Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]

...For one thing, Air Force commanders, in particular, have deep-seated objections to the possibility that Iraqis eventually will be responsible for target selection. “Will the Iraqis call in air strikes in order to snuff rivals, or other warlords, or to snuff members of your own sect and blame someone else?” another senior military planner now on assignment in the Pentagon asked. “Will some Iraqis be targeting on behalf of Al Qaeda, or the insurgency, or the Iranians?” [Emphasis added]

Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious to political pressure, even from fellow Republicans. They also say that he disparages any information that conflicts with his view of how the war is proceeding.

Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.

“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.”

There are grave concerns within the military about the capability of the U.S. Army to sustain two or three more years of combat in Iraq. Michael O’Hanlon, a specialist on military issues at the Brookings Institution, told me, “The people in the institutional Army feel they don’t have the luxury of deciding troop levels, or even participating in the debate. They’re planning on staying the course until 2009. I can’t believe the Army thinks that it will happen, because there’s no sustained drive to increase the size of the regular Army.” O’Hanlon noted that “if the President decides to stay the present course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious consequences for morale and competency levels.”

Many of the military’s most senior generals are deeply frustrated, but they say nothing in public, because they don’t want to jeopardize their careers. The Administration has “so terrified the generals that they know they won’t go public,” a former defense official said. A retired senior C.I.A. officer with knowledge of Iraq told me that one of his colleagues recently participated in a congressional tour there. The legislators were repeatedly told, in meetings with enlisted men, junior officers, and generals that “things were fucked up.” But in a subsequent teleconference with Rumsfeld, he said, the generals kept those criticisms to themselves.

One person with whom the Pentagon’s top commanders have shared their private views for decades is Representative John Murtha, of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The President and his key aides were enraged when, on November 17th, Murtha gave a speech in the House calling for a withdrawal of troops within six months. The speech was filled with devastating information. For example, Murtha reported that the number of attacks in Iraq has increased from a hundred and fifty a week to more than seven hundred a week in the past year. He said that an estimated fifty thousand American soldiers will suffer “from what I call battle fatigue” in the war, and he said that the Americans were seen as “the common enemy” in Iraq. He also took issue with one of the White House’s claims—that foreign fighters were playing the major role in the insurgency. Murtha said that American soldiers “haven’t captured any in this latest activity”—the continuing battle in western Anbar province, near the border with Syria. “So this idea that they’re coming in from outside, we still think there’s only seven per cent.”

Murtha’s call for a speedy American pullout only seemed to strengthen the White House’s resolve. Administration officials “are beyond angry at him, because he is a serious threat to their policy—both on substance and politically,” the former defense official said. Speaking at the Osan Air Force base, in South Korea, two days after Murtha’s speech, Bush said, “The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. . . . If they’re not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, and to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I’m going to make you this commitment: this is not going to happen on my watch.”

“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’ ” He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Cheney. “They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,” the former defense official said. Bush’s public appearances, for example, are generally scheduled in front of friendly audiences, most often at military bases. Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. “Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,” the former official said, “but Bush has no idea.”

• Hersh reports that the CIA, state department and the Tony Blair government are backing Iyad Allawi as Iraq's next prime minister, perhaps in some sort of coalition with, you guessed it, Ahmad Chalabi...
  
• Hersh also seems to confirm the stories about Shia Iraqi troops "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them” and in some cases, killing them...
  
• And according to the report, the air war in Iraq has already begun spilling over into Syria.

Read the whole thing, preferably with a good stiff drink. Couple this with the recent reporting from the NY Daily News about the bunker mentality that's growing inside the White House and you begin to see a truly scary picture of what's going on at the heart of our government. Bush's supporters can spin this all they want, and David Frum can whine that we just gotta win in Iraq, but the facts are pretty clear: we can't get anywhere in Iraq unless the president is willing to hear honest appraisals and adjust his course, but he can't adjust his course if he lost in a messianic haze.

Related: Richard Cohen on Democrats, Iraq, and "mistakes..."

Tags: Iraq, Bush, War, religion, Foreign Policy

Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, singled out Mr Cheney in a wide-ranging political assault on the BBC's Today programme.

