Condi's Credibility

From a story by the Age reporting on the Secretary of State's European visit: But Rice said "the United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture". US officials, human rights experts and news reports, however, said that the United States had rendered terror suspects to a number of countries that use torture according to the US State Department's own human rights reports. She's entering Colin Powell territory here—as the administration's highest polling figure her reputation is being put on the block. A report from ABC suggests she might regret her statements as much as her predecessor. $Q: Current and former CIA officers speaking to ABC News on the condition of confidentiality say the United States scrambled to get all the suspects [in two secret CIA prisons] off European soil before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived there today. The officers say 11 top al Qaeda suspects have now been moved to a new CIA facility in the North African desert. The article alleges the suspects were waterboarded, or as it was known 450 years ago, "The Water Torture". The reality behind the scenes is completely at variance with the spirit, if not the letter, of what she's saying. Her international credibility is one of the few bright spots in a gathering political storm. It's hard to believe she's squandering it so recklessly.