2007 June 12

The row over CIA ‘torture flights’ using British airports has deepened following fresh evidence that a plane repeatedly linked to the controversial programme landed in the UK just days ago.The plane was logged arriving at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk last weekend, and watching aviation experts said the aircraft, piloted by crew clad in desert fatigues, was immediately surrounded on the runway by armed American security forces.

This flight was spotted landing at a UK airport - proof that ‘rendition ‘ flights are still taking place

Its registration number, clearly visible on the fuselage, identifies it as a plane which the European Parliament says has been involved in ‘ghost flights’ to smuggle terrorist suspects to shadowy interrogation centres abroad.

Records show the plane is owned by Blackwater USA, a CIA contractor described as “the most secretive and powerful mercenary army on the planet”. An eyewitness, who previously worked as an RAF electronic warfare expert, said that as the plane - a CASA-212 Aviocar - taxied to a stop on the runway it was met by a US military Humvee.

The vehicle contained four US security policemen armed with M16 assault rifles, who accompanied the camouflaged crew to the airport terminal.

The man, who did not want to be identified, added: “I thought it was curious that they would give a civilian plane an armed guard.”

Another spotter, who took the picture of it landing, recorded it touching down at 4.36pm on Saturday.

The disclosure follows damning findings by the Council of Europe human rights organisation, which accused Tony Blair on Friday of colluding in a CIA operation to run secret prisons in Poland and Romania by allowing the agency to use UK airports.

The study was contradicted on the same day by a report from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), which concluded that there was no evidence to support the claims.

But the director of the human rights group Liberty revealed that ACPO had admitted it restricted its inquiry to a review of media reports on the issue.

She accused them of rushing out their ‘cursory’ findings as part of a politically-motivated ’spin’ operation.

The US plane’s arrival was also logged by Touchdown News, a group of enthusiasts who record the movements of military aircraft at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath.

The group said the plane used its civilian call sign when talking to air traffic control and took off again early on the morning of Sunday June 3, flying east.

A report last November by a European Parliament committee placed the plane - registration number N964BW - on a list of “companies and aircraft used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition flights”. The plane was previously registered with the Bolivian army, and has been pictured on the ground in the Afghan capital Kabul within the past year.

The American Federal Aviation Authority lists the plane as being operated by two companies, Aviation World Wide Services and a sister company, Presidential Airways.

The European Parliament report describes these as shell companies operating as subsidiaries of Blackwater USA, “an important contractor for the CIA and the US military” which bases the planes in Malta.

Research by a further group, The American Centre for Media and Democracy, claims that flight-tracking internet technology shows the plane landed at least twice in the first six months of 2006 at Camp Peary, the U.S. naval reservation in Virginia known as The Farm and widely alleged to be a CIA training facility.

Tracking technology shows that the plane was en route from Canada to Greenland two days before it was sighted at Mildenhall: the internet software does not extend beyond American airspace, but the expert explained that its route would be consistent with a refuelling stop in the Arctic - it only has a range of about 2,000 miles - followed by a further refuel in East Anglia, before heading to Malta.

From there it could ‘leapfrog’ from US bases in the the former Soviet states bordering Afghanistan on to Kabul.

A recent book on Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill, an American author, described the company as the world’s “most secretive and powerful mercenary firm”, carrying out quasi-military operations on behalf of the U.S. government in Iraq, Afghanistan and within the U.S.

It was founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a former elite Navy Seal and fundamentalist Christian millionaire who bankrolls far-Right causes.

This newspaper first cast doubt on the Government’s claim to have no knowledge of the CIA’s activities 18 months ago when we published pictures of three planes at Scottish airports which had been linked by human rights activists to rendition.

Flight records showed the planes had been given landing rights by the MoD, despite there being no record of passenger lists or details of the purpose of the flights.

The Council of Europe dossier, compiled by Swiss senator Dick Marty, said the U.S. had used Britain’s help to establish a “global spider’s web” of jails and airports to pursue a war on terror without rules.

It claimed the secret centres had been set up so it could use interrogation techniques amounting to torture which are illegal in the US.