Mr Wilkerson said that in an internal administration debate over whether to abide by the Geneva conventions in the treatment of detainees, Mr Cheney led the argument "that essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions".

Asked whether the vice-president was guilty of a war crime, Mr Wilkerson replied: "Well, that's an interesting question - it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is ... an international crime as well." In the context of other remarks it appeared he was using the word "terror" to apply to the systematic abuse of prisoners.

"Eventually, the memo will be made public, and it will add yet another few news cycles of attention to this matter and potentially implicate all of those who said that Bush said no such thing.

We have had our suspicions (argued below) that the Times memo and the Mirror memo citing Bush's plans to bomb al-Jazeera are entirely different documents confirmed by Peter Kilfoyle MP, who has seen both documents.

He was naturally reticent, but when we aked Peter if the source for the Mirror article was related to the 'prosecution' of and Keogh and O'Connor over last years leak to the Times he said:

Wholly different sources.
The Times used 'official' leaks; the current document remains top secret - they are livid it is out.

We have also had it confirmed that Keogh and O'Connor are only facing one set of charges, over one document.

The move was inspired by Boris Johnson, who was the first to take the leap. I don't think I can be prosecuted under Britain's Official Secrets Act, but hell, if someone were to pass me the memo, you'd better believe I'm putting it up....

Previous:

• Dangerous thinking
• The bad news bombs
• Secrets, lies and bombing Al-Jazeera
• Memogate II

Tags: Iraq, Middle East, War, Al-Jazeera

MPs seek independent inquiry into Iraq war
Michael White
Wednesday November 23, 2005

A fresh attempt to win an independent inquiry into the conduct of the Iraq war will be launched today by a cross-party group of MPs, including Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor of the exchequer and failed Tory leadership contender.

A Commons motion, signed by MPs from all three main parties plus Welsh and Scottish Nationalists, will be tabled to test the water for the creation of a seven-strong committee of privy councillors to prevent what one MP called "other botched military interventions in Iran or elsewhere". It is hoped to attract MPs from all parties to force action.

“Mr. Dobson’s egregious violations of IRS code demand an investigation into his improper activities that break both the spirit and the letter of IRS law,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today.

Recently, the IRS has actively pursued investigations against several perceived liberal groups. The IRS targeted the NAACP’s chairman Julian Bond for a July 2004 speech in which he criticized the Bush administration's policies on civil rights and the war in Iraq. Additionally, the IRS has threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California because of an antiwar sermon there during the 2004 presidential election. In his sermon "If Jesus Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush," the Rector Emeritus of the church, George Regas, never encouraged parishoners to vote for one candidate over another, but only to vote their deepest values.

Sloan continued, “The IRS has established a track record of scrutinizing organizations, in particular liberal ones, that have purportedly violated electioneering regulations. We hope that the IRS will fully investigate Focus on the Family activities as vigorously as it has targeted those of progressive organizations.”

According to AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Al-Jazeera broadcast an insurgent video Tuesday showing four peace activists taken hostage in Iraq, with a previously unknown group claiming responsibility for the kidnappings.

The Swords of Righteousness Brigade said the four were spies working undercover as Christian peace activists, Al-Jazeera said. The station said it could not verify any of the information on the tape.

The aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams has confirmed that four of its members were taken hostage Saturday.

German TV broadcast photos Tuesday showing a blindfolded German woman being led away by armed captors in Iraq. Six Iranian pilgrims, meanwhile, were abducted by gunmen north of Baghdad.

The pictures of Susanne Osthoff were taken from a video in which her captors demanded that Germany stop any dealings with Iraq's government, according to Germany's ARD television. Germany has ruled out sending troops to Iraq and opposed the U.S.-led war.

Two U.S. soldiers assigned to Task Force Baghdad were killed when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb north of the capital, the U.S. command said. At least 2,109 members of the U.S. military have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Kidnappings and Slayings
By DEXTER FILKINS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison. In a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured.

Bayan Jabr, the interior minister, and other government officials denied any government involvement, saying the killings were carried out by men driving stolen police cars and wearing police and army uniforms purchased at local markets. "Impossible! Impossible!" Mr. Jabr said. "That is totally wrong; it's only rumors; it is nonsense."

