America last night refused to back a United Nations protocol against torture because of fears that it could allow international monitors to visit terrorist suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
...European Union officials, who support the protocol, said it appeared that Washington would climb down from this position and abstain from the protocol, which would then be adopted by other countries.
A European diplomat said that rejecting the protocol outright would have placed America in the company of "the torturing countries" such as Cuba, Iran, China and Nigeria and the Bush administration was reluctant to do that. "It is another US-EU difference, but I don't think the Americans are going to go and push this one to a head," he said.
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