Doc. 11302 Report 5.2. Responsible political authorities in Romania 211. During several months of investigations, our team has held discussions with numerous Romanian sources, including civilian and military intelligence operatives, representatives of state and municipal authorities, and high-ranking officials who hold first-hand knowledge of CIA operations on the territory of Romania. Based upon these discussions, my inquiry has concluded that the following individual officeholders knew about, authorised and stand accountable for Romania’s role in the CIA’s operation of “out-of-theatre” secret detention facilities on Romanian territory, from 2003 to 2005: the former President of Romania (up to 20 December 2004), Ion Iliescu, the current President of Romania (20 December 2004 onwards), Traian Basescu, the Presidential Adviser on National Security (until 20 December 2004), Ioan Talpes, the Minister of National Defence (Ministerial oversight up to 20 December 2004), Ioan Mircea Pascu, and the Head of Directorate for Military Intelligence, Sergiu Tudor Medar. 212. Collaborating with the CIA in this very small circle of trust, Romania’s leadership in the fields of national security and military intelligence effectively short-circuited the classic mechanisms of democratic accountability. Both of the political principals, President Iliescu and National Security Adviser Talpes, sat on (and most often chaired) the CSAT – the Supreme Council of National Defence – throughout this period, yet they withheld the CIA “partnership” from the other members of that body who did not have a “need to know”. This criterion excluded the majority of civilian office-holders in the Romanian Government from complicity at the time. Similarly, the directors of the respective civilian intelligence agencies, the SRI and the SIE, were not briefed about the operational details and were thus granted “plausible deniability”. 213. We were told that the confidants on the military side, Defence Minister Pascu and General-Lieutenant Medar, had concealed important operational activities from senior figures in the army and powerful structures to which they were subordinated. According to our sources, “co-operation with America in the context of the NATO framework” was used as a general smoke-screen behind which to hide the operations of the CIA programme. 214. Sergiu Medar’s role here merits special attention. Of the four named offices of state in which individuals held knowledge of the CIA’s programme, Medar was the only office-holder who “crossed over” from the Presidency of Ion Iliescu to the Presidency of Traian Basescu. Medar remained head of the “J2” unit for another year after the handover of power to President Basescu on 20 December 2004; indeed, it appears that he stayed in position right through to the clear-out of the European “black sites”, which we believe to have occurred in November or early December 2005. 215. It is also worth commenting on General-Lieutenant Medar’s close relationship with the current President Traian Basescu. When Basescu assumed office, in December 2004, his very first presidential decree granted Sergiu Tudor Medar the decorated status of Three-Star General. In 2005, Basescu appointed Medar as his National Security Adviser and, in 2006, selected him as the first head of the consolidated National Intelligence Directorate. Relationships of trust, loyalty and familiarity are vital to the preservation of secrecy, as the NATO Security Policy makes clear. 216. Ioan Talpes, the then Presidential Adviser on National Security (Consilierul prezidential pentru securitate nationala), was also an instrumental figure in the CIA programme from its inception. According to our sources, Talpes guided President Iliescu’s every decision on issues of NATO harmonisation and bilateral relations with the United States; it has even been suggested that Talpes was the one who initiated the idea of making facilities on Romanian soil available to United States agencies for activities in pursuit of its “war on terror”. After December 2004, although Talpes no longer acted as the Presidential Adviser on National Security, he quickly became Chair of the Senate Committee on Defence, Public Order and National Security, which meant that he exercised at least a theoretical degree of “parliamentary oversight” over his own successor in the adviser role. 217. Several of our Romanian sources commented that they felt proud to have been able to assist the United States in detaining “high-value” terrorists – not only as a gesture of pro-American sentiment, but also because they thought it was “in the best interests of Romania”. 218. Those involved in the programme further recounted fond tales of how the United States has recognised their individual contributions over the years: some Romanian officials were invited to CIA Headquarters at Langley, Virginia where they received awards; most got to meet key figures in the Bush administration, at home and abroad; and at least one high-level group of delegates from Bucharest accepted personal thanks from President Bush in the Oval Office. 46