What Brennan Should Explain

Amrit Singh, author of a new report showing the extent of international complicity in the United States’ secret prison, rendition and torture program, discusses her findings and the role of counterterrorism czar John Brennan, whose nomination to head the CIA is being considered by a Senate panel Thursday morning.

In 2005, Brennan said in a PBS interview that he was “intimately familiar” with cases of rendition and that he considered the practice “an absolutely vital tool” in combating terrorism. He also said he believed “we have a lot of assurances from these countries that we hand over terrorists to that they will in fact respect human rights.”

In Brennan’s confirmation hearings, Singh would like him to say exactly what he meant by that, “because by the time Brennan made that statement in December of 2005, a number of people had been rendered to foreign governments where they were tortured,” she said.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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