Germany: Parliamentary Committee investigates Iraq war and CIA flights
01 January 2006
On 12 January this year, the television programme
Panorama revealed that Germany's foreign secret service (
Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND), while acting on orders from the chancellor's office, remained in Baghdad during the US-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003 and collaborated with US military intelligence services. Simultaneously, the former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was publicly condemning the war (see
Statewatch News Online, January 2006). Controversially, a former Pentagon official and more recently a classified study by the US military claim that German services provided information on military targets and strategy, which is vehemently denied by the former and current German government coalitions.
These revelations came at a time when Germany's knowledge of and alleged involvement in the CIA's abduction of German nationals became widely debated (see
Statewatch Vol. 15 no 6) as the BND is also believed to have collaborated and passed on intelligence to the US secret services in rendition cases. The Federal Crime Police Authority (
Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) is known to have collaborated in interrogations in Syria and the Lebanon, with the knowledge that the detainees were being tortured. Evidence extracted through these interrogations is allegedly being used by the German public prosecutor in proceedings in Germany against the detainees.
Given the illegality of these practices under German law and the contradiction of the government's anti-war rhetoric on the one hand and its collaboration in the same on the other, parliamentary debates and domestic and foreign affairs committee meetings in January and February this year were dominated by the scandal. The government has published a 277-page report which still leaves crucial questions unanswered. After a series of statements by the government denying German agents had delivered military target information - despite contradicting evidence in US military reports - opposition parties finally agreed to set up a special parliamentary committee. It will investigate not only the BND involvement in Iraq but also the CIA rendition flights involving German citizens, the alleged CIA prisons in eastern Europe, the abduction of the German citizen Khaled el-Masri to Afghanistan and the role of German security and police officers in the interrogation of German citizens in Syria, Lebanon and Guantanamo (Cuba).
Controlling the secret services
When the BND scandal reached its height in mid-January with the disclosure of its involvement in Iraq, the Green Party response, together with the liberals (
Freiheitlich Demokratische Partei - FDP) and the new left-wing party (
Die Linke), was to demand a special Parliamentary Investigations Committee (
Untersuchungsausschuss). An investigation committee differs significantly from the regular parliamentary secret services control body (
Parlamentarisches Kontrollgremium - PKG), which has no rights to call witnesses and is not allowed to disclose details of the hearings, and therefore cannot ensure a proper investigation. The committees powers, regulated under the Parliamentary Investigations Committee Act (PUAG), can call witnesses, place them under oath (and, with a majority vote, order imprisonment for contempt if they refuse to give evidence or order sanctions if the witness lies) and it can employ special investigators who act as "public prosecutors" for the committee. It also has powers to view relevant evidence (such as BND files), question witnesses and unlike the PKG, it can demand more staff if necessary; the regular control commission PKG has no powers to increase its resources and PKG members are often unable to view all the files of a case. Under Article 18 PUAG, however, the Federal authorities, i.e. the government, is obliged to provide the requested files with a justification for partially concealing sections if there are "constitutional concerns" regardin