Britain, the US, and Torture: David Miliband is Still a Liar

Britain, the US, and Torture: Scott Lucas on BBC (16 October)
War on Terror/Torture Breaking News: David Miliband Is a Liar

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This afternoon a British court issued an important and long-awaited ruling in the case of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident tortured in Pakistan and then detained at Guantanamo Bay. The court ordered the British Government to present documents, demanded by Mohamed's lawyers, that established not only the torture but also US and British complicity in the "enhanced interrogation". The British Government had maintained that, because the documents contained information which originated with their US counterpart, its revelation could jeopardise the US-UK intelligence relationship.

In the last hour, I have heard British Foreign Secretary David Miliband maintain in two radio interviews that he would be happy to release the documents but that Washington has insisted they be withheld. Therefore, before getting into the details and implications of his argument --- for example, that any decision of a British court should be set aside because of the demands of the "intelligence" relationship, indeed that torture must not be investigated if there is a US-UK intelligence dimension --- let's re-state:

Miliband is lying.

Reprinted below is our entry from March 2009, after an earlier court decision reluctantly accepted the withholding of the documents. Then as now, Miliband trotted out the line that the decision was up to the Americans; unfortunately, his cover was blown by a State Department official who revealed that the Brown Government had asked Washington to make that statement to the court. That way, the material would still not see the light of day but the British Government could claim that it was not hiding evidence alleging London's own involvement in the torture of Mohamed.

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Update (3 March): The Guardian reports....

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is to be questioned by senior MPs over what he and his officials knew about the ill-treatment and secret interrogation of Binyam Mohamed, the former UK resident recently released from Guantánamo Bay. The move was announced yesterday by the Commons foreign affairs committee, which said it also intends to investigate other key issues where recent evidence has thrown up uncomfortable questions for ministers to answer. They are allegations of British complicity in torture in Pakistan, in the US practice of rendering terror suspects to countries where they risked being tortured, and in the transfer of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The foreign secretary will not be able to refuse to testify before the Commons foreign affairs committee, which was set up to monitor the activities of his department.

I thought of using the English euphemism "economical with the truth", but that doesn't capture the brazen statement of the Foreign Secretary yesterday regarding alleged British complicity with the torture of detainees.

Having refused to appear before a Parliamentary committee invstigating the charges, Miliband and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith chose instead to write to The Observer of London. Here's a key extract from the letter:

In the case of Binyam Mohamed, you imply that the government has refused to disclose material related to his case because it would embarrass the government. Again, this is not true. As Mr Mohamed's legal representatives have themselves said, it is through this government's efforts that this material was provided to them for use in Mr Mohamed's defence. We have no objection to this material being disclosed publicly. But we believe that the decision to do so is for the US, because the material is from the US.

Which would merely be a case of passing the buck rather than lying shamelessly, were it not for this revelation by a former State Department official in The Observer two weeks earlier. He commented on the American letter which asked for the Mohamed evidence to be kept secret:

Far from being a threat, it was solicited [by the Foreign Office]. The Foreign Office asked for it in writing. They said: "Give us something in writing so that we can put it on the record." If you give us a letter explaining you are opposed to this, then we can provide that to the court.

Foreign Secretary, if you're going to lie while avoiding an inquiry into torture, could you at least give us enough respect not to do in the same newspaper which busted you in the first place?

UPDATED Iran-US-Russia Deal on Enrichment, The Sequel

UPDATED Iran: The Washington-Tehran Deal on Enriched Uranium?

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UPDATE 15 October 0835 GMT: Finally! An unnamed journalist picks up on the third-party enrichment story at yesterday's State Department briefing by Philip Crowley:

QUESTION: The meeting coming up, the technical talks in Vienna about the low-enriched uranium – who is the U.S. sending, and how far do you expect to get in those meetings? What’s the sort of agenda and hopes for an outcome?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, it’s – we haven’t decided. Those arrangements are still being worked as to what the representation will be....These are technical talks, really, to work through the practical issues of how to ship the fuel out of Iran, and then provide the fuel that – for this research reactor....

QUESTION: But your understanding is that the Iranians are going forward with this, you know, a hundred percent. [Are the talks] actually just about implementing it right now, or is [the meeting] about in theory how it would work?

