by Colleen on March 10, 2010
On Tuesday, a senior official of the State Department expressed his regret for a joke he made regarding Libyan head Moammar Gadhafi, which induced Libya to imperil diplomatic relations unless he issues an apology.
P.J. Crowley, the department’s chief spokesman, stated that he lamented any offense triggered by his answer to the media’s question regarding Gadhafi’s intention to declare a ‘jihad’ against Switzerland. Last week, Libya stressed that it might impose critical response against the business interests of the US if an apology will be not issued.
Crowley told reporters: “I understand that my personal comments were perceived as a personal attack. The comments do not reflect US policy and were not intended to offend. I apologize if they were taken that way. I regret that my comments have become an obstacle to further progress in our bilateral relationship”.
He said that his remark regarding the speech of Gadhafi to the UN General Assembly in 2009 was not a personal assault. Last week, he met with the ambassador of Libya to the US in an attempt to clear the issue; however, he did not make his apology until Tuesday.
Crowley made the remark on 26th February when he was questioned regarding the position of the US on the Libyan leader’s appeal for a holy war against Switzerland, following the country’s prohibition of the construction of mosque minarets. He said that he recalled how Gadhafi ripped some pages of the UN Charter when he delivered a speech before the UN in September.
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was informed of the issue, Crowley and Jeffrey Feltman, a high-ranking US ambassador to the Middle East, met with Libya’s ambassador on Friday to explicate that President Obama’s administration is ‘strongly committed’ to the US-Libyan relations. However, Libya still insisted that an apology should be made.
by Paul on March 10, 2010
The former leader of MI5, Britain’s domestic spy organisation, said on Tuesday that US intelligence agencies have deceived its major allies, which includes Britain, regarding its maltreatment of alleged terrorists.
Eliza Manningham-Buller, who has retired from the service in 2007 and now a House of Lords’ member, stressed that the US intentionally restrained details regarding its unkind treatment of detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The spy agencies of Britain have been under intense censure for their suspected conspiracy in the torture of suspected terrorists overseas, including those under the custody of the US.
In a current court ruling, one of the country’s senior judge probed MI5’s record regarding human rights, and said that the organisation might have misinformed the courts and the Parliament regarding the extent of the agency’s knowledge on the maltreatment of detainees.
The ex-spy head has criticised how the US became successful in providing her country with intelligence gathered from Sheikh Mohammed.
“I said to my staff, ‘Why is he talking?’ because our experience of Irish prisoners, Irish terrorists, was that they never said anything”, she said. “They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn’t actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been water boarded 160 times”.
In February, Master of the Rolls David Neuberger noted that the agency’s position in a court case wherein it stressed that it was not aware of the maltreatment of a number of detainees under the CIA’s custody was untrustworthy.
Manningham-Buller affirmed on Tuesday that her country knew about the cases of maltreatment before she vacated her post. On the other hand, Jonathan Evans, her successor, rebuffed the claims, stressing that the courts are in danger of being used by those who desire to undermine Britain’s counter-terrorism work.