These include “waterboarding” – the dunking of blindfolded suspects so they believe they are drowning – solitary confinement, shackling in confined cells and exposure of naked captives to extremes of heat, cold and noise.

Separately, the Washington Post newspaper has reported that mercenaries working for Blackwater were at the centre of an infamous firefight in Iraq in April 2004 when guarding the U.S. headquarters in Najaf - despite never having applied to operate as a private security company in the country, The report said that in the battle, footage of which circulated on the internet, the troops had opened fire on Shia Iraqi civilians protesting outside, unleashing rounds so rapidly they had to pause every 15 minutes to allow their gun barrels to cool down.

In his book, Scahill claims that the Blackwater employees in the country are using “experimental ammunition’ made of ‘blended metal, which shatter on impact to create untreatable wounds”.

Shami Chakrabati, the director of Liberty, alleges that 210 CIA flights carrying terrorist suspects for possible torture have entered Britain since 2001.

She called for a full investigation, claiming the ACPO probe was unsatisfactory.

“ACPO have admitted to me in a private letter that their investigation amounted to little more than a cursory review of reports on the issue – which they issued, 18 months after I requested it, to coincide with the Council of Europe’s report,” she said.

“Maybe now The Mail on Sunday has produced this photographic evidence they will conduct a proper inquiry.”

An ACPO spokeswoman said: “These planes could be empty - there is no evidence that prisoners were on board.”

She denied Liberty’s claim that their inquiry had been limited and driven by spin.

“There has been a full examination to see if there was any evidence to suggest criminal activity, and there wasn’t,” she said.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We have been through the records, and there is no evidence of detainees being rendered through the UK since 1997.”

Brown rejects calls for probe into war as U.S. toll tops 3,500

U.S. troop losses in Iraq topped 3,500 after a bridge bombing near Baghdad on Monday, as Britain’s visiting future prime minister rejected domestic calls for a probe into the war’s failings.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and six wounded when their checkpoint was struck by a suicide car bomb, the military said, bringing the overall death toll to at least 3,501 since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

But despite the passing of yet another grim milestone for coalition forces, Britain’s Gordon Brown, who takes over from Prime Minister Tony Blair on June 27, said it was not the time for an inquiry into the war as called for by the Conservative opposition.

“The wrong time to even consider an inquiry is when you have got to give all your effort to supporting the troops on the ground,” Brown told Sky News. “There are times to consider these things, but the right thing to do at the moment is to give the full support and the full force of government behind the troops on the ground.”

Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, however, he acknowledged things could have been done differently.

“I think it’s important to learn all the lessons, just as Tony Blair has said he acted in good faith but mistakes were made,” Brown said during his first visit to Iraq since he was chosen by the Labour party as Blair’s heir.

Monday’s attack brought to 28 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far this month, with more than 25,000 U.S. troops wounded in combat since the invasion.

An interpreter was also wounded in the bombing, which destroyed part of a highway overpass in Mahmudiyah, a town south of Baghdad in a violent agricultural region known as an insurgent stronghold dubbed the “Triangle of Death”.

The highway was partly blocked by debris from the collapsed bridge and the military said an engineering unit was dispatched with bulldozers and other heavy equipment to clear the road.

Do the CIA have a ‘Torture flight’ base in Malta?

The British newspaper The Daily Mail reported yesterday that one of the aircraft allegedly used in the CIA’s “ghost flights” to transport terror suspects to interrogation centres was allegedly based in Malta.

Malta was, however, excluded from alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers.

The Daily Mail linked the issue to a report compiled by a European Parliament committee which says the CASA-212 Aviocar in question, registration number N964BW, was on a list of “companies and aircraft used by the CIA for extraordinary rendition flights”.

The Daily Mail said that, according to the American Federal Aviation Authority, the plane was operated by two companies, Aviation World Wide Services and a sister company, Presidential Airways.

The committee’s November report said these were subsidiaries of Blackwater USA, described as “an important contractor for the CIA and the US military”, which The Daily Mail said based its planes in Malta. The newspaper also reported that records showed the plane was owned by Blackwater USA, a CIA contractor described as “the most secretive and powerful mercenary army on the planet”.

The report carried a photograph of the plane arriving at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the month.

