Antony Loewenstein

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Yet more evidence that Washington is a law unto itself:

The Bush administration was so intent on keeping Guantanamo detainees off U.S. soil and away from U.S. courts that it secretly tried to negotiate deals with Latin American countries to provide “life-saving” medical procedures rather than fly ill terrorist suspects to the U.S. for treatment, a recently released State Department cable shows.

The U.S. offered to transport, guard and pay for medical procedures for any captive the Pentagon couldn’t treat at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba, according to the cable, which was made public by the WikiLeaks website. One by one, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Mexico declined.

The secret effort is spelled out in a Sept. 17, 2007, cable from then assistant secretary of state Thomas Shannon to the U.S. embassies in those four countries. Shannon is now the U.S. ambassador in Brazil.

At the time, the Defense Department was holding about 330 captives at Guantanamo, not quite twice the number that are there today. They included alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and two other men whom the CIA waterboarded at its secret prison sites.

The cable, which was posted on the WikiLeaks website March 14, draws back the curtain on contingency planning at Guantanamo, but also contradicts something the prison camp’s hospital staff has been telling visitors for years — that the U.S. can dispatch any specialist necessary to make sure the captives in Cuba get first-class treatment.

“Detainees receive state-of-the-art medical care at Guantanamo for routine, and many non-routine, medical problems. There are, however, limits to the care that DOD can provide at Guantanamo,” Shannon said in the cable, referring to the Department of Defense.

The cable didn’t give examples of those limits. But it sought partner countries to commit to a “standby arrangement” to provide “life-saving procedures” on a “humanitarian basis.”

It’s unclear what prompted the effort. The cable said then Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte had approved making the request at the behest of then Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, who at the time oversaw Guantanamo operations.

Negroponte said Wednesday that he had “no recollection” of the request but that it would have been unrealistic to expect the Latin American nations to agree to it, “because anything to do with Guantanamo was always so politically controversial for any of these countries.” England didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The New York Times, being an establishment paper, unsurprisingly backs Barack Obama’s military intervention in Libya.

Much more revealing, however, is this interview with Samantha Power, a senior director on the National Security Council.

I truly wonder if she believes the words she’s telling Politico:

Obama “has used his pulpit and a number of speeches … to kind of clear the brush that had gathered around the norms in previous years, rehabilitating some of the principles and cleaning up some of the associations,” she said, referring to international values of democracy and human rights.

“The words ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ have come to acquire meaning and content that Barack Obama and his administration provided,” she said.

“His success in rehabilitating those norms or providing that ocntent has actually made it easier for other governments to stand with us,” she said. She didn’t refer directly to the coalition now battling the Libyan government.

One of the key elements of this “clearing of the brush,” she said, had been “recognizing that human rights had to begin at home, and that his task and the Administration’s task was to strenghten the power of our example.”

She cited Obama’s torture bank, his “return to the Geneva Conventions, and his push to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

“He also renounced the imposition of democracy by military force,” she said.

Power also made the case that the American decision to return to the United Nations Human Rights Council — a venue disliked by the U.S. for its focus on criticism of Israel — has paid off in the Libya crisis with the Council’s expulsion of Libya.

There are really few examples where the Obama administration has seriously changed policies from the Bush years. Look at Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, warrant-less wire-tapping in the US, continuation of Guanatanamo Bay and military commissions for “terror suspects”, no accountability for torture and the list goes on.

Judge Obama on his actions not pretty words.

Don’t you get the feeling that we’ll be reading these kinds of stories for years as it becomes clear Washington treated terror suspects little better than stray dogs?

The Defense Department has claimed it took the unprecedented step of forcing all “war on terror” detainees sent to Guantanamo in 2002 to take a high dosage of a controversial anti-malarial drug known to have severe side effects because the government was concerned the disease could be reintroduced into Cuba by detainees arriving from malaria-endemic countries Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But hundreds of contractors who were hired by Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), at the time a subsidiary of Halliburton, the oil services firm formerly headed by Dick Cheney, from malaria-endemic countries such as the Philippines and India and tasked with building Guantanamo’s Camp Delta facility in early 2002 did not receive the same type of medical treatment, calling into question the government’s rationale of mass presumptive treatment of detainees with the drug mefloquine, a Truthout investigation has found.