MR. CROWLEY: ...This is a confidence-building measure. There is the research reactor. It’s running out of fuel. And we think there’s a mechanism that can be put in place so that we can see that the shipment out of some of the existing Iranian stocks and then fuel for this particular reactor provided. I mean, it really is about working through the technical aspects of this. And...we believe that the meeting will go forward on October 19, and we’re working through the appropriate representation.


UPDATE 15 October 0730 GMT: The Hole in the Middle. Michael Slackman of The New York Times has a good but ultimately curious article this morning. In "Some See Iran as Ready for Nuclear Deal", he quotes analysts such as Trita Parsi, Flynt Leverett, and Juan Cole, as well as past statements from top Iran officials, to build his case.

The curiosity? Slackman never mentions the "third-party enrichment" proposal that proves his point.


UPDATE 1855 GMT: If you're clued up on the real story, then this statement by Vladimir Putin, former President and now Prime Minister of Russia, makes sense: "There is no need to frighten the Iranians. There is a need to reach agreements; there is a need to search for compromises." Stay the course on the ongoing, quieter discussions on third-party enrichment and Iran's second enrichment facility near Qom.

If you're not clued, then you're the ideal receptive audience for Press TV's spin on Putin's statement --- The Russians Are With Us Against the "West" --- "Putin Warns against Intimidation".

The story so far: last weekend we picked up on a scoop by Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post that, for four months, the US had been developing a plan for "third-party enrichment" by Russia of 80 percent of Iran's stock of low-enriched uranium. The processed uranium, now at 20% enrichment, would be used in Iran's medical research facilities. The proposal was presented to Iran before the Geneva talks at the start of October, and Tehran has accepted it as a basis for discussions.

We noted that, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Moscow this week, the proposal was likely to be at the forefront of US-Russian talks on Iran. After all, the technical talks on enrichment between Iran and the 5+1 powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China, Germany) are next Monday. At the same time we wondered if the media, dazzled by the surface issue of sanctions, would take any notice.

Well, Clinton has had her meetings with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and no one --- as far as we know --- figured out the real diplomatic game, as opposed to the diversionary one.

During the midst of Clinton's talks yesterday, news services were so at sea that they were blaring, almost at the same time,"Yes, the Russians Will Support Sanctions; No, the Russians Won't Support Sanctions", without giving a passing thought to enrichment.

Today is no better. The New York Times, still stuck on Lavrov's public posture that sanctions would be "counterproductive", headlines, "Russia Resists U.S. Position on Sanctions for Iran". The Guardian of London swallows the opposite PR line, "Clinton hails US-Russian co-operation on Iran", and the BBC, thrilled to get an interview with Clinton, nods its head as she declares, "Clinton: Russia Sees Iran Threat".

But the top prize for media dizziness goes to Mary Beth Sheridan of The Washington Post, who clearly doesn't read the stories published in her story (or at least those by Glenn Kessler). She expends more than 500 words shouting, "Russia Not Budging On Iran Sanctions". Buried well within them is the single line, "Under heavy international pressure, the Islamic republic agreed to admit inspectors and send much of its uranium to Russia for enrichment," which --- to say the least --- is a hydrogen bomb's distance from the account Kessler gave of the US-Iran talks.

And it is not as if Clinton didn't offer a clue to the real story to anyone sharp enough to listen: "Iran has several obligations that it said it would fulfill. We believe it is important to pursue the diplomatic track and to do everything we can to make it successful."

What are those obligations? "[Iran will] fulfill its obligation on inspections, in fact, open up its entire system so that there can be no doubt about what they're doing, and comply with the agreement in principle to transfer out the low-enriched uranium."

At which point a journalist on his/her game would have said, "Secretary Clinton, can you confirm that the agreement in principle concerns the plan developed since June for Iran to transfer uranium to Russia, enriching it from 3.5 to 20 percent?"

Unfortunately, the journalist who was called on to ask the final question ignored that possibility in favour of the "Oh Yes, The Russians Will. Oh No, The Russians Won't" script:"It sounds like you did not get the commitment from the Russian side in terms of sanctions or other forms of pressure that could be brought to bear on Iran. Could you comment on that?"

And who was that journalist? Take a bow, Mary Beth Sheridan of The Washington Post.

Iran: How a Non-Story about a Non-Jew Became Media Non-Sense

The Latest from Iran (7 October): Drama in Parliament?

