Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [129]
The war on terrorism has focused attention on a covert activity that does not fall neatly into the customary range of actions—renditions. Renditions are the seizure of individuals wanted by the United States. These individuals are living abroad and are not in countries where the United States either can or wants to use legal means to take them into custody. The operations are called renditions because the individual in question is rendered (that is, formally delivered) to U.S. custody. Renditions predate the war on terrorism, although the scale clearly has increased since 9/11.
Renditions are controversial for several reasons. First, they are extraterritorial actions. In some instances, the foreign government in whose territory the rendition occurred was aware of the operation and looked the other way, allowing the rendition to proceed but preserving its own plausible deniability. In the case of terrorism, some renditions have been controversial because the United States did not retain custody of the suspects but sent them on to their home nations, most often in the Middle East. Rules about custody, civil rights, and limits on interrogation tend to be different in most of these states, with the effect that some rendered suspects have likely been subject to harsh treatment if not torture. Although the United States has sought pledges from these states as to how they would conduct interrogations, U.S. officials cannot be present at all times in these countries. Critics charge that the United States is therefore knowingly complicit in torture. Others argue that the United States cannot hold all suspects, that it is doing as much as it can to prevent torture, and that the importance of breaking up terrorist networks and gleaning information about them requires such use of foreign nations. (See chap. 13.)
In both Italy and Germany, judges issued indictments against U.S. intelligence officers for renditions, one in Milan and one in Macedonia. Although the U.S. government made no official response, CIA officials let it be known that any rendition would have been known to the governments. The Italian government denied any such knowledge. The Italian case was suspended for procedural reasons. The German case ended after the United States made it clear that it would not cooperate in the case and would not hand over CIA officers to be prosecuted. According to press accounts, in March 2007, CIA director General Michael Hayden complained to European diplomats about the inaccurate and negative information being generated in Europe about CIA activities. Hayden also said that fewer than 100 people had been held in secret sites and fewer than half of these had been subjected to more intensive interrogation procedures. Referring to a report by the European Parliament on secret rendition flights, Hayden said that fewer than 100 flights concerned renditions to third countries and that these were undertaken with the knowledge and assistance of the countries involved, a point also made by the European report.
It is unlikely that even the number of flights claimed by General Hayden could have been conducted without the knowledge of European countries. It is also possible that the leaders of the governments involved, or their intelligence services,