Polish PM orders probe into CIA prison allegations

By Nathaniel Espino

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz
Marcinkiewicz said on Saturday he would order an investigation
into allegations that the CIA detained suspected terrorists at
secret prisons in Poland.

Analysts said Marcinkiewicz had little choice but to order
the probe, but they expressed concern that Poland’s reputation,
and that of Marcinkiewicz’s government, would suffer even if
cleared of the allegations.

On Friday, the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza quoted Marc
Garlasco, an analyst with watchdog group Human Rights Watch, as
saying that, until recently, Poland was the main location for
CIA interrogations in Europe.

Human Rights Watch said on Friday, however, that it was
still investigating CIA operations in eastern Europe.

Officials in Marcinkiewicz’s government have denied the
allegations that have also been aired in U.S. media but
Marcinkiewicz said an investigation was needed since the
reports could threaten Poland’s security.

“I will order an investigation at all possible locations,
to determine whether there is any evidence at all that such
events took place on our territory,” Marcinkiewicz said on the
private television channel TVN 24.

“This matter must finally be closed, because it could prove
dangerous for Poland,” added Marcinkiewicz, whose cabinet was
sworn in on October 31.

Washington has declined to comment on the prison reports,
which have caused controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.
Human Rights Watch was not available for comment on Saturday.

REPUTATION AT RISK

Jerzy Szmajdzinski, defense minister in the previous
leftist cabinet and now an opposition MP, criticized
Marcinkiewicz’s decision to launch the investigation after
denying that the prisons existed. He said it looked illogical.

“The question is why Marcinkiewicz doesn’t believe what he
himself has said, what the president has said, what (special
services minister Zbigniew) Wassermann has said, and what
Condoleezza Rice said at a meeting of NATO,” he told Reuters.

And political analyst Radoslaw Markowski of the Polish
Academy of Sciences said even if the probe cleared Poland of
wrongdoing, the country’s reputation could suffer.

“If the investigation finds nothing, I’m not sure we’ll be
able to get that across through all the media noise,” he said.

Poland is one of Washington’s leading allies in Europe,
where it angered European Union heavyweights Germany and France
by sending troops to join the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Markowski said any revelations of secret prisons could make
it harder for Poland to keep troops in Iraq after the tentative
January pullout date.

“We’ve been trying to present our presence in Iraq as
purely peacekeeping — that we’re just there to help kids get
to school, and find water for the locals, not carrying guns.
This would fall apart if the (secret prisons) are proven,” he
said.

But he and other analysts saw few other ways for
Marcinkiewicz to respond to the media storm and to the
possibility of growing concern among ordinary Poles.

“After the communist experience, Polish public opinion is
extremely sensitive to any attempts at behind-the-scenes
dealings that are kept from the public,” said Bogdan Mach,
sociologist at the private Collegium Civitas.

(Additional reporting by Robert Strybel)