Originally published on the CGS blog on July 30, 2007.
The Guardian ran an interesting article on Sunday that once again highlighted and called into question the relationship between MI5 and the CIA over torture flights. In this case they interviewed Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi living in the UK who claims he was tortured at Gitmo and at Bagram airforce base. While many of the facts he lays out seem to fit into the broad construct of the rendition program, there are a couple of pieces that are more unusual and that, if true, really could hurt MI5. This in turn could raise the pressure on the CIA here in the U.S.
First Bisher claims to have been an informer for MI5 and alleges that they betrayed him by telling the CIA he had a timing device for a bomb with him when he was flying to The Gambia. As readers of this blog may have come to anticipate, there was no timer at all. In fact he had a battery charger with him and several years and much pain and suffering later he is free.
Like many freed survivors of the CIA program, he claims to be speaking out to help an innocent friend who is still at Gitmo. Certainly his story will be another black eye for the CIA and MI5. This type of exceptionalism continues to harm U.S. interests globally. I’d like to see the Presidential candidates address this issue ASAP.
