‘Abolition’ in the Name of State

After publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s secret prisons and interrogation methods, President Barack Obama asserted that the CIA acted against “American values.”

At the beginning of the 21st century, when planes hijacked by terrorists hit the World Trade Center and killed 3,000 innocent people, Poland supported the United States precisely in the name of those American values: freedom, respect for people’s lives and human rights. We treated the United States as our new ally, a country to whom we were grateful for our access to NATO and security guarantees.

We joined the United States in the war on terror convinced that we were on the right side — supporting exactly the same values that generations of Poles have fought for. We believed that Polish citizens could also become terrorist targets.

This decision was endorsed by all major political factions — from left to right — and the majority of Polish society. The decision to start cooperating with American intelligence was essential to protecting Poland and our ally from another attack, and was the logical consequence of joining the U.S. in the war on terror.

Today, Poland faces the consequences of its decision. The U.S. Senate report shows that our good faith was ruthlessly abused by the CIA. Poland was not disloyal to the United States. The United States was disloyal to Poland.

Now Poland is viewed as being the one country which agreed to torture, although secret prisons also existed in other countries, secret flights happened all over the world, and other countries also agreed to pursue, arrest and turn over their own citizens.

The report shocks one with its descriptions of brutality, the scale of illegal conduct, even sadism. And it is devastating in its conclusion that the effects of the interrogations were insignificant or nonexistent.

No Polish officials are suspected of torturing prisoners. There is also no evidence that any Polish politician knew about the interrogations. The report states that the Secret Service lied to President George W. Bush, but it offers no protection from blame to former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, or former Prime Minister Leszek Miller. It does not mention whether they were lied to or not. They are not protected by the law that shields American leaders because the U.S. refused to ratify the act establishing the International Court of Justice, unlike Poland and other European nations whose membership in the court subjects them to prosecution if accused of violating human rights.

Kwaśniewski, asked if he feels betrayed by the United States, said that he does not because he’s a politician. But looking at the situation from a distance, it may be said that Washington first cheated its ally and then betrayed it. The United States has abused our good will and brought a part of its own shame to the riverbanks of the Wisła, something that cannot be done on the Potomac.

I remember the horror expressed by members of the 2005 government, when the first information about secret CIA prisons was leaked. The foreign affairs minister in the Law and Justice Party at the time asked then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to deny this information. The response he received was: “The United States does not violate the law on its own territory.”*

Certainly today, given different historical circumstances, one can blame Polish politicians for accepting America’s invitation to join the war on terror. Maybe they were really naïve; they “did not want to know.” However, the report discredits Polish leaders when it states that after having accepted money from the CIA, Poland became more “flexible” and agreed to all American demands.

Does this mean that Polish authorities in 2001 were wrong from a historical point of view? How can one know?

What is the best way to examine this experience in a way that will help “draw conclusions for the future?” President Bronisław Komorowski has asked. The United States has already done this. Suspected terrorists will no longer be arrested, but killed with the help of drones. The U.S. will no longer need Poland as a site for prisons.

President Komorowski, moved by the report, is pinning his hopes on an investigation led by the prosecutor’s office. However the prosecutor’s office does not have full access to information about the interrogation program because most of the information is located in United States and may remain classified for decades. Moreover, Kwaśniewski and Miller have not yet been released from their obligation to keep information secret; President Lech Kaczyński has not given them clearance to disclose information, and I haven’t heard President Komorowski do so either.

Our law renders us helpless in addressing the problem of responsibility for what happened in Stare Kiejkuty.** Maybe a political solution is needed. Parliament could pass an “Abolition Act,” for example.

According to Polish parliamentary law, the acts that took place on Polish territory in 2002 and 2003 were illegal, even though they occurred during a state of higher need — the war on terror — in which Poland took part as a U.S. ally and member of NATO. Therefore, in the national interest, an “Abolition Act” would provide that Poland give up pursuing and punishing any Polish politicians or officials who might be implicated. President Obama made a similar decision with respect to the CIA, holding that there would be no threat of criminal liability for the cruel treatment of suspected terrorists.

Such “abolition” is only possible if there is agreement among all political forces — such as in 2001, when Poland considered the World Trade Center attack to be the beginning of the war on terror, based on Article 5 of the NATO Washington Treaty.

This, however, will not address all the details of this case, because a full explanation today remains quite impossible.

*Editor’s note: The quote, while accurately translated, could not be verified.

**Editor’s note: Stare Kiejkuty is a Polish military intelligence center.