U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in Europe to try to rebuild battered trans-Atlantic relations. That task has become exponentially more difficult in the aftermath of new revelations that allege European complicity in the torture of suspects in the war against terror. Ms. Rice must quiet the growing furor if she is to make any progress. The controversy will not go away, however: The real problem is U.S. policy regarding torture. Washington's refusal to disavow the use of torture, in any and all circumstances, and its willingness to engage in wordplay instead has done terrific harm to its moral authority and leadership and, according to most experts, serves no purpose.
The war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq has deeply divided the United States and several of its European allies. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was widely seen as riding a wave of anti-Americanism to win re-election three years ago. His replacement by Ms. Angela Merkel, after Germany's last election, was expected to help heal the strains.
Realizing that goal has been set back by revelations that the U.S. has used secret prisons in several European states to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists after they had been seized -- in a process known as "rendition" -- in various countries. The possibility that those interrogations included torture has introduced new strains in Washington's relations with its European allies. European governments are squeezed between two uncomfortable choices: Either they knew about the renditions and were complicit in possibly illegal activity; or they did not, in which case they look ineffectual and ignorant about practices on their own territory.