Fresh stain on America's reputation
Dec. 10, 2005. 01:00 AM
The Bush administration has a new public relations nightmare, and his name is Khaled al-Masri. His case turned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's tour of Europe into a debacle, and if even half of his allegations are true, America's ever-grimier reputation in "old Europe" will have another indelible stain.
Masri, a 42-year-old German citizen, filed suit Tuesday against former CIA Director George Tenet and three private aviation companies. He claims he was snatched while on vacation in Macedonia in December 2003, drugged and flown to Afghanistan, where he was held for five months in one of those secret CIA prisons that the administration pretends don't exist.
In prison, he says, he was beaten, photographed naked and held in squalid conditions. According to his lawsuit, he was detained for two months even after the CIA learned it had nabbed the wrong man. He was released on an Albanian hillside in May 2004, having never been charged with a crime.
Masri is no enemy combatant; he was a car salesman. If the Bush administration had any secret evidence of his links to terrorism, Rice would presumably have shared it with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with whom she met on Tuesday.
Instead, Merkel said Rice admitted that the United States had kidnapped Masri by mistake. A Rice aide then made matters worse by denying that the secretary had admitted error in the Masri case. Now the American and European public is left to wonder who is lying: the German chancellor or the U.S. secretary of state?
If the Bush administration has evidence to show Masri's story is false, it should present it. If, on the other hand, it knows that CIA officials masterminded the kidnapping and detention of an innocent man, it should apologize and explore his offer of a settlement.
Rice's response so far has been unconvincing and legalistic. She insists that the U.S. as a matter of policy does not "condone'' torture, yet she refuses to acknowledge the existence of secret CIA prisons. Nor will she comment on the growing number of people like Masri who claim to have been tortured in these prisons.
Rice's performance is not only disappointing but counterproductive. She has done more than any other U.S. official to mend the rupture with Europe over the Iraq war. Now, chastened by her reception in Europe and the unpopularity of the administration's tactics, perhaps Rice can come home and persuade President Bush to adopt a more sensible and multilateral approach.
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