Many of the claims of killings and abductions have been substantiated by at least one human rights organization working here - which asked not to be identified because of safety concerns - and documented by Sunni leaders working in their communities.

American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge.

But they also say it is difficult, in an already murky guerrilla war, to determine exactly who is responsible. The American officials insisted on anonymity because they were working closely with the Iraqi government and did not want to criticize it publicly.

The widespread conviction among Sunnis that the Shiite-led government is bent on waging a campaign of terror against them is sending waves of fear through the community, just as Iraqi and American officials are trying to coax the Sunnis to take part in nationwide elections on Dec. 15.

The reporter for Time magazine who recently agreed to testify in the CIA leak case is central to White House senior adviser Karl Rove's effort to fend off an indictment in the two-year-old investigation, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Viveca Novak, who has written intermittently about the leak case for Time, has been asked to provide sworn testimony to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the next few weeks after Rove attorney Robert Luskin told Fitzgerald about a conversation he had with her, the two sources said.

It's not clear why Luskin believes Novak's deposition could help Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, who remains under investigation into whether he provided false statements in the case. But a person familiar with the matter said Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October, when the prosecutor brought perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges against Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"This is what caused [Fitzgerald] to hold off on charging" Rove, the source said. But another person familiar with the conversations said they did not appear to significantly alter the case.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will present evidence to a second grand jury this week in his two year-old investigation into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson that could lead to a criminal indictment being handed up against Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, attorneys close to the investigation say.

Rove has remained under intense scrutiny because of inconsistencies in his testimony to investigators and the grand jury. According to sources, Rove withheld crucial facts on three separate occasions and allegedly misled investigators about conversations he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

The attorneys say that Rove’s former personal assistant, Susan B. Ralston -- who was also a special assistant to President Bush -- testified in August about why Cooper’s call to Rove was not logged. Ralston said it occurred because Cooper had phoned in through the White House switchboard and was then transferred to Rove’s office as opposed to calling Rove’s office directly. As Rove’s assistant, Ralston screened Rove’s calls.

But those close to the probe tell RAW STORY that Fitzgerald obtained documentary evidence showing that other unrelated calls transferred to Rove’s office by the switchboard were logged. He then called Ralston back to testify.

• Coalition for responsive blogging: the curse of Black's Perle
• Culture of Corruption Watch: Down goes the Duke
• The next shoe to drop?

Tags: Tom DeLay, Republicans, corruption

In an odd twist of roles, the civilians in the Bush administration want to go into Iraq with guns blazing while military officers advise restraint.

“It really is odd,” says one Pentagon military planner. “We want to weigh our options carefully and the political types over at the White House want to go in and bomb Saddam out of existence.”

Leading the charge to invade Iraq are Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, but military leaders from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on down are urging the administration to slow down and tone down the strong rhetoric.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is also urging restraint.

“This is not the time,” Powell told Bush and Cheney this week. “We are not ready.”

But Cheney and Rumsfeld are urging Bush to approve military action, saying every day of delay increases the odds of another terrorist attack against the U.S. Recent intelligence reports place Al Queda leaders operating in Iraq with training camps and funding from Saddam Hussein.

“The place is a goddamned time bomb,” an angry Rumsfeld told his staff in a recent meeting.

The differences over Iraq mark the sharpest disagreements among senior staff since the Bush administration took office with the Cheney and Rumsfeld calling those who oppose military actions “cowards.”

“It’s getting nasty,” says one White House source. “Meetings over Iraq now turn into shouting matches.”

Hollinger International's board ousted Black as chief executive in November 2003, sued him and stripped him of the chairman title the following January. Hollinger International sued Black to recover more than $425 million that it accused him and his associates of stealing to finance lavish lifestyles.

Black was also sued by his holding company, Hollinger Inc., and by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was charged Nov. 17 with mail fraud and wire fraud in an 11-count indictment.

• Culture of Corruption Watch: Down goes the Duke
• The next shoe to drop?

Tags: Duke Cunningham, Republicans, corruption

SAN DIEGO - Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, an eight-term congressman and hotshot Vietnam War fighter jock, pleaded guilty to graft and tearfully resigned Monday, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes mostly from defense contractors in exchange for government business and other favors.

