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Condoleezza Rice
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06 December 2005
War on Terror Must Be Waged "Lawfully," Rice Tells European Media, December 6, 2005 (United States does not send people to be tortured, secretary says in Germany)
By Vince Crawley
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington – If Americans stray from their own laws and values while fighting terrorists, then the United States would be no better than its enemies, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in interviews with European media in Germany.
During her four-country visit to Europe, Rice has been defending strongly U.S. conduct in worldwide anti-terror operations as journalists and European leaders press for more details on news reports that the CIA has run secret interrogation centers in at least two East European countries. Before departing for Europe, Rice issued a public statement that the United States neither tortures nor condones the torture of anyone. (See related article.)
“The War on Terror has to be fought lawfully,” Rice said during an interview with German TV One (ARD) on December 6. “And if it's not, then we're not a country of laws, and that is no place to be.”
Terrorists, she said, “have no regard for innocent life. The terrorists live in a lawless and law-free society. They live in a world that crosses these boundaries in shadowy ways. They're stateless in a sense. We don't want to mimic them or to become like them.”
Rice was even more direct during an interview with Britain’s Sky News. “We don’t send people to be tortured,” she said.
Rice told ARD that the United States takes quick action to correct any misconduct or human rights violations committed by Americans during the campaign against terrorists.
Images of U.S. troops abusing Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003 “sickened every American,” she said. “We denounced it. We punished people who were involved in it. There were long prison sentences handed out to people. And that’s the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.”
"RENDITION" AN IMPORTANT TOOL
In news conferences and interviews, Rice has not commented on reports that some CIA flights carrying detainees to the alleged secret detention centers may have flown over European airspace. However, the secretary has defended the U.S. practice known as “rendition,” which refers to transport of suspects by methods other than traditional judicial procedures from one country to another so that they can be questioned or tried.
“It’s the U.S. view that rendition is a legal practice, that it is a practice that takes terrorists off the streets,” Rice said, adding that it has been used by the United States for years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Asked by Sky News about media reports on the alleged CIA detention centers, Rice said, “I’m not going to speculate on activities that I can’t confirm or deny. “
“We have to remember that intelligence is key to this war on terrorism,” she said. “If you cannot have good intelligence, you can't prevent an attack. And we have to remember that these are people who are living among us, who are wantonly killing innocent civilians. And I mean going after civilians. Not collateral damage of civilians, but a wedding party in Amman [Jordan] or a subway stop in Madrid [Spain]. So this is a different kind of war, and we’re fighting it with all of the lawful means at our disposal.”
CIA Director Porter Goss “has made clear that we do indeed engage in getting intelligence from a small number of extremely dangerous, extremely high-ranking al-Qaida detainees,” Rice said.
“If you cannot prosecute someone that is either a known terrorist or a suspected terrorist, do you simply release them into the general population so that they can kill innocents? Of course not,” she said. “Sometimes it is important to get them back to their home country, where they may face charges. But we do seek assurances that people will not be tortured. We are a country of laws and we do not believe in torture as appropriate in the international system.”
Transcripts of Rice’s interviews with German TV One (ARD) and Britain’s Sky News are available on the State Department Web site.
