According to the Council of Europe’s report into the secret CIA prisons, Romania jumped at the chance to host U.S. detention facilities. A week after 9/11, the Romanian parliament approved a measure granting “basing and overflight permissions for all U.S. and coalition partners,” which investigator Dick Marty, citing a Romanian source, describes as “deliberately designed to cover aircraft operated by or on behalf of the CIA.” Within a month, it expanded its troop garrisoning accord with the U.S. — known as a Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA — to include “anyone declared by the American authorities to be part of the U.S. armed forces, and can present a travel order signed by the U.S. military.” In 2005, Romania went even further in accommodating U.S. military and intelligence personnel, signing yet another agreement.
The result, Marty writes, is that anyone “operating under the banner of the United States military have in practice operated on Romanian territory with complete freedom from scrutiny or interference by their (Romanian) counterparts ever since”:
In terms of permissions, all U.S. government and aircraft and vehicles are “free from inspection.” In addition, an apparently blanket authorization to “over-fly, conduct aerial refueling, land and takeoff on the territory of Romania” is granted to both U.S. Government aircraft and “civil aircraft… operating exclusively under contract to the United States Department of Defense.” Indeed, an equally permissive approach is taken by almost every aspect of the agreement, from the “construction activities” undertaken by U.S. forces to the apparently unquestioning acceptance as “valid” of “all professional licenses.”
An excellent stance for not knowing what took place at the “black sites.”
