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Yet there are still three U.K. residents who remain detained at Guantánamo--including Binyam Mohammed, Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha. What is your government doing to securing their release, considering that no other country is likely to claim them?
We took back those people who were U.K. nationals. We then went further and took back people who were not U.K. nationals but who had a clear period of residence here in the U.K. I think it is less clear that others have a strong link with the U.K. and a right to be here. Legally, they aren't [residents] and they haven't been. I do, incidentally, think that there are other international partners who haven't done as much as we've done in order to take people back.

Guantánamo has been called a human-rights scandal. Do you think the camp will leave a huge tarnish on Bush's legacy?
I think that's for people in the U.S. to judge. In the U.K., we have wanted to take a slightly different approach. The approach for tackling terrorism has not just been a military approach but also through our criminal-justice system. What I don't doubt is the shared commitment in tackling terrorism that there is between our countries.

You are currently seeking to push through controversial new counterterror measures that seeks to raise the limit terror suspects can be detained without charge from 28 days to 42 days. Why is this necessary?
There is a risk in the future--given that terrorist plots are becoming more complicated and interrelated--where we might face a situation where 28 days isn't enough time to complete an investigation and to bring people to charge. We haven't needed longer than that up until now. What we are proposing is not to legislate to extend that time period but to legislate now to bring in a reserve power that if it were necessary could be triggered for a very short period of time, only two months, which would then allow for individual applications to a judge to allow us to hold somebody for longer. We've moved a very long way from where we started in our proposals on this. We're doing it in a way that is precautionary but also very proportionate.

A recent survey of Labour M.P.s suggests that enough of them might vote against the government to defeat the bill in the House of Commons. Why press ahead in the face of so much opposition?
Because I am the Home secretary, and my responsibility is the security of this country and its people. So I think the mature thing to do now is to legislate something now, which will never come into force unless it is needed in the future.

It sounds like you are proposing legislation to deal with a hypothetical situation.
No, it is recognizing that risk exists. It is recognizing that we face a severe threat from terrorism. And the scale and nature of that is, as of this moment, continuing to grow. There are many cases in legislation where you legislate for an eventuality under the basis that it may very well occur. In these circumstances, we're saying that all we're intending to do is to take a reserve power that wouldn't even come into force unless that eventuality happens. If I'm wrong, if we never need it in the future or if we are successful in the other ways that we have in countering terrorism, it will never come into force. Nothing lost. If I am right, or if we aren't as successful as we need to be in all the other methods and we do need it in the future, it is there at the time that we need it.

In an interview last month with The Sunday Times, you were asked if you would feel safe walking the streets of London after dark, and you replied: "Well, I wouldn't walk around at midnight, and I'm fortunate that I don't have to do that." Would you feel more safe walking the streets of New York or Paris after dark?
I would feel very safe walking around the streets of London. That was not the question that I was asked, incidentally. If you look at the transcript, it goes on to say that I would feel safe, and that I have walked around the streets of London and, in fact, around the area where I live, in Redditch. From everything that I hear about New York, it is increasingly safe. I was in Paris recently, and I walked around there. But my responsibility is crime reduction in the U.K., and I feel safer walking around the streets of London now than before this government came to power.

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Posted By: vaman @ 02/10/2008 2:51:25 PM

UK should not be discussing as if it does not like USA. If it feels strongly, there should be a closure of NATO and bring the troops back home and also bring the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, so that the new superpowers can handle all the world issues. For a change, US can sit back and enjoy its own country.
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Posted By: Maxwell James Morley-Mower @ 02/10/2008 6:43:18 AM

In the first place, Britain is a founding member of NATO and the charter of NATO states that when one member is attacked, all NATO defends that fellow NATO member. The Islamist terrorist attack on the US homeland was co-ordinated, in great part. in Europe, and the last time I looked at a map, Britain is even closer to Europe than the World Trade Center. Had the US, UK and Europe joined forces and not sat on their hands after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda never would have ruled Afghanistan, never would have established Afghanistan as the global headquarters for Islamist terrorism, and there would be no need for anyone to post any comments, vice the terrorist threat from al Qaeda in Britain in 2008, which is just as real, just as deadly and just as much a threat to the survival of Britain as in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. When the jihadis who demand the extermination of Israel, the destruction of the US and UK, and the resurrection of the Caliphate stop preaching their litanies of hate from the Finsbury Park Mosque and other caldrons of Islamic fascism in London and throughout the UK, then the Britain will have a future free from fear and free from terror. Until then, the British government would be wise to hunt down every jihadi in the UK, prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, and focus on striking and killing Islamist terrorists worldwide, at every opportunity.
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Posted By: nawawimohamad @ 02/09/2008 11:47:02 PM

In the first place, Britain should not have joined the US in combating terrorism because despite having a large number of Muslim population in the UK, there was no threat to the UK before 9/11. The stupid ex-prime minister (Blair) with some persuasion from the lobbyist, unnecessarily jeopardised the UK by jumping the gun and embraced Bush to "fight terrorism" and thus putting Britain in the line of fire and giving the excuse for the zealots to be the extremists. The UK has gained nothing so far but it has only become more vulnerable and lost many soldiers for NOTHING!

The British has always been very diplomatic and cordial when dealing with others especially on sensitive issues, but Blair had broken the tradition and the present generation is facing the repercussions.

The way the British government is acting now is more like an expected guest to the US. The US is just a big bully and the UK is befriending it and for what? The rest of the European countries are more cautious when dealing with the US, always keeping in mind their own interests and would not just be the eager US deputy. The UK is an eager US volunteer.