"I'm resigning from the House of Representatives because I've compromised the trust of my constituents," he said. "The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office.

"I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, (and) most importantly, the trust of my friends and family," he said, his voice wavering.

The decorated Vietnam War Navy fighter pilot, who was first elected in 1990, indicated that he made the decision "some time ago" to plead guilty and begin serving a prison term.

"(As) I enter the twilight of my life, I intend to use the remaining time that God grants me to make amends," he said. "And I will."

U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said Cunningham enriched himself through his position, and violated the trust of the voters who put him there.

"It is a crime of really the worst magnitude," Lam said.

The evidence that Cunningham received bribes from four unnamed and uncharged co-conspirators between 2000 and 2005 was "fairly overwhelming," she said.

The co-conspirators were identified in the plea agreement as the majority owners of two defense contractors, an individual who controlled a financial company in New York state and the president of a New York mortgage firm.

The bribes were paid in a variety of methods, including checks totaling more than $1 million, cash, rugs, antiques, furniture, yacht club fees, boat repairs, moving costs and vacation expenses.

In return, Cunningham worked to influence the awarding of tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts, Lam said.

Will Harris get dragged into finance scandal?
Sun & Weekly Herald

Eleven years ago, employees of the Riscorp insurance company made campaign contributions totaling $20,292 to U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris. It was later discovered the employees were illegally reimbursed for their donations. Five Riscorp executives pleaded guilty to a range of charges and the company's president served a brief prison sentence. Harris denied any knowledge of the scheme, was never charged with any crime and was cleared of wrongdoing by a state investigator.

Fast-forward to 2004, when 16 employees of a company called MZM Inc. sent checks for $2,000 to her campaign -- 14 of them on the same day. The $32,000 was in addition to $10,000 the company's political action committee gave to her campaign. Last week, three employees told the San Diego Union-Tribune they were forced by the company's chief executive to donate to the firm's political action committee.

The company, MZM Inc., is a defense contractor that has received millions of dollars in classified defense contracts in recent years. Harris is taking a lay-low approach. Her congressional office is referring reporters to her campaign consultant, Adam Goodman, who did not return calls Monday seeking comment. ...

[O]ver the past three years it [MZM Inc.] was also awarded several contracts, worth more than $600,000, by the Executive Office of the President. They include a $140,000 deal for office furniture in 2002 and several for unspecified “intelligence services.”

Why did the White House hire MZM, a “defense and intelligence firm,” to buy office furniture for the White House?

• The next shoe to drop?

Tags: Duke Cunningham, Republicans, corruption

TRUE Enforcement is the antidote to the Bush Administration’s Big Lie that another massive illegal alien non-deportation scheme and foreign worker importation program is necessary to make America more secure. This propaganda was peddled most recently by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Michael Chertoff to the Senate Judiciary committee and to his own employees. In contrast, TRUE Enforcement looks like a knight in shining armor.

But what is "true" immigration law enforcement anyway?

Answer: Real immigration law enforcement is arresting aliens, deporting them, and making sure they stay out.

That means summary removal, not perpetual federal litigation. That means officers with guns removing as many interlopers and criminals as quickly and efficiently as possible.

...they don't allow that kind of thing on the FReep you know...

The really sad thin about it is that Bush really has nowhere to go on the immigration issue. He's got McCain nipping at his heels and, being from a border state, pushing for some form of amnesty (McCain is co-sponsoring a bill with Ted Kennedy of all people, which would give illegal immigrants visas for up to six years, after which they'd have to get straight or get deported. Not sure how you'd enforce that, so in other words, amnesty...) He's got Ken Mehlman sto;; trying to build a GOP rainbow coalition based mainly on a cobbled together coalition of angry white guys, right wing Black ministers, Cubans who don't get that Fidel is going to die of natural causes, still running Cuba, plus socially conservative, Catholic Mexicans who think it's cool that Dubya can sort of speak Spanish. He's got the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and his corporate farm cronies practically demanding cheap slave labor from Mexico and other parts south. And then he's got the Pat Buchanan/populist right creaming him on his "failure to live up to his Constitutional duty to protect the United States from invasion." All of this just wrecks what was supposed to be a signature issue for him -- his appeal to Hispanics (which is really his appeal to Cuban-Americans, but there you go.)

