Covert 'Black Sites' -- If They Exist -- Likely House Dangerous Operatives, Says Analyst
by Chad Groening
November 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - - A national security and foreign affairs analyst believes there could be some validity to a recent report that the Central Intelligence Agency could be keeping dangerous terrorist operatives in secret sites in some eight countries. The Washington Post has reported that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaeda captives at secret facilities known as "black sites." The newspaper said the sites are reportedly in Thailand, Afghanistan, and several undisclosed locations in eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility.
U.S. Army (Ret.) Lt. Colonel Bob Maginnis believes there is validity to the report. "I think there's some credence to suggest that we do run these black sites for very special operatives that we've taken off the streets," Maginnis says. He surmises that those suspects are being kept under wraps "in order to get as much as intelligence as we can to continue the war on terror."
Maginnis claims to know that there are terrorist captives who are not being held at known detention sites. Therefore, he says, there is good reason to suspect they are being hidden away somewhere.
"You have some very key operatives out of al-Qaeda, and those operatives aren't at Guantanamo Bay, they aren't in Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and they aren't in Abu Ghraib or any other prisons in Iraqm" he says. "So they're somewhere."
Reports in the mainstream liberal press have been critical of the "covert prison system," as it is described by the Post. But the retired Army officer says critics of the detention system do not understand the danger presented by these terrorist operatives.
"There are people, I think, who aren't terribly realistic with the nature of the war that we're fighting," he says. "These operatives would do worse than what happened on 9-11 in this country, given the opportunity."
Since the Post's report, accusations of torture at the black sites have been the topic of much discussion at White House briefings, where the president's press secretary Scott McClellan has reiterated President Bush's strong opposition to such tactics. At the same time, McClellan has made it clear how critical it is that the president has "the tools he needs to be able to prevent [future terrorist] attacks from happening" and to protect the American people.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