Here’s a shameful interview yesterday on ABC Melbourne radio with former Guantanamo Bay captive David Hicks. For the record, Hicks may have pleaded guilty to terrorism charges but he did so to simply get out of the US gulag:

David Hicks: I don’t think you’ve read my book, that’s correct?

Jon Faine: No, I’ve not read your book.

Hicks: Are you aware that I’ve even written a book?

Faine: I’m aware that you’ve written a book called Guantanamo: My Journey. When it arrived at the radio station we asked if you were available. We were told you were not, so I didn’t read it.

Hicks: What do you mean by that?

Faine: Well, this was last year I think it came out, didn’t it?

Hicks: It came out in the middle of October.

Faine: Yeah, so at the stage the book arrived you were not available so I didn’t read a book for someone I wasn’t going to interview.

Hicks: Oh, fair enough. I’d have thought you had an interest in this area and obviously you knew you’d be speaking to me, you would read about it.

Faine: I was told I’d be speaking to you about an hour ago, so I haven’t been able to read your book in an hour, so keep going, though. If you renounce terrorism, what’s led to your change of heart?

Hicks: Nothing’s led to my change of heart. It’s a bit difficult to discuss this with someone who’s not read my book. There’s tens of thousands of Australians out there who have read my book and even before then were informed enough to know differently.

Faine: Well, I plead guilty that I haven’t read your book. You plead guilty to terrorism. I think your offence is the greater. Can we discuss it, please?

These were the good old days; 2005:

As it struggles to combat Islamic terrorist networks, the Bush administration has quietly built an intelligence alliance with Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, a onetime bitter enemy the U.S. had tried for years to isolate, topple or kill.

Kadafi has helped the U.S. pursue Al Qaeda’s network in North Africa by turning radicals over to neighboring pro-Western governments. He also has provided information to the CIA on Libyan nationals with alleged ties to international terrorists.

In turn, the U.S. has handed over to Tripoli some anti-Kadafi Libyans captured in its campaign against terrorism. And Kadafi’s agents have been allowed into the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba to interrogate Libyans being held there.

Of course, funding a brutal dictator such as Mubarak to the tune of billions of dollars annually rather contradicts this easy pledge. An early 2010 cable:

CLASSIFIED BY: Margaret Scobey, Ambassador; REASON: 1.4(B), (D)

¶1. Key Points:

– (C) In meetings January 13-14, A/S Posner told activists and opposition politicians that the U.S. is seeking ways to advance human rights and political participation over the coming 12-18 months.

– (C) Activists urged the U.S. to end a “double standard” on Israeli human rights violations, close Guantanamo and speak out
against GOE repression.

– (C) Opposition political leaders agreed that prospects for
significant political reform are slim while President Mubarak
remains in office. Most expected Mubarak to be a candidate in
2011, and predicted the military would play a role in succession to
ensure stability.

– (C) Former Presidential candidate Ayman Nour urged A/S Posner to
press the GOE to stop interfering with opposition political activity, and to allow him to work and travel.

¶2. (C) A/S Posner told activists the U.S. is interested in how to advance human rights in Egypt over the next 12-18 months to improve people’s lives. He said the U.S. would pursue a traditional human rights agenda to address police brutality, restrictions on NGOs, freedom of expression and assembly problems, sectarian tensions, and the State of Emergency. Posner noted that the U.S. is engaged on the coming Egyptian elections, and is working on issues of observation, participation and training. Posner said that the UN Human Rights Council focuses disproportionately on Israel. He described the Goldstone Report as flawed for not being able to include the Israeli government position, and called for Israeli and Palestinian domestic investigations into human rights violations during the Gaza war.

My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey:

According to Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian ambassador to the US, Hosni Mubarak has now transferred all powers to his recently appointed Vice-President Omar Suleiman.

Despite a barrage of speculation that Mubarak was going to step down overnight — including comments from head of the CIA, which makes one wonder the current power America has over the Egyptian President — the President is staying put.

Egyptian bloggers and protesters on the streets in Egypt reacted with fury and pledged their determination to continue the movement.

Suleiman, the feared head of Egypt’s intelligence services, is a long-time friend of America and Israel.

