The US secretary of state has defended the US invasion of Iraq and hinted that the US will not release prisoners from Guantanamo Bay until it is certain they pose no threat. "I know we have made tactical errors, thousands of them, I'm sure," Condoleezza Rice told a gathering of 200 foreign policy experts, local officials and journalists organised by England's Chatham House foreign policy institute on Friday. "This could have gone that way, or that could have gone that way. But when you look back in history, what will be judged is: Did you make the right strategic decision?"Also on Friday, Rice said her country harbours no desire to be the world's jailer. Speaking at a football stadium, Rice said: "We want the terrorists that we capture to stand trial for their crimes. But we also recognise that we are fighting a new kind of war, and that our citizens will judge us harshly if we release a captured terrorist before we are absolutely certain that he does not possess information that could prevent a future attack."
Jack Straw announced last week that Britain would take up the case of a British resident held at the Guantanamo. He said the government would intervene on behalf of Bisher al-Rawi, 37, a native Iraqi and British resident who was arrested in Gambia three years ago.