Condoleezza Rice landed in Romania yesterday amidst great fanfare, and I watched the whole thing live and uninterrupted. Since Romania is my new home country, we'll start with things there.

Just about every Romanian paper has something to say about her visit. Besides the CIA jails issue, Rice was in the country to sign a document which will pave the way for the installation of at least one permanent American base on Romanian soil.

In general, the Romanian press had three issues on their minds, which I will summarize below:

The base(s) - In general, Romanians are super happy to have the Americans coming. Residents of the town of Mihail Kogalcineanu, near the big airbase most likely to be used, think that the Americans will bring money and a massive boost to their local economy, which in general is extremely poor. The politicians too are extremely happy to be considered one of America's "allies" and best friends, and there is little dissent amongst the different parties on this issue. The lone exception of course is the PRM xenophobe party, but they hate everyone.

The secret jails - In general, Romanians believe that this issue is impossible to believe and that nothing of the sort occurred in Romania. The president of Romania used extremely tough language during his press conference with Rice, saying basically "no way, no how, never ever" were there any bases on Romanian soil and he invited anyone and everyone to check out any site or location where they think one might've been.

The cost - I'm not referring to monetary cost of the bases or the CIA jails, but the cost in terms of vulnerability to terrorism. There is a growing sense that Romania's super close alliance with the United States is going to result in some kind of terrorism event in Romania soon. My estimate from what I've seen is that if a single event occurs, with a single loss of life, and it's blamed on Al-Qaeda or Romania's alliance with the United States, a lot of people are going to sour on the relationship.

According to Evenimentul Zilei, Romania has spent 4.5 million dollars on a contract with Northrup Grumman, partially to entice the Americans to use the base at M. Kogalcineanu. It also looks like only approximately 2,000 American troops will be in Romania on a regular basis.

Now on to the press conference. The English half comes from the State Department's website, which has cut out all the Romanian segments:

SECRETARY RICE: First of all, I've had discussions with our allies about the importance of our intelligence activities in taking terrorists off the streets. Let's remember that you can't prevent an attack if you don't know about it, and so in intelligence is the only way that you know about an attack before one is actually to take place.

I have said before I have faced an inquiry about whether or not all was done that could have been done, and what we know from that inquiry is that we were not able to mobilize the intelligence that we needed inside and outside of the country to prevent the attacks of September 11th. Perhaps it wasn't possible to prevent them, but we know that we put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of intelligence in doing precisely that.

Now, as to renditions, I think it's probably a good argument that having Ramzi Youssef off the streets saved lives, given his history and given what he has plotted and planned. And so I feel quite confident in the argument that I have made to our -- my colleagues publicly through the statement that I made yesterday that we -- that taking terrorists off the streets, not simply releasing them back into the general population, making certain that you use every lawful means to capture them and to interrogate them and to make certain that you're getting the information that you need, that that is a practice that saves lives. I know this business well enough to know that without doing those things and without gathering intelligence, you're not going to save lives.

Basically not much of substance and nothing hard-hitting for Rice from the press corp, probably because most of the questions were asked in English by the American and western press.

The Romanian side of the press conference comes from the president's website and is translated by me, therefore all errors are entirely mine.

At the end of their statements to the press, President Basescu and the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice answered the questions of the journalists.

Question: Mr. President, is there any risk for Romania from now on because of this [American] military presence?

Basescu: Romania has assumed risks since it entered the western Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Irak. The risk is neither greater nor less than before. This is just a step forward, if you want to call it that, than before in terms of Romania involving itself in the global security system. In terms of risks, those existed the moment Romania declared itself a nation which will fight terrorism. The risks are the same, we don't have any additional risks. Practically speaking, these things could slightly increase the potential for risk, but the moment in which I decided to sign this treaty, I evaluated the risks and I knew we were capable of doing this without a guarantee that things would be perfect. But it's a calculated risk, assumed and at the same time appreciated so it can be kept under control.

Question: Mr. President, is Romania reconsidering its troop presence in Iraq or are you firmly decided to keep troops there? And Madame Secretary, have you given any examples to European leaders today of where renditions have actually saved lives, as you've told us? And if you haven't, are you concerned about whether they will accept your argument regarding this matter?

Basescu: Romania is decided, as I have confirmed all along, to finish the mission we have undertaken, not just for the sake of our allies, but for the sake of the Iraqi people so they can live in a country that is stabilized in terms of domestic stability, can handle its own security and if you like, from a political standpoint. Romania will not reduce its military capacity in Iraqi but will remain until the end at the service of the Iraqi government. They will remain until the end of the UN resolution along with its allies in the same way until our withdrawal from Iraq will be completeted all the goals we have set forth there, that is to say, a democratic country, a country in which the citizens have security. And Romania will be, on the other hand, a country which can hold its head high and say it has completed its obligations to its allies.