But an Australian citizen, former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib, has an intimate knowledge of Suleiman; he met him personally while Habib was illegally rendered to Egypt in 2001 and tortured.

Crikey spoke exclusively to Habib last night in Sydney and he reiterated his belief that the Australian government’s recent deal with him vindicated his allegations of serious mistreatment against Canberra, Washington and Cairo.

In his book, My Story, Habib outlines the ways in which Suleiman threatened him in an Egyptian torture prison — key extracts here — and today Habib is calling for the arrest and trial of Suleiman himself. Habib told me the following:

“People in Egypt know who Omar Suleiman is. They’re protesting against Mubarak and Suleiman. I’m not in Egypt but I’m sending a message to the world that Suleiman is an agent for the CIA, Mossad or anybody who is paying money.

“I knew about Suleiman before I was rendered to Egypt, every Egyptian did, but I had never seen him before. To talk about September 11 and kidnapping is that rendition had been happening for years [before 9/11].

“Australia, America and Britain are now supporting Suleiman even though the Australian government now admits they were mistaken and they did wrong [by backing my rendition in 2001]. Australia now has to ask for this man [Suleiman] to be arrested and in jail. He’s a criminal.

“I have a statement from somebody in the agency in Egypt, the Mukabarat [secret police], I’ve been in contact with him and some lawyer in Egypt and some lawyer overseas, and he’s given evidence about what happened inside the building with Omar Suleiman. I have this statement and this makes me settle the case with the Australian government. I have more evidence.

“I want to put my case in an international court to put Suleiman and Mubarak and the Americans who were involved in my rendition [on trial]. I know every single person involved in my rendition; the Australian ambassador in Islamabad, the CIA, Suleiman and some Pakistanis. I’ve got evidence and witnesses.

“Rendition still happens now. I can’t tell you much about the details because people inside Egypt give information but if I give news about cases people may be in serious trouble. One hour ago I heard about people being kidnapped from America and Britain and Kuwait [and rendered to Egypt].

“If America supports Suleiman again then Obama is a criminal and he’ll have big hatred from the Egyptian people. I’m telling the world to open their eyes about Suleiman.

“Only deal I have with the Australian government I’m not going to say how much I’ve been paid for the crimes been done to me, that’s all, but anything else I’m free to talk. I asked the Australian government to help me take Suleiman and the Australians to court to be charged.”

The Obama administration remains divided over the best way to manage the Egyptian uprisings but New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, who has been in Cairo with the protesters, writes that America had a choice to side with the demonstrators or back the regime. Washington’s choice was clear. Canberra has simply followed America’s position.

*Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution

Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was captured and tortured in the years after September 11 in both Egypt and Guantanamo Bay.

For years, “war on terror” supporters defamed Habib and claimed he was lying about his allegations of mistreatment. However last year in just one case against the Australian Murdoch press, he won a small victory:

The courts have delivered another win to former Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib, declaring that he was defamed by News Ltd columnist Piers Akerman, paving the way for a hefty payout.

The New South Wales Court of Appeal overturned a 2008 judgment in favour of Mr Akerman’s publisher Nationwide News and yesterday ordered them to pay Mr Habib’s legal costs in the five-year-old battle.

It was the second win for Mr Habib in a month after the full court of the Federal Court upheld an appeal in his mammoth compensation case against the federal government for allegedly aiding and abetting his torture by foreign agents. 

Another hearing will now be held to determine what damages he will receive for the 2005 article in The Daily Telegraph and other News Ltd newspapers, headlined ”Mr Habib, it’s time to tell the full story”.

Today, with the Egyptian uprisings in full swing, the man tapped by the US, Israel and the West to lead the country, Omar Suleiman, was one of Habib’s torturers and there is intense scrutiny of who this man truly is.

I interviewed Habib exclusively tonight in Sydney about Suleiman, his calls for the torturer-in-chief to be charged, his knowledge about all the figures complicit in his rendition and his support for the Egyptian protests. He stressed that Suleiman was a CIA/Mossad agent who was willing to do anything for a price:

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I reviewed Habib’s book, My Story, in 2008 for the Sydney Morning Herald and it tells a powerful story. The extracts below are all the references to Suleiman:

pp.112-115

The guard quickly told me that the very big boss was coming to talk to me, and that I must be well behaved and co-operate. Everyone was nervous. I have since found out that the boss was Omar Suleiman, head of all Egyptian security. He was known for personally supervising the interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and sending reports to the CIA. In the beginning, he was often present during my interrogations. He must have thought that he had a big fish when I was sent to him by the Americans and Australians.