The newspaper suggested that, following its departure from Suffolk, the plane could have refuelled in East Anglia and then stopped off in its alleged Malta base. The newspaper also said that tracking technology showed that the plane flew from Canada to Greenland. Flight-tracking internet technology of the American Centre for Media and Democracy does not extend beyond American airspace, but an expert told The Daily Mail that its route would be consistent with a refuelling stop in the Arctic, followed by a further refuelling in East Anglia, before heading to Malta.

On Friday, findings by the Council of Europe human rights organisation accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of colluding in a CIA operation to run secret prisons in Poland and Romania by allowing the agency to use UK airports.

In 2006, the British government had confirmed that Malta was one of the countries where CIA flights carrying terror suspects landed. The Foreign Affairs Ministry in Malta asked the US for information about these claims.

Around the same time, local newspaper l-orizzont had reported that between August 2001 and October 2005, 71 CIA flights were directed towards Europe, with eight landing in Malta.

A report on the matter in June by the Council of Europe excluded Malta from alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers. A supplementary report issued by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe referred to the conclusions of an investigation by pertinent Maltese authorities stating that “no Maltese public official or other persons acting in an official capacity have been involved by action or omission” in the alleged CIA flights and secret detention centres.

U.S. troops kill Afghan police

U.S. forces mistakenly killed seven Afghan police and wounded four others in a friendly fire incident early Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

Fighting first started just before midnight Monday between Taliban militants and Afghan police, and two hours into the battle U.S. forces arrived and mistakenly opened fire on the police, said Zurmai Khan, the Khogyani district chief.

The commander at the police post, Esanullah, who goes by one name, said a U.S. helicopter fired rockets, killing seven policemen and wounding four.

“I think there was a misunderstanding — the helicopter opened fire at the police post,” said Khan.

First 9/11 Truth Feature Film - Severe Visibility

The morning of September 11, 2001, Paul Cross was at the White House for part of the post-production work of his film “Follow the Leader,” a documentary about the everyday life of the President of the United States. On September 12th Paul visited the Pentagon. He saw that the damage to the building, the debris and the scene were not consistent with the official claim that a Boeing 757 had crashed there. He finished producing “Follow the Leader,” which won an award at the Atlantic City Film Festival for best documentary, and traveled with the film, speaking about it.

Paul has a deep reverence and love for this country and the ideals it proclaims. When the truth of 9/11 hit him, he cried for days. “Severe Visibility,” his latest film, is his response. It tells the story of Major Stanley Kruter (played by Paul Cross) who was injured in the Pentagon attack. The other major character is a foreign journalist who begs Kruter to tell him about what he witnessed from his window during the attack. Paul said he created Major Kruter to represent the average American who believes in “America,” but that he identified with the journalist, who doubts that a commercial 757 airliner actually hit the Pentagon.

I heard about Paul’s film from a mutual banjo-playing friend last July, in 2006. Thrilled that a Hollywood feature 9/11 Truth film was being made, I phoned Paul. We had a friendly conversation. I sent him a copy of my DVD, but though he promised to send me a review copy of his film, for months I heard nothing from him. In April he emailed me:

His email was overlooked in my IN box. The film website hadn’t been updated since 2006. I called to ask what was going on. Paul said that his film had been rejected at film festivals across the United States. I wasn’t surprised. “Our Own Private Bin Laden, an award-winning 9/11 Truth documentary by Samira Goetschel, suffered a similar fate in the USA. Independent theaters are few and far between, and they are the only hope of free-lance film-makers whose prospects often depend on the resources of their financial backers.Last year, Paul was unwilling to tour with the film or answer the questions producers must face. The film will premiere this June in Italy and this July in New York. Paul believes the American people do not wish to hear the message of “Severe Visibility,” but they need to hear it. Crafted by an award-winning screenwriter and producer, this film could move many Americans to begin the journey that almost every American 9/11 truth activist has had to undertake to recognize the evidence that screams that the government story cannot possibly be true.

