Charter flight front for CIA air service

[struggle4progress]

The Central Intelligence Agency has dramatically expanded the secret air service with which it fights international terrorism behind the cover of private charter flights, a report said yesterday.

The agency owns at least 26 such aircraft, 10 of which were bought since 2001, an investigation by the New York Times showed.

Each is operated by front companies that the CIA controls, or affiliated to companies such as Aero Contractors Ltd, in North Carolina. The planes are used to whisk terror suspects overseas for interrogation — the controversial practice known as ''rendition’’ — or discreetly to fly experts to the location of recently captured prized prisoners. The newspaper claims that Aero Contractors’ planes, for example, are routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

Aero Contractors was founded in 1979 by a former CIA officer who was also a pilot for Air America, an air company that served the agency during the Vietnam era. Its aircraft transported CIA paramilitary officers to Afghanistan in 2001, carried an American team to Karachi after the US consulate was bombed in 2002 and flew from Libya to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the day before a US-held prisoner said he was questioned by Libyan agents last year, the paper reports. <snip>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/06/01/wcia01.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/06/01/ixworld.html

[KoKo]

1. Chilling read, but worth it!

Was sent to me by someone here in NC earlier linked from NYT's and it was pretty scary thinking of how many planes are flying in and out of Johnston county next to "Smithfield" doing their "terror flights."

Also thought it was interesting that the "Church Commision" had felt the CIA shouldn't be involved in these activities and that other countries are beginning to investigate the flights.

Something most Americans and NC'linians, in particular, need to know more about. :scared: