights over the past six years of America's so called "war on terror".
Great, so that's alright then isn't it?
Errmmm...could Nanny possibly answer one teeny weeny question please?
If this has only just come to light, how come I wrote about rendition way back in July 2006, and took the piss out of it in December 2005?
-Was I in a time warp?
-Am I member of the CIA?
I don't think so!
I wrote about it because the whole farking world knew that rendition was being conducted using British bases, it was only Nanny and her chums in "W's" administration that chose to deny it!
What else is Nanny not telling us?
A lot more is going to come out about this.
Perhaps they were allowed to land as Nanny could not resist the chance of collecting the green air tax for those on the flight....Kerching...There goes that till again.
ReplyDeleteOn Question Time last night, many texters and some in the audience, were asking questions about the use of Prestwick Airport for these flights. I wonder if there is any "wrongly overlooked information" lurking on that one....Perhaps the info was put onto disc and lost....Yes, that will be the answer.
a relevant piece on septicisle's excellent 'obsolete' blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.septicisle.info/
I can't get excited about anything that happens on Diego Garcia. The legal anomaly that means GB 'owns' the place is probably more of a crime than than letting the Americans rebuild it and use it as they will.
ReplyDeletePrestwick might be another matter.
But then there is the question of what do you do if you wish to deal with a perceived problem like terrorism as it seems to exist currently?
Apply the Northern Ireland model? It doesn't seem to be a very good parallel.
Did the video by chance further verify the knowledge of these flights from the dates you mentioned?
ReplyDeleteIt is, conveniently, no longer available. Nannies busy minions must have been playing on youtube.
ps love the blog, why has this only been in my knowledge for the last month!
I tend to agree with Grant, Diego Garcia doesn't do it for me. Neither does Prestwick for that matter.
ReplyDeleteSeemingly Nelson said: "I really do not see the signal". Not, as commonly quoted: "I see no ships".
I wonder if the Speaker of the House of Commons got the Air Miles for these flights?
ReplyDelete