Britain admits CIA flights halted at Diego Garcia

The CIA admitted that previous data given to America’s strongest ally “turned out to be wrong.” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Parliament on Thursday that recent talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice showed two suspects had been on flights to Guantanamo Bay and Morocco in 2002 that stopped on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a US base on British soil.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair came under heavy criticism for Britain’s close alliance with the US in the war in Iraq and its part in the US-led war on terrorism. The latest disclosure could pressure the US to identify other countries used in extraordinary renditions, a practice of transferring suspects without formal extradition proceedings that human rights groups say opens the door for third-party countries to torture suspects.

Miliband told lawmakers he was “very sorry” to have to correct statements made by the Government in 2005, 2006 and 2007 that there were no such transfers involving Britain.

He and Rice “both agree that the mistake made in these two cases are not acceptable, and she shares my deep regret that this information has only just come to light,” said Miliband, who has sometimes broken ranks with the British government over military action in Iraq and policies in the Middle East.

The CIA acknowledged that the information previously provided to the British “turned out to be wrong,” despite earlier US assurances that none of the secret flights since the September 11, 2001, attacks had used British airspace or soil.

The agency, which said that neither of the two suspects was tortured or held on Diego Garcia, reviewed rendition records late last year and discovered that in 2002 the CIA had refueled two separate planes.

“The refueling, conducted more than five years ago, lasted just a short time. But it happened. That we found this mistake ourselves, and that we brought it to the attention of the British government, in no way changes or excuses the reality that we were in the wrong,” CIA Director Michael Hayden said in a message obtained by Associated Press.

Despite American assurances, British officials kept pressure on their US counterparts to check all records of rendition flights, according to a British government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

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