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America Addresses Prison Questions

The Bush administration pledged yesterday to respond to a formal inquiry from the European Union over reports of covert CIA prisons for al Qaeda captives in Eastern Europe, acknowledging for the first time that the controversy over the secret prison system has upset European allies. European commentators have questioned how the United States can celebrate democracy in Ukraine when reports about the prisons appear to undermine its own traditions of freedom. American commentators wonder why European commentators feel they can lecture a country that didn`t carry out the Holocaust.

The controversy over the prisons has threatened to overshadow Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice`s planned five-day trip to Europe next week, and she used a meeting yesterday with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany`s new foreign minister, to respond to the growing clamor for answers. Rice will visit Germany, Romania, Ukraine and NATO headquarters in Brussels, and U.S. officials expect questions about the prisons to dog her at every stop.

"The United States realizes that these are topics that are generating interest among European publics as well as parliaments, and that these questions need to be responded to," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters, adding, "These are certainly legitimate questions."