So what to do? Bush can't satisfy all of his base on this one, and as a result, he's pissing the whole base off. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost.

Update: Bush capped off his Mexicali junket with a speech on his desire for a "new" immigration policy. Unfortunately it sounds a lot like the old one:

He said the program he's proposing would create a legal way to match foreign workers with American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do.

What sorts of jobs would that be? Restaurant workers? Construction workers? Delivery drivers? Those kinds of jobs often pay crappy wages, mostly because illegal labor has driven down the price of labor to the point where Americans can't afford to take them. I'm not saying they were necessarily illegal, but every single one of the workers who build my house was a non-English speaker from South or Central America. Not one anglo or Black construction worker in the bunch. Didn't American men used to feed entire families on construction jobs? Or Mr. Bush must mean those killer jobs picking fruits and vegetables -- the agrucultural labor jobs that helped build this country because of free labor (slaves), cheap immigrant labor, and now, slave wage-like illegal immigrant labor. Mr. Bush can't do much about that as long as the business lobby tells him not to...

And what about the subject of the "security" in border security? Couldn't, say, a terrorist just sneak across the border the way even Mexican teenagers do? One would think so. Bush's balancing act just gets hairier and hairier...

Update 2: Human Events reports that give 'em Hell Harry's" has called on President Bush to "stand up to the right wing" on immigration. And according to the same article, the White House used to treat poor Tom Tancredo like a crazy auntie (if they're not still treating him that way, they're in more trouble than I thought...)

Update 3: Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

La Nueva Orleans

NO MATTER WHAT ALL the politicians and activists want, African Americans and impoverished white Cajuns will not be first in line to rebuild the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Latino immigrants, many of them undocumented, will. And when they're done, they're going to stay, making New Orleans look like Los Angeles. It's the federal government that will have made the transformation possible, further exposing the hollowness of the immigration debate.

President Bush has promised that Washington will pick up the greater part of the cost for "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." To that end, he suspended provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act that would have required government contractors to pay prevailing wages in Louisiana and devastated parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. And the Department of Homeland Security has temporarily suspended sanctioning employers who hire workers who cannot document their citizenship. The idea is to benefit Americans who may have lost everything in the hurricane, but the main effect will be to let contractors hire illegal immigrants.

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Mexican and Central American laborers are already arriving in southeastern Louisiana. One construction firm based in Metairie, La., sent a foreman to Houston to round up 150 workers willing to do cleanup work for $15 an hour, more than twice their wages in Texas. The men — most of whom are undocumented, according to news accounts — live outside New Orleans in mobile homes without running water and electricity. The foreman expects them to stay "until there's no more work" but "there's going to be a lot of construction jobs for a really long time."

Because they are young and lack roots in the United States, many recent migrants are ideal for the explosion of construction jobs to come. Those living in the U.S. will relocate to the Gulf Coast, while others will come from south of the border. Most will not intend to stay where their new jobs are, but the longer the jobs last, the more likely they will settle permanently. One recent poll of New Orleans evacuees living in Houston emergency shelters found that fewer than half intend to return home. In part, their places will be taken by the migrant workers. Former President Clinton recently hinted as much on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he said New Orleans will be resettled with a different population.

Tags: Bush, Immigration, borders

• Secrets, lies and bombing Al-Jazeera
• The bad news bombs

Tags: Iraq, Bush, War, Al-Jazeera, Tony Blair

BERLIN Nov 28, 2005 — The United States has told the European Union it needs more time to respond to media reports that the CIA set up secret jails in some European nations and transported terror suspects by covert flights, the top EU justice official said Monday.

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini also warned that that any of the 25 bloc nations found to have operated secret CIA prisons could have their EU voting rights suspended.

Interesting that the U.S. seems to be stalling for time on this inquiry, isn't it? Why the delay tactics? To find a way to cover allies, perhaps, or to find a way to cover themselves...? Here's the rub:

... Frattini said suspending EU voting rights would be justified under the EU treaty which stipulates that the bloc is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, and that a persistent breach of these principles can be punished.

Clandestine detention centers would violate the European Convention on Human Rights.