I was sitting in a chair, hooded, with my hands handcuffed behind my back. He came up to me. His voice was deep and rough. He spoke to me in Egyptian and English. He said, “Listen, you don’t know who I am, but I am the one who has your life in his hands. Every single person in this building has his life in my hands. I just make the decision.”

I said, “I hope your decision is that you make me die straight away.”

“No, I don’t want you to die now. I want you to die slowly.” He went on, “I can’t stay with you; my time is too valuable to stay here. You only have me to save you. I’m your saviour. You have to tell me everything, if you want to be saved. What do you say?”

“I have nothing to tell you.”

“You think I can’t destroy you just like that?” He clapped his hands together.

“I don’t know”. I was feeling confused. Everything was unreal.

“If God came down and tried to take you by the hand, I would not let him. You are under my control. Let me show you something that will convince you.”

The guard then guided me out of the room and through an area where I could see, from below the blindfold, the trunks of palm trees. We then went through another door back inside, and descended some steps. We entered a room. They sat me down.

“Now you are going to tell me that you planned a terrorist attack”, Suleiman persisted.

“I haven’t planned any attacks.”

“I give you my word that you will be a rich man if you tell me you have been planning attacks. Don’t you trust me?” he asked.

“I don’t trust anyone”, I replied.

Immediately he slapped me hard across the face and knocked off the blindfold; I clearly saw his face.

“That’s it. That’s it. I don’t want to see this man again until he co-operates and tells me he’s been planning a terrorist attack! he yelled at the others in the room, then stormed out.

The guard came up to me, upset that I hadn’t co-operated.

I said to him, “You have to let me go soon; it’s nearly 48 hours.”

He looked at me, surprised, and asked, “How long do you think you’ve been here?”

“A day”, I replied.

“Man, you’ve been here for more than a week.”

They then took me to another room, where they tortured me relentlessly, stripping me naked and applying electric shocks everywhere on my body. The next thing I remember was seeing the general again. He came into the room with a man from Turkistan; he was a big man but was stooped over, because his hands were chained to the shackles of his feet, preventing him from standing upright.

“This guy is no use to us anymore. This is what is going to happen to you. We’ve had him for one hour, and this is what happens.”

Suddenly, a guy they called Hamish, which means snake, came at the poor man from behind and gave him a terrible karate kick that sent him crashing across the room. A guard went over to shake him, but he didn’t respond. Turning to the general, the guard said, “Basha, I think he’s dead.”

“Throw him away then. Let the dogs have him.”

They dragged the dead man out.

“What do you think of that?” asked the general, staring into my face.

“At least he can rest now”, I replied.

Then they brought another man in. This man, I think, was from Europe – his exclamations of pain didn’t sound like those of someone from the Middle East. He was in a terrible state. The guard came in with a machine and started to wire up the guy to it. They told the poor man that they were going to give him a full electric shock, measuring ten on the scale. Before they even turned the machine on, the man started to gasp and then slumped in the chair. I think he died of a heart attack.

The general said that there was one more person I had to see. “This person will make you see that we can keep you here for as long as we want, all of your life, if we choose.”

There was a window in the room, covered by a curtain. The general drew back a curtain, and I saw the top half of a very sick, thin man. He was sitting on a chair on the other side of the glass, facing me.

“You know this guy?” the general asked.

“No”, I replied.

“That’s strange – he’s your friend from Australia.”

I looked again, and was horrified to see that it was Mohammed Abbas, a man I had known in Australia who had worked for Telstra [Australian telecommunications company]. He had travelled to Egypt in 1999, and had never been seen again.

“He is going to be your neighbour for the rest of your life.”

