Allies split with US over torture (Allen-Mills / The Sunday Times)

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From The Sunday Times
April 26, 2009
Allies split with US over torture
Tony Allen-Mills in New York

AT the height of the American-led war on terror, George W Bush began to encounter an unexpected problem ...

Philip Zelikow, a senior adviser to Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, revealed last week that “some of Europe’s best allies found it increasingly difficult to assist us in counterterrorism, because they feared becoming complicit in a programme their governments abhorred”.

A member of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team also disclosed yesterday that during a series of secret briefings late last year at the CIA, aides to the then president-elect were told that several foreign intelligence services had refused to share information about the location of terrorism suspects for fear of becoming implicated in the use of torture during interrogations ...

Senator Russ Feingold, a liberal Democrat from Wisconsin, wrote to Obama urging him “not to rule out prosecutions”. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, called for the resignation of Jay Bybee, a former White House lawyer who signed the original torture opinion and who has since become a federal judge ...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6169041.ece