It has now been made public that Poland played a role in the US Central Intelligence Agency’s rendition program. CIA flights – potentially carrying terrorism suspects – did indeed land in Poland.

Though human rights organizations made much of the revelations – mostly because Warsaw has denied involvement in the program for years – there was little real surprise. It has been assumed for several years, as a result of investigations by both the European Parliament and a number of newspapers, that at least 11 CIA rendition flights carrying terrorism suspects landed in Poland.

Aside from its denials, Warsaw has done little to discourage the suspicions. The aforementioned EP investigation found that CIA planes had landed 336 times in Germany and 170 times in the UK within the period in question. It is hardly a stretch to think that Poland, a staunch US ally at the time, might have allowed CIA aircraft to land within its borders, especially in a time of war.

Now, flight records made available to human rights NGOs the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the Open Society Justice Initiative, have shown that at least six such flights landed at the Szymany airport in northern Poland.

But that is where the hard evidence currently ends.

Where’s the beef?

There is no proof as yet of the more serious charges leveled against Poland over the past four years. These include the accusation that it served as a detention center for CIA prisoners, which, if true, wouldn’t prove especially controversial. Serving as a logistics hub – where perhaps prisoners were transferred or crews spelled after long flights – would seem a natural role for Poland in the US’s War on Terror.

The airport where these flights landed is located near the Kiejkuty military base, so detention of CIA prisoners seems technically possible. Poland has vehemently denied that prisoners were detained here and, although its refutations ring somewhat hollow, there is no evidence to prove otherwise.

The most serious accusation, however, is that Poland served as the location for the waterboarding of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In 2008, The New York Times claimed that he was held near Szymany, and a more detailed account, alleging that the waterboarding occurred in Poland, was revealed in The New York Review of Books last year.

The magazine published a Red Cross report which quotes Khalid Sheik Mohammed as saying he believed he was held in Poland. In it the Al Qaeda chief says he was given a water bottle whose label contained an e-mail address ending in “.pl” and recognized the heating system in the facility where he was held as being consistent with those found in former communist countries.

That’s not much to go on. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is an unreliable source, to say the least.

Righteous indignation

And what if the worst of these accusations were proven true? What if Poland had indeed served as the location for all of the waterboarding – up to 183 incidents – purported by The New York Times?

It would certainly be a shame. This particular method of interrogation is questionable – in terms of efficacy and ethics – and it would be disappointing if Poland had participated, whether tacitly or actively.

A disappointment, but not an outrage. The debate over the ethicalness of the use of torture in the international war against terrorism, or in any war for that matter, rages on. It’s certainly easier to condemn such actions in hindsight – would it be as easy to blame governments and politicians if the events of September 11 had been repeated a few more times?

Honesty the best policy

Nevertheless, we need to remember that all of this belongs to the world of the theoretical, for now. No concrete evidence has been presented to indicate that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or any other CIA prisoners, were actually detained in Poland.

All we know for sure is that six CIA flights, probably transporting terrorism suspects, landed in country. And while the last few Polish governments – with their serial, categorical denials of participation in the rendition program – are entirely deserving of criticism, human rights organizations’ howls of righteous indignation are rather shrill.

Adam Bodnar of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said, “It is time for the authorities to provide a full accounting of Poland’s role in rendition.”

If there is any more to reveal, he is right. Indeed, rather than fomenting anger, the present authorities might even earn a bit of credibility in the eyes of the general public by being forthcoming.