Miliband admits torture complicity

Well, he would deny it. Or would he? In an article in today's Telegraph by David Miliband and Alan Johnson, the two ministers responsible for MI5 and MI6 say, "There is no truth in suggestions that the security and intelligence services
operate without control or oversight. There is no truth in the more serious
suggestion that it is our policy to collude in, solicit, or directly
participate in abuses of prisoners. Nor is it true that alleged wrongdoing
is covered up." But the phrase used by the Joint Committee on Human Rights of parliament was that the government was "complicit" in torture. That is very specifically not an accusation of soliciting, participating in or colluding with torture, it means  taking advantage of it and not actively seeking to prevent its use by others. By agreeing that they are indeed "risking" this the Ministers agree that it has happened. Read it for yourself to see how carefully drafted their exercise in denial-admission is. And note this as well. The first part of the passage I quoted. They accept unequivocally that there is always control and oversight and the security and intelligence services never operate without it. This means they are taking responsibility for the UK's complicity in torture. You might have thought, from the way the Telegraph and news services are reporting the article, that it is just a response to the Joint Committee. But it is surely also being written at the behest of the services whose operatives did the dirty work - with the approval of New Labour.