Administration officials said this week that they were taken aback by the intensity of the European reaction to the reports. They acknowledged that the furor had been fed by two years of disclosures about American treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and in Afghanistan.
The uproar has been especially strong in Spain, Germany, Italy, Romania and Poland. Although the British press has covered the issue extensively, the government there has not been critical of the American position.
You mean Eurotrash actually care about this stuff?
How would the US administration feel if the EU had secret prisons in Puerto Rico? tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
In a recent Daily Kos thread:
Reuters's Charlie Aldinger asked about "uniformed death squads" in Iraq. Rumsfeld replied: "I'm not going to comment on hypothetical questions." When Aldinger protested that the question was not hypothetical, Rumsfeld replied that Iraq is "a sovereign country" and suggested the death-squad allegations could be politically motivated. "I just don't know," he said. "I can only talk about what I know." With an exaggerated shrug, he added: "That's life."
When Aldinger protested that the question was not hypothetical, Rumsfeld replied that Iraq is "a sovereign country" and suggested the death-squad allegations could be politically motivated. "I just don't know," he said. "I can only talk about what I know." With an exaggerated shrug, he added: "That's life."
