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BERLIN, Dec 6: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a rare concession to US critics, acknowledged on Tuesday that Washington may make mistakes in its ‘battle against terrorism’ and promised to put them right if they happened.
But her efforts to present a united front with European allies suffered a setback when US officials took issue with comments from German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sensitive case of a German national who says he was abducted by the CIA.
Ms Merkel told a joint news conference with Ms Rice in Berlin that the United States had acknowledged it made a mistake in the case of Khaled el Masri, who says he was flown to Afghanistan by US agents and jailed for five months last year before being freed.
“I’m pleased to say that we spoke about the individual case, which was accepted by the United States as a mistake...,” Ms Merkel said in response to questions about the Masri case, which has caused a furore in Germany.
But senior US officials, travelling to Romania with Ms Rice on the next leg of her European tour, said Ms Rice had not admitted a US mistake over Masri.
While the US government had informed Germany about his detention and release, it did not say that was a mistake, one senior administration official told reporters.
“We are not quite sure what was in her head,” he said, referring to Ms Merkel.
DELICATE MISSION: The differences marred the first stage of a delicate European mission by Ms Rice, under pressure to respond to allegations that the Central Intelligence Agency has run secret prisons in Eastern Europe and covertly transferred terrorist suspects across the continent.
In her public comments, Ms Rice refused to discuss individual cases but acknowledged in general that mistakes could happen.
“Any policy will sometimes result in errors, and when it happens, we will do everything we can to rectify it,” Ms Rice said.
A US civil liberties group on Tuesday filed a lawsuit on Masri’s behalf against former CIA director George Tenet and other officials, alleging wrongful imprisonment.
Masri had planned to travel to the United States himself to present the case, but was refused entry at Atlanta airport on Saturday. His lawyer said no explanation was given.
The US official with Ms Rice said Masri was released from an Afghanistan prison after Washington realised it “no longer had evidence or intelligence to justify his continued detention”.
Asked if the United States had ever had evidence to hold Masri, he declined to comment further.
He acknowledged Masri was originally detained because of a suspicion that he had a false passport and because he had the same name as a militant leader.
The passport turned out to be genuine, he said.
Controversy over the case in Germany was fuelled by a newspaper report this week that the then interior minister was told of it in May 2004 and agreed to a request from the US ambassador to keep it quiet.
Ms Merkel said she would ask Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was head of the chancellor’s office in the last government, to report on the Masri case to the parliamentary committee responsible for supervising the security services.—Reuters
