Murnaghan Interview with Norman Baker, MP, former Home Office Minister

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well let’s get more on that story about whether Britain had a role in the CIA’s interrogation and rendition of terror suspects. I’m joined from Lewes in Sussex by the Lib Dem MP and former Home Office Minister of course, Norman Baker, a very good morning to you Mr Baker.  A broad question first of all, do you have confidence that Sir Malcolm Rifkind who has been on this programme and others, do you have confidence that his committee can get to the bottom of Britain’s involvement in all this?  

NORMAN BAKER: Well I’m very pleased that Malcolm Rifkind has taken the steps he has and I think it’s right to ask for the information he has asked for but based on previous experience the Intelligence Security Committee has not really delivered the goods and there has been a suspicion they have been slightly too close to those they are supposed to be overseeing so let’s wait.  I am not particularly confident but I am happy to be proved wrong in due course.  

DM: Well he is full of determination, he says he’s got extra powers over the last few years and he is going to make sure he can get his hands on the redacted bits, the bits that have been blanked out from the American report and call witnesses from this country.

NORMAN BAKER: Well I hope he does so and I hope he is as determined and effective and robust as he is saying and I’m delighted he is taking that stance.  We’ll wait and see how effective it is.  

DM: So what are your concerns about what might have gone on? There is one in particular about the British overseas territory of Diego Garcia which is leased to the Americans and it appears to have played a role, quite a large role, in moving people around the world to be interrogated.

NORMAN BAKER: Yes, we have to be very clear that there are a number of incidents which occurred in about 2002 to 2004 which really were outside normal government practice and which have not yet been fully dealt with.  This was the year of sofa government, of dodgy dossiers and we’re still waiting of course for the Chilcott Report after all these years.  Jack Straw said as Foreign Secretary to the House in 2005 that anyone who said that Diego Garcia had been involved in rendition was involved in a conspiracy theory, which is the normal insult for people who start asking awkward questions, and then three years later David Miliband as his successor admitted in fact that Diego Garcia had been used for rendition flights so there is a great deal to sort out here.  We have also got, as you say, the opportunity or the decision to take as to whether we renew the lease with the Americans, they basically run the island, there are only 40 British people there, about 1000 American personnel, 2500 civilians employed at the base and so on and I think it would be quite wrong to renew that lease until we are absolutely clear what is happening in Diego Garcia and what did happen there and the lease should not be renewed until we are very clear on those points.

DM: But do you feel, we’re in the dark obviously until we get to see a more obvious report but do you feel that more could have gone on in Diego Garcia than just moving people around, having them in transit?

NORMAN BAKER: Well the newspapers today, the Observer and others are reporting what people behind the scenes are saying, we don’t know whether that’s facts of course.  There are also reports from Al Jazeera, they may have a particular reason for saying what they are saying but nevertheless there does appear to be some suggestion that there has been greater British involvement to date, even of acquiescence perhaps rather than direct involvement than has so far been admitted to.  We know that the British and Americans of course have a very good and very productive foreign affairs relationship and given the Americans have been heavily involved in this it would have taken a very brave British government to say we’re not going to acquiesce in that and I’m not sure that the Blair government in particular, which seemed to cave in to whatever George Bush wanted, was that government.

DM: But it could have gone further than that.  We are speculating here, Mr Banker but we need to find out more about it, could the Americans given the enthusiasm of that relationship over the past decade and a bit, could the Americans not have said well we need some of the expertise you’ve developed in other countries in extracting information with a degree of compulsion, expertise you developed in Northern Ireland, in Aden, in Kenya?

NORMAN BAKER: Yes, well they may well have said that and of course there is a file which has been passed as you know by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service in respect of the allegations about two Libyans and the potential involvement of MI6 in rendition of those two individuals so we have got many questions to answer.  I think it’s a great pity that twelve years on or ten years on from these difficult events with the Blair government when normal government procedures were abandoned, that we still don’t have answers to these points, we still don’t have the Chilcott Inquiry published, it looks like it is going to be past the election and we still don’t have an answer to Diego Garcia.  The British public in this democracy are entitled to full answers, they are entitled to know what is being done in their name, we don’t yet know and it is time we found out.

DM: And in pursuit of that goal, is it incumbent on all politicians, all the senior figures involved in Britain at the time in whatever did go on, that they appear either before Sir Malcolm’s committee or in front of another forum and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

NORMAN BAKER: Absolutely it is and my view is, as I think other Members of Parliament have said, is that ultimately there will have to be a judicial inquiry into all this matter.  We can’t simply rely on Sir Malcolm’s committee no matter how determined he is, and I don’t wish to in any way denigrate him, but nevertheless I think we need something external to parliament to deal with this.  All the details have got to be consistent with any ongoing legal cases and it mustn’t be dragged out.  Chilcott has been dragged out now for how long, over this entire parliament.  We need answers quite quickly and we certainly need them before any lease is renewed in 2016.  

DM: Okay, great to talk to you Mr Baker, thank you very much indeed.  Norman Baker there, former Home Office Minister live for us in Lewes in East Sussex.