It was then that I knew I was in Egypt, without a doubt. They then took Abbas away and closed the curtain.

p.118

After the first interrogation with Suleiman, I believed the Egyptians weren’t interested in where I had been; they only wanted me to confess to being a terrorist and having plotted terrorist attacks so they could sell the information to the United States and Australia. I decided then that I wouldn’t answer questions or explain anything; but, as a consequence, I was badly tortured in Egypt.

p.133

The Egyptians didn’t like Maha [Habib’s wife] at all. One day, I overheard Omar Suleiman saying to someone, “I would love to bring Maha here.” I have no idea when this was but the memory of these few words is very vivid in my mind. Fortunately, though, Suleiman could never have gotten hold of Maha, because she is Lebanese born and an Australian citizen. Suleiman, before my release from Egypt, often threatened that he would get me back if I ever said anything bad about Egypt.

After years of slamming Habib’s claims of torture, the Australian government has recently implicitly acknowledged the validity of his allegations:

Last December 17 in Sydney, officers representing the federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland signed a secret deal with former terror suspect Mamdouh Habib.

It featured an undisclosed compensation payout in return for Habib dropping his long-running civil suit claiming commonwealth complicity in his 2001 arrest, rendition, detention and torture in Pakistan, Egypt and Guantanamo Bay.

The secrecy clause preventing details of the deal being made public prolonged a decade-long cover-up of exactly what the Australian government and its officers knew about Habib’s CIA rendition to Egypt, where he was held in barbarous conditions and tortured for seven months, before being transferred to Cuba. Since Habib returned to Australia in January 2005, successive governments and the security agencies have denied any knowledge of, or involvement in, this ugly episode.

The commonwealth has used every legal device at its disposal to keep the sordid details under wraps, routinely frustrating media and legal efforts to get to the truth, in the name of national security.

In 2007 a judge in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal lashed out at ASIO’s repeated refusal to release information on Habib, asking: “Why should we take your word for it when again and again we find things that are said to be the subject of national security concerns turn out not to be? I mean it looks like an easy way out for ASIO: when in doubt, just say ‘national security’.”

The hush-hush settlement seemed set to stamp the Habib case closed for good. But with the ink on it hardly dry, startling claims have emerged about Australia’s connivance in the brutal maltreatment of one of its citizens.

The new testimony is in the form of witness statements obtained by Habib and tendered to commonwealth lawyers – but not until now made public – which apparently precipitated the December deal.

These accounts have not been tested in court but, if true, they provide damning evidence of Australia’s collusion, and expose as lies the repeated insistence that Australia had no knowledge of or involvement in Habib’s ordeal.

A decade after the event, it is now possible to piece together the sorry story of Australia’s treatment of Habib, based on court testimony, witness statements, government documents released from court files and under freedom of information, and insider accounts. It is a disturbing tale.

Habib was arrested in Pakistan days after the September 11 attacks on the US. He has always maintained he was there to look at relocating his family, while Australian investigators claim he had been in an al-Qa’ida training camp, which Habib still denies.

Either way, he was of keen interest to the authorities, particularly the CIA, because of his acquaintance with the militants who carried out the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993.

Australian officials visited Habib, along with FBI and CIA agents, three times while he was detained in Islamabad in late October 2001.

A few days later he was handed over to the Americans, handcuffed, shackled, hooded, with his mouth and eyes taped and a bag over his head, and flown to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, before being transferred to Egypt.

For the next seven months there he was subjected to relentless interrogation, beatings, electric shocks, water torture, sexual assault, cigarette burns and more.

For years, the Australian authorities denied any knowledge of Habib’s detention in Egypt.

It was only in 2008 that the Australian Federal Police revealed that his pending transfer had been raised by US officials in Pakistan before the event, and then discussed in Canberra among officers from the AFP, ASIO, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the attorney-general’s and prime minister’s departments, who “agreed that the Australian government could not agree to the transfer of Mr Habib to Egypt”, evidence to the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee in May 2008 shows.

“Plausible deniability” was thus achieved, while Habib’s transfer went ahead anyway. US terrorism investigators have said it is inconceivable the rendition would have proceeded without Australia knowing, and intelligence insiders say those involved in Habib’s case were in no doubt as to where he was being sent. Habib has always maintained Australian officials were present during his transfer to, and detention in, Cairo.

For their part, the government and security agencies have steadfastly denied any knowledge of, or involvement in, his time in Egypt, even insisting they were never sure he was there at all.

