WASHINGTON, December 5 – Being as unspecific as possible Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to defend the U.S. policy on terror before embarking on her trip to Europe where many critics are patiently waiting for explanations.
Rice did everything possible to urge the importance of the CIA covert operations and implicitly confirmed the secret CIA flights that have been recorded in many European countries. She stated that the U.S. must use every lawful weapon to gather as much intelligence as possible. She also mentioned that thanks to these covert operations many terrorist attacks have been prevented, as well in Europe as in the United States. Naturally no specifics were given so it’s anyone’s guess whether this is a sincere statement or just a patch to fix all the critical notes.
Interestingly she used the word “lawful”, something many critics doubt as there have been reports of detainees being kidnapped from various European countries. Rice did not say anything about the existence of alleged secret prisons in Europe, she sufficed saying that she cannot disclose any information that could interrupt or compromise the gathering of intelligence and other military operations.
Explicitly she denied the use of torture to extract information from detainees, of course there is no proof or confirmation on any of this because it’s simply here word against any other.
