Vincent Cannistraro, Jack Straw and a new car

Belhadj. (Getty Images)

Today's news that Libya's military commander and former opponent of Gaddafi is taking legal action against Jack Straw comes to us as no surprise. 

Abdel Hakim Belhadj claims that CIA agents took him from Thailand to Gaddafi-led Libya, via UK-controlled Diego Garcia. His lawyers have served papers on Mr Straw after a Sunday Times report claims that Straw approved or allowed the rendition to take place. 

Cannistraro (Hemar)

From approximately 2000 to 2008 Libyan intelligence services were effectively an out-sourced section of the CIA.  Tripoli was cooperating with both the CIA and MI6 in the rendition of Libyan dissidents, occasionally their wives, children, and other suspects to Libyan prisons for interrogation, torture, and sometimes death. In addition MI6 were monitoring the activities of active Libyan dissidents living in the UK and providing reports to at that time head of intelligence Moussa Koussa.  [1]

In 1995, as part of our research into the background to the Lockerbie tragedy, we discovered from files published by the US National Archive that the foundation for the current US network of rendition was established as far back as 1986, revealed in an email written by Vincent Cannistraro to his chief Admiral John Poindexter. 

We should recall that Cannistraro was, in December 1988, placed in charge of the CIA team investigating the Lockerbie bombing.  It was on his watch that a fragment of a timer circuit board mysteriously appeared on a hillside near to Lockerbie, and that fragment formed a central ground for the conviction of Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi.

It has now been proved by independent scientific testing at two separate laboratories that the Lockerbie fragment could not have come from a batch of timer boards sold to Libya by Swiss company MEBO. So it was either a separately manufactured timer of unknown origin, or it was a fake, planted to turn suspicion away from Iran towards the simpler target nation of Libya. In either case, it destroys the prosecution claims against Al-Megrahi.  And what is notable today is the complete silence by the FBI and the Scottish Crown Office upon this matter.

Cannistraro in 1986 was tasked by President Reagan to lead a campaign of "disinformation" to destabilise and eventually destroy the Gaddafi regime.

For most folks with any sense of morality, the word "disinformation" means "lies". But to the White House and their CIA agents, it means doing one's duty for God and America. 

The motto in the entrance hall of CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia is "Seek you the Truth and the Truth shall set you free."  Some say that Americans have no sense of irony. Well, maybe...

Cannistraro was exercised at the refusal of White House assistant Clair George to sign off a proactive counter-terrorism programme which involved kidnappings across the world of “suspected terrorists”. In USA speak of that era, the words meant simply “those who actively oppose US policy”.

Cannistraro advised: "Dewey Clarridge told me he is being frustrated in carrying out the new counter-terrorist program. Specifically Clair is refusing to sign off on command cables setting up ops to apprehend terrorists abroad.... there was solid agreement on the objectives and intent, and the only contentious point was the legal language which CIA wanted and State and White House counsel insisted be deleted. Clair really doesn't want CIA to get into counter-terrorist mode. I discussed this with Ollie [North] before he left on his trip and he agrees. I think you should raise with [CIA Director] Casey. If you agree, I will do this as DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] / JMP [Poindexter] agenda item or as TPs [talking points] for a secure line call." [2]

Blair

Prime Minister Tony Blair must have been aware of these issues. His much vaunted meeting in the desert with Gaddafi in 2004 would surely have covered such matters. But if it did not, then the conclusion one is forced to draw is that MI6 were not including reports on the running of the rendition system in their intelligence briefings at Downing Street. We might therefore fairly ask who runs Britain?

Be that as it may, if we look at this disgusting history with an objective eye, we might consider the honesty and credibility of all these characters.  The standard test of such is usually "Would you buy a used car from this man?"  Our answer is: No. And we wouldn't buy a new one, either.

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[1] http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2091653,00.html  , BBC and Sky News reports, Human Rights Watch research into files retrieved from Moussa Koussa’s office in Tripoli, 3^rd September 2011.

[2] Vincent Cannistraro email to John Poindexter, 6th May 1986. White House Email. Pub 1995, National Archive of the United States, Ed. Tom Blanton.