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The Obama Administration plans to continue using the controversial “rendition” program that received so much criticism during the Bush years. Anchor Jeb Sharp finds out what value the program still has from John Radsan, former assistant general counsel at the CIA during the Bush administration.
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JEB SHARP: White House officials have acknowledged that the Obama Administration will continue to use rendition – that is moving suspects to foreign countries. The practice under the Bush Administration was controversial. Critics charged that rendition led to suspects being tortured in the countries they were sent to. The Obama Administration insists that it will use greater safe guards to make sure that suspects are not tortured. John Radsan was assistant general council at the CIA during the administration of President George W. Bush. He’s in St. Paul, Minnesota. John Radsan the term rendition has almost become a four-letter word. You hear it and you think oh oh that’s bad. But what does rendition actually mean in legal terms?
JOHN RADSAN: Rendition means a transfer of a suspect and we then associate it with a regular rendition or extraordinary rendition and those terms have been viewed in a very negative light based on past experiences. But if rendition is done right it doesn’t have to be illegal. It doesn’t have to lead to any abuses. What we mean by rendition is something different from the transfer that goes on through an extradition treaty when you have the courts involved; you have the foreign ministries. So let’s call rendition informal transfer.
SHARP: So when the Obama Administration says it will continue to use rendition but it will put safeguards in place to prevent abuse what exactly does it mean and why does it need rendition?
RADSAN: I think the Obama Administration is talking about transfers for interrogation. This is some of what Leon Panetta covered during his confirmation hearings. I think the Obama Administration got this one just right. We should not be transferring people if we want them abused. That cannot be a legitimate reason for rendition. But there may legitimate reasons. The country may have more interrogators that speak the language of the suspect, speak it in the dialect or the variation that will get the suspects attention, and the best interrogation is an interrogation that doesn’t have interpreters. What goes on behind the scenes behind countries and intelligence services is that we trade people in the same way that liaison services trade information. This is not pleasant. I recognize we’re moving human beings between jurisdictions but this is something that has been going on before this administration and the Bush administration and it did go on in the Clinton administration. The question is to what extent should we be doing it and what sort of controls have been in place? And I think that’s a very important debate.
SHARP: And what do you suggest or what do you know the Obama Administration to be favoring in terms of safeguards. How could you actually maintain this system but check to make sure abuse is prevented especially since it’s, for most us, out of sight out of mind?
RADSAN: I think that we should be more transparent about why we’re doing it, where we’re doing it, how we’re doing it. I propose that we might even list the number of countries that are off the list. That we’re going to reassure the American public, the international public, that we will not be rendering people say to Syria. We’ll take them off the list. Another area is to get assurances from the receiving country that they will treat the suspect fairly. We’ve kept our assurances secret but there have been other countries in a more open way. The United Kingdom has written agreements with various countries about fair treatment. After transfer we could even put in place various monitoring mechanisms. We could let the receiving country agree to monitoring by the international committee of the Red Cross. If we wanted to we could even go further and do secret types of checks to make sure that the person is being treated fairly.
SHARP: Does the fact that the Obama Administration still wants to retain the capacity to transfer suspects to other countries point to some lack in our legal system? In other words are we missing rules and regulations and laws that should be helping us fight terrorism in some other way?
RADSAN: I think the Obama Administration’s continued use of this practice shows that there are some situations where we need secrecy, where we need to do things quickly. So we’re balancing this secrecy and accountability. And this is one area where the Obama Administration they need to continue to practice. This is something that’s gone on in other administrations and we haven’t been able to find a way to change the law so we accept this informal practice within the law.
SHARP: John Radsan teaches at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. He’s also served as a federal prosecutor and as assistant general council at the CIA. John Radsan thanks very much.
RADSAN: Thank you.
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