WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Poland, Lithuania and now Romania are all known to have hosted US black-sites to facilitate the War on Terror. The United States hosted its own sites at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Abu-Ghraib and Al-Qaim prisons in Iraq, as well as at multiple sites in Afghanistan.
“It was not rogue elements, it was not people who decided to take things into their own hands, it was United States policy,” Drake added.
The program of US extrajudicial renditions, transfers and interrogations at offshore black sites was not isolated to only a few countries, Drake argued.
“This was facilitated, supported and was very closely monitored at the highest level of the United States government, up to and including the White House,” he said.
On Tuesday, former Romanian President Ion Iliescu posted on his blog that he had approved CIA requests to set up at least one black site in Romania where prisoners were held and subjected to torture. Iliescu stated that he deeply regretted that decision.
Drake noted that by setting up secret sites for prisoner transfers, detentions or interrogations, the United States made other nations and individuals complicit.
“In essence, you’re creating a regime that is implicating a huge number of other countries,” he said.
According to reports by human rights groups, up to 54 countries participated in the US extrajudicial rendition program during the War on Terror.
The US use of torture during war is “absolute hypocrisy,” Drake alleged, continuing that out of “its own arrogance and hubris” the United States exceeded its national legal constraints, as well as the Geneva Conventions against torture.
“This is not what we do as Americans. These are crimes against humanity,” he asserted.
In retaliation he was charged with espionage and prosecuted by the US government.
There have been no legal repercussions as a result of revelations that the United States used enhanced interrogation techniques during the War on Terror.
Administration officials under former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama have argued that the United States did not torture individuals, and had legal standing to use enhanced interrogation techniques.