Both ASIO and the DFAT have stated they had no contact with Habib in Egypt. But the untested witness statements obtained for Habib’s civil suit, and now reported exclusively in The Weekend Australian, tell a different story.

One statement, by a former Egyptian military intelligence officer who worked at the Cairo prison where terror suspects were held, says Australian officials were present when Habib arrived and throughout his detention.

“During Habib’s presence some of the Australian officials attended many times . . . The same official who attended the first time used to come with them,” the statement says. “Habib was tortured a lot and all the time, as the foreign intelligence wanted quick and fast information.”

The officer, whose name does not appear in the translation of his statement seen by The Weekend Australian, said he was prepared

to testify in court, if he was given protection.

Another statement was obtained from a fellow detainee of Habib’s in Egypt and later Guantanamo Bay, Pakistani-Saudi national Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni. Madni was captured by the CIA in Jakarta in January 2002 and rendered to Egypt and later Guantanamo Bay, accused of being a member of al-Qa’ida. He was finally released in August 2009 and reunited with his family in Lahore, Pakistan.

Madni describes spending three months in a 6 by 8 foot (1.8m by 2.4m) underground cell, and being tortured by similar methods to those described by Habib.

He recounts, “I could hear Mamdouh Habib screaming in pain during his interrogation”, and recalls being told by prison staff that the Australian was very sick and possibly dying.

Madni also claims Australian officials were there.

“Egyptian, Australian, Israeli (Mossad) and US intelligence agencies were involved in my interrogations . . . The Egyptian interrogator told me that the Australian intelligence organisation wanted to ask me questions about Mamdouh Habib . . . An officer . . . asked me questions like ‘How did you know or where did you meet Mamdouh Habib?”‘

These disturbing allegations will presumably be central to a fresh inquiry ordered this week by the Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence, the watchdog that oversees our intelligence and security agencies.

Julia Gillard requested the inquiry, apparently after the settlement was reached, and after Habib wrote to the Prime Minister telling her he had witnesses who could confirm the presence of Australian officials in Egypt.

The Prime Minister’s office confirms Gillard has asked the Inspector-General to inquire into “the actions of relevant Australian agencies” in relation to Habib’s arrest and detention overseas. A spokesperson tells Focus: “A number of serious allegations have been made in relation to this matter and it is appropriate for the Prime Minister to request that they be properly examined. The IGIS Act requires inquiries to be conducted in private.” But the spokesperson did not say if the results will be released.

Furthermore, Canberra has now launched an investigation into Habib’s allegations that Australian officials were present during his interrogations in Egypt in Cairo in 2001 when Suleiman was abusing Habib.

Habib is a key witness able to reliably confirm the real role Suleiman plays in today’s Egypt. Barack Obama and his Western allies should strongly condemn the abuses in Mubarak’s Egypt and demand accountability for the crimes committed in his name.

As Habib told me tonight, it is impossible for Suleiman, with his bloody record, to lead Egypt into a better future. With the latest reports indicating that Suleiman and Mubarak are ramping up torture against protesters (here and here), Habib’s voice and experience should be heard loud and clear.

UPDATE: Cross-posted on Mondoweiss.

Julian Assange, facing a barrage of personal attacks from media companies and foreign governments, rightly tells the UK Observer today that it’s highly revealing how much attention is directed at him as opposed to the allegations presented in the Wikileaks-released documents. He slept with women? Sure, that’s clearly more vital than criminality or torture backed by Washington:

There have been suggestions elsewhere that WikiLeaks has supplied grist to the mill of America’s enemies and even endangered the lives of those who are identified in material it has disseminated itself – identities that Keller’s paper was careful to redact.

“How do you best attack an organisation?” retorts Assange rhetorically. First, “you attack its leadership… with the dozens of wildly fabricated things said about me in the press – such as that I was living in luxury in South Africa. I have never been to South Africa.” Second, “you attack the cash flow”: Assange recounts the “extra-legal” sanctions by Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and others that have “cost us 90% of our revenue”. And then “you attack our moral standing. There have even been claims we have killed people. Although no person is infallible, we have to date a perfect record in two important respects. One: we have not once, in our four years of publishing, got it wrong. We have never published something that was false and said that it was true. Two: despite our publication of serious material on over 100 countries, no one has come to any harm; neither is there any specific claim that anyone has.”

