Sarah Baxter, Washington and Nicola Smith, Brussels
UNDER siege over allegations of secret CIA detention centres in Europe, Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, is to go on the offensive when she meets European allies this week.
Convinced that the media, rather than Europe’s leaders, are making the biggest fuss about reports of “black sites” housing top Al-Qaeda prisoners, Rice has decided she can afford to brush off mounting criticism of America’s human rights record.
The White House adopted an aggressive tone when Scott McClellan, the presidential spokesman, said on Friday that George W Bush did not condone torture. “When it comes to human rights, there is no greater leader than the United States of America,” he said.
Rice has promised to respond to a letter from Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, written on behalf of the European Union about the reports. But she is not expected to go into detail about the existence of the alleged sites, nor about suspicions that European airports have been used for CIA flights on which terrorist suspects were taken to third countries with harsh interrogation methods.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1903373,00.html