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AHMADI: STILL NOT A JEW

UPDATE 1700 GMT: Silliness Upon Silliness. Press TV, probably inadvertently, highlights the idiocy of the Daily Telegraph report by adding...more idiocy. "A senior political analyst specializing in media affairs" says, "These reports are undoubtedly published in line with Israeli interests. In light of the Goldstone report, such reports are obviously designed to divert world attention from Israeli crimes against Palestinians and the use of weapons of mass destruction in the three-week attack on the Gaza Strip." Oh, yes, he adds that the report "was also meant to undermine" the Geneva talks on Iran's nuclear programme.

But out of the ridiculousness: I'm sending a note to CNN's Jim Clancy that "a senior media analyst" might be available for an interview.

You may have noticed that we haven't said much about the "Ahmadinejad is Jewish" allegation. Apart from the e-mail from a reader who found the whole episode a morning laugh, the only biggest significance was the journalistic a) fraud or b) innocent idiocy of The Daily Telegraph, which claimed an "exclusive" of a story that was eight months old (launched on the blog of Mehdi Khazali, the son of the late Ayatollah) and had already been discredited.

The story ran "hot" for 24 hours, with almost no one noticing this was an old non-story (even though The Daily Telegraph coyly said, low in the article, that Khazali had called for an investigation of Mr Ahmadinejad's roots"). First, the media tried to sell papers and boost viewer ratings with "Shock: Iran's President is A Jew". Then it did the same with "Shock: Iran's President is Not a Jew". Meir Javedanfar finally tried to sound the closing bell on the story, writing in The Guardian of London, "Ahmadinejad has no Jewish roots".

You might think that this was the end of our non-story, but never understimate the media's tenacity in spinning new rubbish out of old rubbish. In Foreign Policy magazine, Jamsheed Chosky insisted, "True or not, the rumors matter." Even though there appears to have been little or no attention to the non-story inside Iran, Chosky confidently assured, "On the domestic front in Iran, the whole issue plays into the widening chasm between the mullahs and Ahmadinejad, some of whom have challenged his family's Muslim lineage and piety for years." And then, assuming that folks will not see through this bunch of tosh, Chosky adds the "international dimension": "As his heritage becomes a more public question, it only makes it less likely that he can find accommodation with Israel without compromising himself in Muslim eyes."

Yet the most blatant attempt to find life in the Dead Parrot of All Political Stories came from CNN, courtesy of anchorman Jim Clancy of "Question of the Day" fame. Yesterday afternoon, Clancy brought on Meir Javedanfar, presumably to say that Ahmadinejad Was Still Not Jewish. However, Clancy still insists that this non-Jewish status was still relevant because of "the analysis about why the conservative media in Iran were ALL OVER the story". I didn't get the chance to ask Clancy if he meant Kayhan or Fars News or the Islamic Republic News Agency or Tabnak.

Now CNN does not post transcripts of Clancy's programme and, thank goodness, its website is not featuring the non-story. Perhaps Javedanfar will re-surface to clarify who is ALL OVER what. However, until then, using Clancy-esque capitals....

COVER SOMETHING THAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT OR STOP EATING UP AIRSPACE

Iran's Nuclear Programme: Big Win for Tehran at Geneva Talks

LATEST Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Obama’s Balance Wobbles
Latest Iran Video: Nuclear Official Jalili on CNN (1 October)
Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Obama Remarks on Geneva Talks
The Latest from Iran (1 October): From Geneva to “Unity”?

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First Things First. We may have underestimated the significance of yesterday's discussions between Iran and the "5+1" power when we wrote (1640 GMT), "The Iranians have achieved their primary objective, which is to avoid an immediate condemnation and the threat of sanctions from a “breakdown” of today’s discussions."

The biggest signal of a breakthrough at the talks was not the declaration, from all sides, that Iran would invite the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the second enrichment facility at Qom "in the next couple of weeks" (1715 GMT). That was always the likely Iranian concession to "the West": contrary to the exaggerations in the US and British media, Qom is not that significant a plant, serving at this point as potential back-up to the main enrichment site at Natanz. So Tehran can accept inspections, provided its sovereignty is also maintained in an agreement, with the assurance that there's nothing illegal to be seen at the second facility.

