September 26, 2006
'America paid us to hand over al-Qaeda suspects'
From The London Times:
PRESIDENT Musharraf of Pakistan says that the CIA has secretly paid his government millions of dollars for handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects to America. The US government has strict rules banning such reward payments to foreign powers involved in the war on terror. General Musharraf does not say how much the CIA gave in return for the 369 al-Qaeda figures that he ordered should be passed to the US.
The US Department of Justice said: “We didn’t know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI’s most wanted list, not foreign governments.” The revelation comes from General Musharraf’s memoir, In the Line of Fire, which begins serialisation in The Times today and will further embarrass the White House at a time when relations between the US and Pakistan are already strained.
General Musharraf claimed last week that the Bush Administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” if did not co-operate with the US after the 9/11 attacks.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 07:19 AM | Permalink
Comments
I see no particular reason why killers wanted by the US should not be so found...after all, we pay for tips, we pay pay rewards, we pay honorariums etc. And if those that get the money are willing to accept it, then they ought not to take a moral highroad in announcing that the CIA did what it seems always to do. Their record of spreading money around to achieve their ends--be they good or otherwise--is nothing new.
Posted by: fred lapides | Sep 26, 2006 11:25:10 AM
The article says that the problem was that the payments went to a *government,* which even the Justice Dept. says shouldn't be done.
It doesn't explain why it's OK to pay individuals but not governments. Perhaps it's because governments have more power than individuals.
At any rate, the big problem here, I think, is that the CIA is harvesting "suspects," which are then thrown into the cooler (often, it seems, literally a "cooler") basically forever, since the "war on terror" is expected to last forever and they will be held until the "war" is over, with no legal recourse such as habeas corpus, to enable courts to find out whether there are legitimate reasons for considering them suspects for disobeying any laws at all. And this practice will apparently continue, since the Democrats in Congress are afraid to vote against the upcoming legislation to continue it, disguised as a "compromise" between Republican "dissidents" and the White House -- dissidents who quickly cave in to the least pressure.
Trashing habeas corpus as a campaign tactic -- that's what the ruling party is reduced to.
Posted by: JonJ | Sep 26, 2006 1:20:35 PM
I often arguments where there are attempts to apply US constitutional laws to international situations. It usually speaks of a narrow focus along the lines of well in my country we .... One might also consider that when a group declares war on the US they either knowingly or foolishly agreed to follow a set of predescribed rules of conduct.
To then mix US internal law with the rules of war is naive at best, subversive at worse.
The facts in the instant case are slim at best because of the spin of the author, but if a reward is offered then it should be paid, the US government does not allow it's employees to accept rewards but their position may not be held by all countries. Rewards are often offered by both individuals and governments.
Posted by: robin | Nov 10, 2007 8:10:05 AM
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