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Senior U.S. official must have made call on Arar, expert says
By JEFF SALLOT
Friday, November 11, 2005 Page A10
OTTAWA -- Even three years after Maher Arar's deportation from the United States, it is still hard to figure out who in Washington ordered the Ottawa software engineer to be sent to Syria for interrogation, a former senior White House adviser on Middle Eastern affairs said yesterday.
But the decision to send Mr. Arar to Syria instead of home to Canada would have been made at a senior level, perhaps by John Ashcroft, the U.S. attorney-general at the time, according to Flynt Leverett, the only former U.S. official to testify at the Arar commission.
"I find this extraordinary. It's really hard for me to figure out who made the decision," he said.
Mr. Leverett, who is also a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, conceded under cross-examination that his old employer must have been involved at some level if Mr. Arar was flown from the United States to the Middle East on a CIA aircraft.
Mr. Leverett quit his White House job two years ago when he split with the U.S. administration on anti-terrorism policy. He now works at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank.
The U.S. government will not allow its officials who were actually involved in the Arar deportation to testify at the Arar inquiry, which is a Canadian investigation to determine whether the RCMP or other federal agencies were complicit in his deportation.
Mr. Arar, a native of Syria, was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York in October of 2002 and deported to the Middle East as an al-Qaeda suspect, even though he was travelling on his Canadian passport. A fact-finder for the commission reported that there is no doubt Mr. Arar was tortured during his year in custody at a Syrian military prison.
Mr. Leverett said he had no knowledge of the Arar case until he left the White House, but he was testifying as an expert witness on Syrian-U.S. relations.
On Wednesday, he said that Syrian military intelligence would have seen Mr. Arar's deportation by the United States to their country as a "golden opportunity" to get into Washington's good books.
He said that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, Syria wanted to curry favour with Washington by sharing information about Sunni extremist groups with links to al-Qaeda.
Mr. Leverett said yesterday that he was a source for some of the information appearing in news reports about the Syrian connection with the CIA.
But he said could not account for other parts of the news accounts that said Syrian intelligence had helped thwart an attack on the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.
A National Post story in July of 2003 quoted Mr. Leverett as a source in this regard.
Mr. Leverett said he had no direct knowledge of the alleged bomb plot and that all he was really confirming to the Post reporter was that he had heard the same information that had appeared in U.S. media.
He said he was interviewed by the Post shortly after leaving government and "I was still learning how to talk to the press in a nuanced and clear way."
The former British ambassador to Syria, Henry Hogger, testified that he thought Canadian diplomats in Damascus at the time did all they reasonably could to get Mr. Arar released.
Mr. Hogger was testifying on behalf of former Canadian ambassador Franco Pillarella and Canadian consular officials, who have faced criticism for the way they handled the Arar case.
© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By JEFF SALLOT
Friday, November 11, 2005 Page A10
OTTAWA -- Even three years after Maher Arar's deportation from the United States, it is still hard to figure out who in Washington ordered the Ottawa software engineer to be sent to Syria for interrogation, a former senior White House adviser on Middle Eastern affairs said yesterday.
But the decision to send Mr. Arar to Syria instead of home to Canada would have been made at a senior level, perhaps by John Ashcroft, the U.S. attorney-general at the time, according to Flynt Leverett, the only former U.S. official to testify at the Arar commission.
"I find this extraordinary. It's really hard for me to figure out who made the decision," he said.
Mr. Leverett, who is also a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, conceded under cross-examination that his old employer must have been involved at some level if Mr. Arar was flown from the United States to the Middle East on a CIA aircraft.
Mr. Leverett quit his White House job two years ago when he split with the U.S. administration on anti-terrorism policy. He now works at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank.
The U.S. government will not allow its officials who were actually involved in the Arar deportation to testify at the Arar inquiry, which is a Canadian investigation to determine whether the RCMP or other federal agencies were complicit in his deportation.
Mr. Arar, a native of Syria, was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York in October of 2002 and deported to the Middle East as an al-Qaeda suspect, even though he was travelling on his Canadian passport. A fact-finder for the commission reported that there is no doubt Mr. Arar was tortured during his year in custody at a Syrian military prison.
Mr. Leverett said he had no knowledge of the Arar case until he left the White House, but he was testifying as an expert witness on Syrian-U.S. relations.
On Wednesday, he said that Syrian military intelligence would have seen Mr. Arar's deportation by the United States to their country as a "golden opportunity" to get into Washington's good books.
He said that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, Syria wanted to curry favour with Washington by sharing information about Sunni extremist groups with links to al-Qaeda.
Mr. Leverett said yesterday that he was a source for some of the information appearing in news reports about the Syrian connection with the CIA.
But he said could not account for other parts of the news accounts that said Syrian intelligence had helped thwart an attack on the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.
A National Post story in July of 2003 quoted Mr. Leverett as a source in this regard.
Mr. Leverett said he had no direct knowledge of the alleged bomb plot and that all he was really confirming to the Post reporter was that he had heard the same information that had appeared in U.S. media.
He said he was interviewed by the Post shortly after leaving government and "I was still learning how to talk to the press in a nuanced and clear way."
The former British ambassador to Syria, Henry Hogger, testified that he thought Canadian diplomats in Damascus at the time did all they reasonably could to get Mr. Arar released.
Mr. Hogger was testifying on behalf of former Canadian ambassador Franco Pillarella and Canadian consular officials, who have faced criticism for the way they handled the Arar case.
© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.