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> > By MICHAEL DEN TANDT

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> > Friday, June 3, 2005 Updated at 4:27 AM EDT
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> > From Friday's Globe and Mail
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> > Ottawa - Defence Minister Bill Graham expressed personal regret yesterday
> > for the deportation and year-long imprisonment of Maher Arar, marking the
> > first time any senior government minister has come close to apologizing for
> > the affair.
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> > "We could have done things differently," Mr. Graham told the Arar inquiry in
> > his second day of testimony. "Clearly, we would have preferred he'd gotten
> > out earlier and I'm very sorry he was not, given the obvious reasons."
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> > Communication breakdowns have emerged as the main theme of the inquiry.
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> > Mr. Graham, who was foreign affairs minister at the time of the Arar affair,
> > said he was never informed of his officials' suspicions that Mr. Arar had
> > been tortured in captivity, and would have reacted more forcefully had he
> > known.
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> > I would have said, 'Wayne, here's a guy being tortured; let's get moving on
> > this," Mr. Graham said, referring to former solicitor-general Wayne Easter,
> > who was in charge of CSIS and the RCMP at the time.
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> > Gar Pardy, who was head of consular services for Foreign Affairs at the time
> > of Mr. Arar's detention and led the government's effort to secure his
> > release, has testified that he was convinced within a month of Mr. Arar's
> > deportation that he had been tortured.
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> > "What surprises me is that this was not conveyed to me," Mr. Graham said. "I
> > was not told." While acknowledging that mistakes were made, Mr. Graham also
> > strongly defended his former officials. "In the light of what we knew at the
> > time, and the practices, the nature of what we were trying to achieve . . .
> > I honestly believe that we did the best we could and for the best motives."
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> > Mr. Pardy testified yesterday that his views about Mr. Arar's situation were
> > well known within the department, and that he shared them with officials in
> > the minister's office. He did not name any official.
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> > The communication breakdown appears to have lasted throughout the affair.
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> > In a visit with Damascus consul Leo Martel in August, 2003, 11 months after
> > his deportation, Mr. Arar said he had been "mentally destroyed" by his
> > captivity. According to Mr. Martel's handwritten notes from the Aug. 14
> > visit, Mr. Arar also said he'd been jailed in a cell measuring three by six
> > feet, and slept on the floor.
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> > But in the report that made its way up the chain of command within the
> > government, Mr. Martel wrote only that "he confirmed he has not been beaten
> > or tortured." Mr. Graham declared at a news conference later that day that
> > Mr. Arar had denied he'd been tortured, and that this had been independently
> > confirmed.
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> > "Maybe I went too far by saying 'independently,' " Mr. Graham said, adding
> > that he would have been far more cautious in his remarks had he been
> > informed of the true picture.
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> > In a tense afternoon exchange with Marlys Edwardh, Mr. Arar's lawyer, Mr.
> > Pardy refused to shoulder any blame for the miscommunication. "I've said
> > before that we were playing hockey on Saturday night, and I believe we
> > played it successfully," Mr. Pardy said.
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> > Asked about Mr. Graham's remarks, Mr. Pardy said, "My ass was already
> > burning on this case, I didn't need anybody to light a fire under me."
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> > Mr. Pardy neither confirmed nor denied Senator Pierre De Bané's contention a
> > day earlier that Mr. Pardy had told him in a 2003 briefing that the United
> > States offered to return Mr. Arar to Canada in October, 2002, on condition
> > he be jailed. "Different people in the room could have interpreted my
> > comments differently," Mr. Pardy said.
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> > Mr. Arar was arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport in September, 2002,
> > while en route to Montreal from a family holiday in Tunisia. While in
> > detention in the United States, the RCMP shared information about Mr. Arar
> > with the Federal Bureau Investigation, which in turn shared it with the U.S.
> > Immigration and Naturalization Service, which used it in deciding to deport
> > him.
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> > The information, obtained in the course of an RCMP investigation of a
> > possible al-Qaeda sleeper cell in Ottawa, consisted of allegations that Mr.
> > Arar had contact with people who had contact with members of al-Qaeda.
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> > There was no evidence that Mr. Arar was involved in terrorism or any other
> > crime.
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> > Following his deportation, the government response rapidly settled into two
> > tracks. Foreign Affairs officials led by Mr. Pardy set about securing Mr.
> > Arar's return. But their efforts were repeatedly undermined by unnamed
> > officials at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP.
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> > Indeed, as late as June, 2003, Mr. Pardy testified yesterday, officials from
> > both agencies were adamantly opposed to offering any assurances to the
> > Syrians that Mr. Arar posed no threat and should be returned home.
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> > It was only after the intervention in July, 2003 by Jean Chrétien,