Rice Stands Her Ground

I haven't been keeping up very closely with the CIA-secret-prison-clandestine-flights scandal, but it seems like an indication of just how short our memories can be. Imagine for a moment that it were revealed sometime during 2002 that the Clinton administration had this policy of secretly whisking off suspected terrorists in Europe and interrogating them in old Soviet-era prisons, but the Bush administration came in and put an end to them prior to 9/11 - just imagine the uproar. As is it was there was no end to the outrage over how ineffective the CIA had become after years of emasculation. So now we're doing something about it - yeah, we're playing hardball, but isn't that what everyone demanded after the horrific attack we suffered?

Washington has been on the defensive over the issue for several weeks. Now it has decided to take on its critics and to force European governments to acknowledge their awareness of CIA activities on their soil. Miss Rice said that intelligence gathered by the CIA from "a very small number of extremely dangerous detainees" had "helped prevent terrorist attacks and saved lives" in Europe. "So now before the next attack we should all face the hard choices that democratic governments face."