Rice: (see quote above)

Basescu then ended the press conference with this statement (not in response to a question):

I have already stated that, concerning CIA prisons on Romanian territory, nothing of the sort existed and it would not be possible for the use of torture to exist in Romania. We are a country which respects human rights. At the same time I have stated - to any international civil or political organization, if you wish to visit any place in Romania, any military base, any location suspected of being used for detention or torture, Romania puts all of its territory at your disposition concerning this issue. The only thing we ask is that those who speak about Romania, that it hosts or hosted torture places, to take the responsibility for the statements you make. We cannot accept the endless speculation of whether planes landed or not, whether torture or secret jails existed or not. Planes have landed and more will land. Romania collaborates with the United States, not just on the level of the military or on a political level, but also our intelligence agencies have an intense collaboration as well. We will no longer speak of the fact that Romania has benefited and will continue to benefit from the training given to our intelligence network, which is done here, in the country. Under these conditions, it seems to be absolutely out of place that because planes land and take off from bases that this means there are secret jails in which torture is practiced. Romania is going to close this subject saying just one thing: whoever has suspicions is welcome to visit Romania. Concerning those who engage in speculations, Romania is not prepared to accept accusations that it has violated human rights.

And there you go...

Elsewhere, the Washington Post had an excellent article on the 2003 kidnapping by the CIA of an imam off the streets of Milan:

In March 2003, the Italian national anti-terrorism police received an urgent message from the CIA about a radical Islamic cleric who had mysteriously vanished from Milan a few weeks before. The CIA reported that it had reliable information that the cleric, the target of an Italian criminal investigation, had fled to an unknown location in the Balkans.

In fact, according to Italian court documents and interviews with investigators, the CIA's tip was a deliberate lie, part of a ruse designed to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian refugee known as Abu Omar.

This surveillance photo of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was found on a disk in the home of the CIA's ranking official in Milan, according to Italian police. (Courtesy Corriere Della Sera)

The strategy worked for more than a year until Italian investigators learned that Nasr had not gone to the Balkans after all. Instead, prosecutors here have charged, he was abducted off a street in Milan by a team of CIA operatives who took him to two U.S. military bases in succession and then flew him to Egypt, where he was interrogated and allegedly tortured by Egyptian security agents before being released to house arrest.

Excellent article definitely worth reading in its entirety. Italian newspaper Repubblica also has a good article about the case, which seems to fly in the face of Rice's Monday statement that the U.S. has "respected the sovereignty" of European countries. This includes a blistering denial of knowledge of the CIA's actions from the Italian "White House" (Chigi Palace). Translation is mine:

"In the Chigi Palace, nobody in the Italian government was warned, nor given any information, about the kidnapping of Abu Omar. Concerning the rest, the same source [published articles] from which some would want to draw implications, not only did the United States not inform Italy, but the information precisely reveals the ongoing deception of the Italian authorities".

Yikes! In the strongest possible terms, everyone from PM Berlusconi on down has denied that the United States gave any advance knowledge or information about the kidnapping of Abu Omar and in fact deceived them, especially with the "ruse" stuff described in the WaPo article.

And even worse, it looks like the Italian government had plenty of stuff on Abu Omar in order to give him a trial in Italy, something which would seemingly rule out any need for extrajudicial "renditions" defended by Rice on Monday. For the life of me, I still can't even figure out why they wanted to kidnap him in the first place.

Sticking to the WaPo, last Sunday Dana Priest, the reporter who broke this story in November, had an article on poor old Khaled al-Masri, the German citizen who was kidnapped by the CIA in Macedonia. For the detail's on Masri's abduction, see my story on him here.

Masri is now suing the CIA and its former chief, George Tenet, via the ACLU. You can read about their lawsuit via their website here (PDF). What's interesting is that when Rice met new German Chancellor Merkel, Merkel said they spoke about Masri's case and that Rice said the U.S. was "ready to correct its mistakes", seemingly confessing that the Masri kidnapping was a mistake.

In fact, Rice said:

''Any policy will sometimes have errors," Rice told a news conference in the German capital, first stop on a four-nation swing through Europe that is meant, in part, to secure support for the secret campaign against terror groups. ''When that happens, we will do everything we can to rectify it."

But Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, speaking at the same packed news conference, said that the United States had owned up to making wrong moves in the case of Khaled Masri, a Lebanese-born car salesman living in the southern German town of Ulm.

