Bucharest, Romania – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried Tuesday to allay European suspicions about U.S. practices in the pursuit of terrorists, even as she secured new rights for American use of a military base suspected to have housed a secret CIA prison.
She refused to say whether the base ever served as a clandestine holding pen or interrogation center for terror suspects. She also would not address an ABC News report that prisoners were whisked away from the Mihail Kogolniceanu base in Romania shortly before she arrived.
“I am not going to talk about … supposed or purported intelligence activities,” Rice said when asked about the Romanian base.
Allegations that the United States violated human rights and European law by running clandestine jails in Europe to interrogate suspected terrorists have clouded a diplomatic trip to European capitals this week.
The Romanian base, which was heavily used by U.S. forces after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, was among several installations covered in a defense cooperation pact signed Tuesday by Rice and Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu.
The agreement is meant to give U.S. forces a jumping-off point in Eastern Europe to be closer to potential terror targets in the Middle East.