[Carol Brouillet is a longtime activist who organized three conferences on Strategies to Transform the Global Economy and (the first) marches on her Senators and Congresswoman in January 2002 to Demand a Congressional Investigation of 9-11. She publishes the Deception Dollars, and Co-Founded the 9-11 Truth Alliance, and the Northern California 9-11 Truth Alliance . She organized premieres of films, educational events, marches, rallies for 9-11 Truth, the San Francisco International Inquiry into 9-11, and produced the film Behind Every Terrorist- There is a Bush.

She is also a mother of three boys and has held a weekly Listening Project in downtown Palo Alto since October 2001. She ran for Congress in 2006 on the Green Party ticket on a 9-11 Truth, Peace, Impeachment platform. She organizes monthly Impeachment Rallies/Marches in Palo Alto, at the June 13th 1-3 pm rally/march awards to "Heroic Citizens for 9/11 Truth" will be given out at Lytton Plaza, Palo Alto. Dennis Bernstein, Robert Bowman, Janette Mackinlay, Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, Yoda and other heroes will be there.]

Blair Wants To Restrict Freedom Of Speech Via Internet Journalism

The Telegraph newspaper is suggesting that Tony Blair is hinting towards new restrictions on Internet media.

In a farewell lecture today, Blair said online reporting has become “more pernicious and less balanced” than traditional political reporting. This is complete doublespeak.

Today the Internet allows all of us, as the new RINF blogs demonstrate, that we are no longer restricted to the propaganda fed to us by the mainstream media, now we have the tools to create our own media. This is exactly what we have done.

Our new media is clearly a worry for the government, as we speak out against the injustices and call into question the action and motives of the powers that be, on a truly global basis.

Web sites like this one, and many others, are obviously sending shockwaves through the hierarchy of the global elite.

What Blair is actually saying, he and his cohorts are feeling the pressure as grassroots media report facts, unafraid to tell the truth and cannot be bought or silenced through the same grip of fear they hold over many mainstream media establishments.

However, Blair openly states that he “contributed” to ‘deteriorating media’ by “spinning” too much in the early days of New Labour.

The only difference here is, we report facts. We don’t need to ‘spin’ as the truth is on our side. And don’t they just know it.

During the lecture Blair said: “It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon, new forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media.

“In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five.

“As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television, it becomes increasingly irrational to have different systems of accountability based on technology that no longer can be differentiated in the old way,” he said.

”We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media.

”In our own defence, after 18 years of opposition and the, at times, ferocious hostility of parts of the media, it was hard to see any alternative.

”But such an attitude ran the risk of fuelling the trends in communications that I am about to question.

“At present, we are all being dragged down by the way media and public life interact, I do believe this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair.

“The damage saps the country’s confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future.”

The times they are a changing. As alternative media is slowly becoming the mainstream in terms of readership, it is beginning to rival traditional media.

If the government are not happy with our reporting, I suggest they start doing their jobs, work for the benefit of the people who put them in power - instead of destroying our rights, killing innocent people and abusing the power they were granted.

Israel Launch New Satellite To Spy On Iran

Israel launched an advanced spy satellite into orbit yesterday, giving it a sophisticated new tool in its efforts to collect intelligence on archenemy Iran and other regional adversaries.

Israeli space officials said the Ofek-7 satellite can pick up even small objects from space, and that information will be shared with the U.S.

Senior officials from Israel’s space program said the satellite will significantly improve Israel’s intelligence capabilities, allowing it to view objects as small as an average TV set.

“It’s true that this helps the Iranian issue,” Haim Eshed, chief of the defence ministry’s space department, told Army Radio. “And it’s clear above all else that this satellite is a very significant addition to the ability to gather intelligence.”

Israel considers Iran its main strategic threat, charging that Iran’s nuclear program is designed to build atomic weapons. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said repeatedly that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The new satellite is “one of the most sophisticated in the world,” military analyst Yiftah Shapir said.

Academic: CCTV Leads To inequality In Legal Cases

Cambridge University academic, Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering at the university and chair of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, today warned Parliament of the inequalities produced by electronic data, including CCTV pictures.

A growing number of academics, police and politicians are becoming ever more concerned about the Big Brother state juggernaut that is quickly eroding our civil liberties, removing our personal freedoms and destroying our privacy, due to Tony Blair’s Labour government since the horrific events of 9/11.

