Doc. 11302 Report 5.3. The anatomy of CIA secret transfers and detentions in Romania 5.3.1. Creating a secure area for CIA transfers and detentions 219. When the United States Government made its approach for the establishment of a “black site” in Romania – offering formidable United States support for Romania’s full accession into the NATO Alliance as the “biggest prize” in exchange – it relied heavily upon its key liaisons in the country to make the case to then President Iliescu. As one high-level Romanian official who was actually involved in the negotiations told us, it was “proposed to the president that we should provide full protection for the United States from an intelligence angle. Nobody from the Romanian side should interfere in these [CIA] activities”. 220. In line with its staunch support under the NATO framework, Romania entered a bilateral “technical agreement” with the intention of giving the United States the full extent of the permissions and protections it sought. According to one of our sources with knowledge of the arrangement, there was an “… order [given] to our [military] intelligence services, on behalf of the president, to provide the CIA with all the facilities they required and to protect their operations in whichever way they requested …”. 221. From extensive discussions with our Romanian sources, I understand that the manner of protection requested by the CIA was for Romanian military intelligence officers on the ground to create an area or “zone” in which the CIA’s physical security and secrecy would be impenetrably protected, even from perceived intrusion by their counterparts in the Romanian services. A source in Romanian military intelligence described the notion of a “secure area” as follows: “We were the ones responsible for proper security for the CIA operations. It is not possible for us Romanians to enter or to see inside the area. Americans can come and go, no interference, no restriction – anything is possible. It is normal, because they are our allies, the Americans, yes.” 222. The precise location and character of the “black site” were not, to the best of my knowledge, stipulated in the original classified bilateral arrangements between Romania and the United States. Our team discussed those questions with multiple sources and we believe that to name a location explicitly would go beyond what it is possible to confirm from the Romanian side. One senior source in military intelligence objected to the notion that anyone but the Americans would “need to know” this information: “But I tell you that our Romanian officers do not know what happened inside those areas, because we sealed it off and we had control. There were Americans operating there free from interference – only they saw, only they heard – about the prisoners.” 223. Nonetheless we were able to confirm the approximate borderlines of the CIA’s “outer perimeter” for its secure area in Romania. We were assisted by a source in military intelligence, a detailed map and an annex to the Access Agreement of 2005, in which reference is made to “facilities”192generally and to one relevant “manœuvre area” in particular.193Our source used his right index finger to draw an invisible elliptical perimeter on the map, which encompassed a vertical column between the towns of Tulcea (to the north) and Constanta (to the south), as well as an area extending approximately 50 kilometres inland (to the west) and in the opposite direction to the Black Sea coast (to the east).194Referring to the role of the Romanian “J2” unit in supporting bilateral arrangements with the CIA, our source said: “We have to seal [this] entire area and limit access there.” 224. The secure area in question includes several current and former military installations, including all of those facilities named in the Access Agreement of 2005, which have been used by the United States under a “special regime of access” since late 2001.195Nonetheless, the main reason that led one of our CIA sources 192. The four named facilities are as follows: Smardan Training Range; Babadag Training Area and Rail Head; Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, colocated with 34th Mechanised Brigade Base; and Cincu Training Range. 193. See “Annex A – Facilities”, the first of two annexes to the Access Agreement between Romania and the United States, 6 December 2005, at p. 9. Under the last of the four named facilities, Cincu Training Range, the “manoeuvre area” is described as follows: “Comprised of areas in Tulcea and Constanta counties (‘Judetul’ in Romanian), bounded generally by the towns of Babadag in the north, Babadag Training Area in the east, Tariverde in the south and Horia in the west.” 194. In total, the perimeter line encompasses an area of about 1 500 square kilometres of territory in south-eastern Romania. See Appendix No. 2 to the present report, entitled “The ‘secure zone’ for CIA transfers and detentions in Romania.” 195. See the discussion on bilateral NATO SOFA arrangements between Romania and the United States earlier in this report, at Section II.iii.b, entitled “Application of the NATO framework in Romania.” 47