Tom Griffin (London, OK): In his latest Daily Mail column, Peter Oborne takes issue with Gordon Brown's appointment of Harlow MP Bill Rammell to a senior Foreign Office post:
Four years ago, as a junior minister at the FO, Rammell was personally informed by the Red Cross about the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American forces in Abu Ghraib jail.
However, Rammell did nothing. Indeed, he apparently failed to pass on the information to any other member of the Government.
In a reply to Michael Howard in May 2004, Tony Blair told the Commons that the Government had been unaware of the abuse at Abu Ghraib:
In respect of the other allegations, it is not correct that Ministers or I were aware of those allegations in respect of American troops. The ICRC report was not passed to us, as has already been made clear. In any event, however, I think it fair to point out that in January—a month before the report—Major-General Taguba was tasked by the Americans to look into claims of abuse, particularly at Abu Ghraib prison, for a period of time. Investigations were already proceeding, and 17 United States soldiers had already been suspended. Indeed, the first American soldiers were charged with abuse back in May 2003.
I simply say to the House that any abuse by any coalition forces is completely unacceptable. What is not true is that allegations were made and nothing happened in respect of them.
A month later, however, Jack Straw admitted in a reply to Michael Ancram that Ministers were indeed 'aware of those allegations.'
The President of the ICRC, Dr. Kellenberger did mention briefly to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Rammell) in their meeting on 18 March that the February ICRC report contained allegations concerning treatment of detainees by forces other than UK forces, though naturally the part of their discussion which covered detainees in Iraq focused on specific allegations against UK forces. The Minister discussed the concerns raised by Dr. Kellenberger with officials on his return to London. Officials had already received assurances that US investigations were under way into allegations of abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
On the face of it, Rammell appears to have concluded that such grave and damaging allegations did not merit the attention of other members of the Government. So what conclusion can we draw from his promotion? Either that more senior Ministers did not want to know about Abu Ghraib, or that they did know.