No, here was the white smoke of a larger deal: "the Western media continues to miss the announcement, enthusiastically proclaimed by Press TV, that officials from Iran and the “5+1″ powers will have technical talks on 18 October on 'third-party enrichment'" (1935 GMT). A couple of hours later, McClatchy News Service put out the news:

Iran agreed in principle at high-level talks here to ship most of its enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be refined for exclusively peaceful uses, in what Western diplomats called a significant, but interim measure, to ease concerns over its nuclear development.

Under the tentative deal reached here, Iran would ship what a U.S. official said was "most" of its approximately 3.300 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia where it would be further refined. French technicians would then fabricate it into fuel rods and return it to Tehran, to insert into a nuclear research reactor that is used to make isotopes for nuclear medicine.

This morning, The New York Times headlines, "Iran Agrees to Send Enriched Uranium to Russia", and The Washington Post also picks up on the development. Perhaps most importantly, President Obama slipped the news into his statement last night, "Taking the step of transferring its low-enriched uranium to a third country would be a step towards building confidence that Iran’s program is in fact peaceful."

Of course, this is far from a done deal. The head of Iran's delegation, Saeed Jalili, was cautious when he appeared on CNN last night, saying that the matter would not have to be discussed by the "experts" in the IAEA, rather than the 5+1 Powers. Press TV's website, in contrast to the network's excited declaration of the technical talks on 18 October, is now silent on the matter.

Yet make no mistake. At this point the outcome is a victory for the Ahmadinejad Government. A week ago, President Obama, flanked by the British and French leaders, was loudly declaring that the US would be punishing Iran economically if Tehran did not concede on the "secret nuclear plant". The White House scrambled last night to keep the stick on the table, with Obama putting out boilerplate warnings, Talk is not substitute for action. Pledges of cooperation must be fulfilled....Our patience is not unlimited." An official added the specific caution to The New York Times, "[This] would represent a major accomplishment for the West, reducing Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon quickly and buying more time for negotiations to bear fruit. If Iran has secret stockpiles of enriched uranium, however, the accomplishment would be hollow."

Now, however, that stick would have to be waved in the face of not one but two tracks of conversations. There are the technical talks, and there is the next meeting of the 5+1 powers with Iran, flagged up for the end of October. So, unless the US is prepared to pull the plug suddenly on both processes (or unless the Iranian Government is foolish enough to abandon the discussions), there is no pretext for further sanctions before the end of the year, even if Tehran draws out the talks with the IAEA over access to the second enrichment facility.

And even then, Washington's stick has been a limp one. Juan Cole enthuses this morning, "Barack Obama pwned Bush-Cheney in one day, and got more concessions from Iran in 7 1/2 hours than the former administration got in 8 years of saber-rattling," but the Obama Administration probably could have had the same result that it got yesterday had it kept its collective mouth shut last week. Instead, the President and his advisors raised the stakes with threats and then found, in the 72 hours leading up to Geneva, that they could not deliver if necessary: neither Russia nor China was on board, and the European Union as well as the IAEA signalled their preference for genuine discussions.

This alone would be excellent reward for Tehran, but President Ahmadinejad's victory --- and this will be the unnoticed side-effect of the discussions --- is even greater. For over the last week, the "Western" powers have given him the legitimacy for which he has struggled at home. Have no doubt: the President and his advisors will be proclaiming loudly that they have defended Iran's sovereignty, upheld the rights of other peoples with their insistence on discussion on wider political and economic issues, and forced the US, Britain, and France to back down. Last night Jalili was already denouncing the "media terrorism" which tried to humiliate Iran and refusing to acknowledge a question from an Israeli reporter.

In other words --- I doubt you can find many non-Iranian commentators who will note this, although The Guardian has noted somewhat clumsily, "An Islamic regime involved in rape...is more of an issue in Tehran than the nuclear one" --- the Geneva discussions were the second theatre for the Ahmadinejad Government. What it needed, even more than the disappearance of the sanctions threat and space for its nuclear programme, was the drama and spectacle of recognition to take back home.

The President and his advisors may have been playing to the Western galleries, but they recognise that the primary theatre is still at home. So now the question arises: can the regime use the nuclear talks to push aside the challenges to its authority or will other issues --- detentions, abuses, Constitutional manipulations --- now return to centre stage?