Doc. 11302 Report I think Poland is the main exception; we have an extraordinary relationship with Poland. My experience is that if the Poles can help us they will. Whether it’s intelligence, or economics, or politics or diplomacy – they are our allies. I guess if there is a special relationship outside of the “four eyes”85group, then it is the Americans and the Poles.” 125. In Poland’s case, a specific strategic incentive tied in with the NATO framework was the United States’ staunch support for the establishment in Poland of the lucrative NATINADS programme – the NATO Integrated Air Defence System. Poland participated in the American-led military coalitions in both Afghanistan and Iraq, notably contributing significant special forces deployments to Operation Enduring Freedom,86and later assuming control of one of the “zones” of allied control in Iraq. An ongoing process of realignment and reform of intelligence structures is dedicated primarily to purging the secret services of so-called “communist remnants”. 126. The United States negotiated its agreement with Poland to detain CIA high-value detainees on Polish territory in 2002 and early 2003. We have established that the first HVDs were transferred to Poland in the first half of 2003. In accordance with the operational arrangements described below, Poland housed what the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center considered its “most sensitive HVDs”, a category which included several of the men whose transfer to Guantánamo Bay was announced by President Bush on 6 September 2006. 127. We received confirmations – each name from more than one source – of eight names of HVDs who were held in Poland between 2003 and 2005.87Specifically, our sources in the CIA named Poland as the “black site” where both Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (KSM) were held and questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques”. The information known about these interrogations has formed the basis of heated debate in the United States and the wider international community, leading, in Zubaydah’s case,88to high-level political and legislative manoeuvres and, in KSM’s case, to the admission of some troubling judicial precedents.89 128. For reasons of both security and capacity, the CIA determined that the Polish strand of the HVD programme should remain limited in size. Thus a “second European site” was sought to which the CIA could transfer its detainees with “no major logistical overhaul”. Romania, used extensively by United States forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom in early 2003, had distinct benefits in this regard: as a member of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center remarked about the location of the proposed detention facility, “our guys were familiar with the area”. 85. The “four eyes” group is this CIA officer’s reference to the very strong four-way co-operation on intelligence matters between the secret services of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia: “It’s just a whole different degree of trust between those four.” 86. See Bensahel, ‘Counterterror Coalitions’, supra note 37, at p. 10; Table 2.1, “Summary of European and Canadian Contributions to Operation Enduring Freedom”. 87. In addition to these sources, a single CIA source told us that there were “up to a dozen” HVDs in Poland in 2005, but we were unable to confirm this number. Among the eight names repeated to us from several sources were Ramzi bin alShibh, Tawfiq bin Attash and Ahmed Khalfan [al-]Ghailani. 88. The individual circumstances of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogations remain largely unknown, but the introduction of “enhanced interrogation techniques” for the CIA’s use on him has sparked the debate to which I refer. For an insightful early account of CIA interrogation practices, see Jane Mayer, “A Deadly Interrogation – Can the CIA legally kill a prisoner?” in The New Yorker, 14 November 2005, available at http://www.newyorker.com/archive/ 2005/11/14/051114fa_fact. 89. Specifically I refer to the admission into evidence of the “Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed” in the context of the trial of Zacarius Moussaoui; as well as the well-founded reservations that the testimony in question had been procured under torture or other forms of ill-treatment, it is worth mentioning the troubling preamble transmitted to the jury introducing KSM’s testimony: “Although you do not have the ability to see the witness’ demeanour as he testifies, you must approach these statements with the understanding that they were made under circumstances designed to elicit truthful statements from the witness.” For the full testimony, and other materials related to the Moussaoui trial, see Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, “Moussaoui trial exhibits and documents”, available at http://www.rcfp.org/ moussaoui/. 26