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The CIA in Europe

Berlin's Silence for Washington

By Matthias Gebauer in Berlin

Gerhard Schröder's government had detailed information on how the CIA operated in Europe -- and said nothing. The lower echelons of the administration even co-operated actively. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is likely to expect the same silent complicity from the new chancellor, Angela Merkel.

In his heyday as leader of Germany, Gerhard Schröder was always ready to demonstrate indignation at how George W. Bush waged his war on terror. He loved to portray himself as the man who kept Germany out of Iraq. On his watch, Germany would have nothing to do with America's methods in its global campaign against al-Qaida. He liked to underline that stance by saying Washington should be held accountable for its actions.

Schröder's time is over now. But questions about Germany's involvement in the methods of CIA agents operating in Europe are catching up with him as well as with the other political pensioners -- former foreign minister Joschka Fischer and especially former interior minister Otto Schily. Research by the Washington Post, SPIEGEL and other media show that neither the previous government nor the new administration under Angela Merkel should have been surprised about the reports in recent weeks about secret prisoner transports, secret prisons and CIA kidnappings.

It is also becoming ever clearer that the Schröder government was informed in detail and at an early stage about the policy of so-called "extraordinary renditions" and "black sites" across Europe. Cabinet ministers in Berlin clearly didn't just know the dirty details about Bush's unrestricted war on terror by reading the newspapers.

In some cases German intelligence officers even tried to profit from the controversial methods by questioning prisoners who were being held without any legal foundation. Schröder's stance on Iraq was popular and won him votes. But behind its anti-American veil, his government was quietly complicit and was occasionally rewarded for its silence.

The case of Khaled Masri provides a good example of the old government's ambivalence towards US methods. Interior Minister Schily, as a representative of the German government, was officially informed by the US ambassador in May 2004 about a German terror suspect whom the United States had secretly detained, kidnapped and taken to a jail in Afghanistan. But because intensive interrogations and the application of all the CIA's tools of the trade had not produced any incriminating evidence, the United States wanted to free him as quietly as possible, the ambassador told Schily.

Schily plays ball

But rather than protest, the resolute interior minister accepted an array of US demands. The Masri case was immediately classified top secret. Schily and the whole government remain steadfastly silent on the kidnapping of a German citizen. Even when the man's attorney asked the government for help in investigating the case, the government didn't utter a word. When the case entered the judicial system, Schily and his colleagues remained silent. The German government, witness to the entire incident, pretended not to know anything. In a court of law, such behavior amounts to the suppression of evidence. It's only due to the obstinate research by the public prosecutor and several journalists that the case has been unravelled in detail and will be brought before a US court on Tuesday.

The German government was similarly discreet in the case of another of its citizens, the German-Syrian Mohammed Haydar Zammar. German authorities knew since Sept. 11, 2001 that Zammar was involved in recruiting the suicide pilots. But they couldn't prove anything. When he traveled to Morocco at the end of 2001 he disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was taken by the CIA to Syria where he was interrogated with the methods that are customary in that country. He was outside any system of legality. The German intelligence services were aware of what happened to him. There is no evidence that the German government was informed, but it has to be assumed.

The Germans had their own agenda. They also wanted to know what Zammar had said, so they made an effort to take care of the details. In the end, they agreed to a dirty deal with the Syrians. As SPIEGEL recently discovered, in a secret meeting in the chancellor's office, high-level members of the German government promised the Syrian side that they would withdraw legal indictments against two suspected Syrian agents if, in exchange, German investigators could question Zammar. The Syrians accepted the horse trade. Shortly thereafter, a delegation of German officials traveled to Damascus in November 2002, interrogated Zammar, and got several interesting details for the terrorism investigator's archive.

Feigned surprise

In light of the Zammar incident, the surprise expressed by many politicians over the US's secret prisons appears to be richly overdone. The German bureaucrats visited precisely one of these clandestine locations, made a highly questionable deal with the Syrians and allowed a German investigation to go nowhere. In addition to the government's silent toleration of the CIA practice of kidnapping a German citizen, this conduct goes against the most basic tenets of the German republic. Can Germany approach illegally operating government authorities of an allied country in order to access information important to Berlin? Can a German government remain silent about serious abuses of human rights for a calculating foreign policy?

Further examples simply serve to confirm the extent of the situation. The topic of secret prisons already came up for debate during the trials in Hamburg of Abdelghani Mzoudi and Mounir al-Motassadeq, who were accused of being accessories to terror because of their contacts with members of the 9/11 terror cell. At the time, the government vehemently refused to relay information to the court from the security agencies on two important witnesses in US custody. The fact that two architects of the 9/11 attacks were interrogated in secret locations under even more secret conditions, must have been clear to the government -- the reports in SPIEGEL and the US press were proof enough. But instead of playing with an open hand, the federal government remained silent and classified important testimony from government employees -- in the interest of friendship with the USA.

Assistance for the CIA

German authorities were even more helpful to the Americans in the case of two Yemenites, whom the CIA lured to Frankfurt in 2003 with an undercover informant. In a hotel there, the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) helped to plant listening devices in the rooms and afterwards aided in the arrest. There were already misgivings at the beginning of the undercover CIA operation over the evidence against the two men, who allegedly wanted to donate $20 million for an armed Islamic struggle. But Germany wasn't disturbed by these misgivings. The German bureaucrats dutifully participated and delivered both men to the United States. Critical questions were met with the routine silence that the USA values so much.

When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice comes to Berlin on Tuesday, she will be greeted by Germany's new chancellor, Angela Merkel. In recent days, an increasing number of voices have demanded Merkel bring up the sensitive topic of the CIA flights, the alleged secret prisons and "extraordinary renditions" during the meeting. But it already appears clear that Rice has little desire to sit through an hour of Teutonic tutoring on human rights while visiting the chancellery. The secret methods of the Bush administration are still an important part of the war against terror and nobody in Washington cares to hear sharp criticism about them -- especially not from America's junior partner Germany.

Staying the course

On the contrary, the Americans want the Germans to stick to tried and true traditions. Official silence is expected as negotiations continue behind the scenes. That's why the latest reports about what Schily knew about Masri's abduction couldn't be more perfectly timed for the United States. How can the German government suddenly appear to be upset and critical when Berlin has been aware of the CIA's methods for the past few years but chose to keep quiet? Moreover, Merkel remains intent on improving ties to the United States. To attack Rice during her first visit since Merkel took office does not fit into the planned rehabilitation of trans-Atlantic relations.

But just because there is a new government in Berlin does not mean Rice will only encounter new faces during her talks. There will be many old acquaintances from the Schröder era sitting at Merkel's side. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, once Schröder's powerful chief of staff in the chancellery, is now foreign minister. August Hanning, the former head of Germany's BND intelligence agency, is now deputy interior minister. Neither can seriously be surprised or outraged by what the CIA has been up to. They've been extremely well informed about it all for years.

It's especially bitter for Merkel that the actions of her predecessor's government have so quickly colored her dealings with the United States. But at the very least she can take solace from the fact that the talks in the chancellery can be held in a polite and friendly atmosphere despite all the surrounding controversy.