Masri was snatched by intelligence operatives while on holiday in Macedonia on Dec. 31, 2003, spirited to a secret interrogation center in Afghanistan, and held incommunicado for five months during which he allegedly was roughly questioned about his supposed links to Al Qaeda. He was then flown to Albania and released, blindfolded, on a remote mountain road without explanation or apology after the CIA apparently concluded that he was who he said he was -- an out-of-work car salesman unlucky enough to have a name similar to that of an Al Qaeda fugitive named Khalid al-Masri.

''I'm pleased to say we spoke about [this] individual case, which the government of the United States has accepted as a mistake," Merkel told reporters as Rice stood beside her. ''I'm very happy that the secretary has repeated here that when such mistakes happen, they must be corrected immediately."

So the Abu Omar and the Khaled al-Masri cases are two quite public examples of what a failed policy "renditions" are. They also seem to quite clearly indicate that the U.S. has not respected the sovereignty of European countries. Both men also claimed they were tortured after being "rendered", which puts a big dent in the Rice/Bush statements that the U.S. does not fly detainees to places where they will be tortured.

Meanwhile the American news network ABC made a startling report:

Two secret CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe were closed last month after Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported the existence of such jails in Poland and Romania, according the US TV network ABC News. As US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice embarked on what promised to be a controversial tour of Europe in the wake of the row over CIA activities, the network cited current and former CIA officers who said that 11 al-Qaeda terror suspects detained at a former Soviet air base in Eastern Europe have now been transferred to a new CIA facility in the North African desert.

All but one of the 11 prisoners were subjected to the harshest interrogation techniques used by the CIA, ABC reports, which only 14 officers are authorised to use.

All were held at the base in one Eastern European country and some were later moved to a facility in a second country nearby, but the sources said that following the HRW report the US then acted quickly to move all suspects off European territory before Rice's tour began.

Once suspects have "outlived their usefulness to the United States" they are secretly returned to their home country, the current and former CIA officers said, while others are shipped immediately to countries such as Jordan, Syria, Morocco and Egypt, in order to extract confessions quickly using techniques harsher than those US intelligence officers are authorised to use.

ABC says the CIA has operated secret prisons around the world since March 2002, when one was opened in Thailand to detain senior al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah, after he was captured in Pakistan.

I rather imagine that "North African desert" refers to either Algeria or Morocco, both tight allies to the Bush administration. Many people do not know that Morocco has been designated a "Major Non-NATO US Ally", which qualifies it for all kinds of trade exemptions, including military hardware transfers. The Moroccans are old hands at interrogation, torture and detainment camps and have plenty of places to put a prison far from prying eyes, especially since the kingdom employs harsh crackdowns against independent media.

Switching over to Asia, now it seems that Thailand is denying the use of its territory to host secret prisoners:

"I want to reassure all of you that we do not have a secret jail and there was never any terrorist suspect passing through Thailand," Pol Gen Chidchai said.

"We are smart enough not to allow such things to happen."

A Washington Post report last month, and recent ABC News broadcasts have reported about secret CIA jails said to have existed since March 2002 when the first was created in Thailand.

"No, they (the US media) tried to implicate us," Pol Gen Chidchai said.

"I have worked on intelligence and haven't heard such a story."

The United States used the old U Tapao naval airbase for about a month for relief operations after the 2004 tsunami, but closed down operations again.

New York-based Human Rights Watch in November said that at least three men, including Southeast Asia's most wanted man, Hambali, were arrested in Thailand in 2003 and transferred to secret CIA prisons. Hambali was arrested in Ayutthaya.

So there is or was a network of secret bases, but they don't seem to exist anywhere as every named possible host country denies their existance. Interesting conundrum, wouldn't you say?

Speaking of denials, Belgium says its territory wasn't used either:

No secret CIA flights have landed at Belgian airports in the past five years, Transport Minister Renaat Landuyt said on Tuesday.

The Belgian government decided two weeks ago to investigate whether CIA flights carrying terrorist suspects had landed in Belgium.

Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht told MPs last Thursday that no flights carried out by the American intelligence agency had landed at Belgian military airbases.

The aviation inspectorate's investigations into flights at civilian airports had not been completed at the time, newspaper 'Het Gazet van Antwerpen' reported.

Well considering that the planes in question were civilian in nature and registered under false corporate identities, it makes sense that they wouldn't land at Belgian military airfields.

Meanwhile I'm seeing reports that possible confirm CIA plane landings in Iceland and Holland. Full article in Dutch language here. It looks like they're saying a plane with registration N505LL was the one which landed at Schipol.

The article refers to a report in the newspaper Morgunblaðið but unfortunately my Icelandic is really quite poor so I can't find the mentioned article.

As always, the investigation continues...

Peace