Professor Anderson will give evidence to the Commons home affairs committee’s inquiry into the “surveillance society” and follows on from last week, when Nick Eland, legal services manager of Tesco, and Martin Briggs, corporate affairs director of LMG, the firm that created the privacy invading Nectar cards, also presented evidence to the committee.

Professor Anderson said: “Surveillance creates an inequality of arms in both civil and criminal cases. The police can easily get CCTV or ANPR [automatic number plate recognition] data to show you committed a crime, but you have great difficulty getting this data to establish an alibi.

“A bank can get CCTV data to prove you made a disputed ATM transaction, but you can’t get this data to prove that you didn’t.”

Blair Attacks British Media

Tony Blair has launched a scathing attack on the UK media describing it as “a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits”.

He said fierce competition for stories meant that the modern media now hunted “in a pack”.

“In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits,” he said.

The Prime Minister made the comments during a speech about public life to the Reuters news agency.

He acknowledged that New Labour had spent too much time in its early years trying to influence media coverage but said the Government’s approach had been necessary due to the “ferocious hostility” towards Labour.

However, he accepted that the “inordinate attention” paid to courting and persuading the media had fuelled cynicism.

Mr Blair said the relationship between politicians and the press had always been fraught, but said that it had intensified in recent years.

While insisting that he was not complaining about the coverage he gets as Premier, Mr Blair claimed there was less balance in journalism now than 10 years ago.

“We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media,” Mr Blair said.

“In our own defence, after 18 years of opposition and the, at times, ferocious hostility of parts of the media, it was hard to see any alternative.”

“But such an attitude ran the risk of fuelling the trends in communications that I am about to question.”

The Prime Minister said there was no point blaming the media, arguing that the decline was largely due to the new 24-hour news agenda and the fragmentation of the market.

But he said that “impact” was now often more important than balance in a way that was harming the public’s view of public life.

Mr Blair said that the evolution of non-traditional media outlets was making matters worse, rather than better, as he had originally thought.

“It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon.

“New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media.

“In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five.”

Russian president calls for a New World Order

Russian president Vladimir Putin called on Sunday for a radical overhaul of the world’s financial and trade institutions to reflect the growing economic power of emerging market countries – including Russia.

Mr Putin said the world needed to create a new international financial architecture to replace an existing model that had become “archaic, undemocratic and unwieldy”.

His apparent challenge to western dominance of the world economic order came at a forum in St Petersburg designed to showcase the country’s economic recovery. Among 6,000 delegates at the biggest business forum ever held in post-Soviet Russia were scores of international chief executives including heads of Deutsche Bank, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Nestlé, Chevron, Siemens and Coca-Cola.

Mr Putin’s hosting of the forum capped a week in which he dominated the international stage. He warned last Monday that Russia might target nuclear missiles at Europe if the US built a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, then offered a compromise at the G8 summit involving switching part of the US system to Azerbaijan.

His speech on financial institutions suggested that, along with an aggressive recent campaign against US “unilateralism” in foreign policy, he was also seeking to challenge western dominance of the world economic order.

Mr Putin said 50 years ago, 60 per cent of world gross domestic product came from the Group of Seven industrial nations. Today, 60 per cent of world GDP came from outside the G7.

“The interests of stable economic development would be best served by a new architecture of international economic relations based on trust and mutually beneficial integration,” Mr Putin said.

The Russian president said there was increasing evidence that existing organisations were “not doing a good job regulating global economic relations”.

“Institutions created with a focus on a small number of active players sometimes look archaic, undemocratic and unwieldy. They are a far cry from recognising the existing balance of power,” he said.

9/11 Truth Group Protest At Parliament

As part of the 11th of Every Month Action Campaign, a London 911 Truth group held a protest at Parliament Square, yesterday.

Among the protesters, last man out of the Twin Towers and five times honoured hero, William Rodriguez with ex MI5 officer and co-chair of the 911 Truth Campaign (Britain & Ireland), Annie Machon.

The protesters apparently received a good reception from the general public and the group hopes to double its numbers by next month, when another event will take place, again on the 11th.