…

Another criticism often levelled at WikiLeaks is that bursting the banks of information in this way will only lead to the construction of new flood defences by powerful institutions; in other words to more, not less, secrecy.

“The reaction by large corporations and government power,” says Assange, “to a substantial increase in disclosure to the public was thought about in depth in 2006, when we launched WikiLeaks.” The idea that powerful institutions would “go off record” in such a way is fanciful, he argues; discovering their behaviour will always be possible by obtaining internal records. “For instance, when I obtained the manual for standard operating procedure at Guantánamo Bay, I was surprised to see that it included not only many inhumane practices, but it instructed guards to falsify records to the Red Cross. [Because] there is no way for the centre of an organisation to reliably have its peripheral elements reliably carry out its orders… there is a clear, authorised paper trail. Any form of large-scale abuse must be systemised.” And the acquisition of that paper trail, he argues, is the way to expose the abuse.

In this situation, organisations have two choices, says Assange. One is to “engage in plans that the public will support if they are revealed”, meaning that they will have nothing to fear from transparency. The other is to “spend additional resources to keep those plans secret”. The second, more common, course entails a toll on the economic logic of the organisation, which Assange calls a “secrecy tax”. Also, “when an organisation acts in a more clandestine manner”, he says, “its own internal efficiency decreases, because information cannot flow quickly through the organisation. This is another form of secrecy tax.” For organisations to be efficient, they should be transparent, he insists.

This is what “diplomacy” means:

Turkey allowed the US to use its airbase at Incirlik in southern Turkey as part of the “extraordinary rendition” programme to take suspected terrorists to Guantánamo Bay, according to a US diplomatic cable.

Turkey’s involvement in the controversial programme was revealed in a cable dated 8 June 2006, written by the then US ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson. The cable described Turkey as a crucial ally in the “global war on terror” and an important logistical base for the US-led war in Iraq.

“The Turkish military had allowed us to use Incirlik as a refuelling stop for Operation Fundamental Justice detainee movement operations since 2002, but revoked this permission in February of this year. We understand OSD [office of the secretary of defence] and JCS [joint chiefs of staff] have been discussing whether to approach Turkey to seek to reverse this decision,” the cable said.

“We recommend that you do not raise this issue with TGS [Turkish general staff] pending clarification from Washington on what approach state/OSD/JCS/NSC [national security council] wish to take.”

The cable contradicts statements made at the time by Turkish officials. On 14 June 2006, a spokesman for Turkey’s foreign ministry told reporters: “The Turkish government and state never played a part [in the secret transfers] … and never will.”

Turkey had just been named in a Council of Europe report among 14 European countries that colluded in or tolerated the covert transporting of prisoners.

Perhaps, finally, Australians can realise that the former Howard government was more than happy for one of our citizens to be tortured in the name of pleasing the United States:

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has ordered a fresh inquiry into the case of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib.

Julia Gillard requested the new probe amid dramatic claims of Australian government complicity in his 2001 CIA rendition to Egypt, where he was detained and tortured.

The investigation follows a secret compensation payout made by the federal government to Mr Habib in December, apparently triggered by untested witness statements implicating Australian officials in his detention and brutal maltreatment in a Cairo military prison.

The new evidence, not previously made public, includes a statement from a former Egyptian military intelligence officer that he was present when Mr Habib was transferred to Cairo in November 2001.

In the statement, tendered as part of Mr Habib’s civil case against the commonwealth, the officer says Australian officials were present when Mr Habib arrived in Egypt, handcuffed, with his feet bound, naked and apparently drugged.

The statement says: “During Habib’s presence some of the Australian officials attended many times. The same official who attended the first time used to come with them.”

It continues: “Habib was tortured a lot and all the time, as the foreign intelligence wanted quick and fast information.”

The statement is at odds with repeated assertions by the federal government and security agencies since Mr Habib’s return to Australia in January 2005, that they had no knowledge of or involvement in his rendition or detention in Egypt.

As recently as November, in a letter to Mr Habib, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade insisted it had never been able to confirm Mr Habib’s presence in Egypt.