The British Security Services: More Lady Bracknell than George Smiley?

Eliza Manningham-Buller's apparent lack of awareness of alleged US mistreatment of "war on terror" suspects is baffling (The ex-spy boss says she didn't know about torture, 11 March). Does she not read the newspapers, watch television or indeed even delve into her own agency's intelligence reports?

From the Binyam Mohamed case – just one case among many – we know that the security service was told by US officials that Mohamed was kept shackled, deprived of sleep and threatened with being "disappeared" by his US interrogators. Meanwhile, members of the security service themselves "interviewed" nine British nationals at Guantánamo in 2003. Did what they heard there ring no alarm bells?

Even a quick perusal of numerous Amnesty reports from 2002 onwards could have alerted Manningham-Buller to the issue. We shouldn't have to rely on speeches from former members of the security service for a full picture of this period. Instead we need an independent and wide-ranging inquiry into all aspects of the UK's alleged involvement in human rights abuses like rendition, secret detention and torture.

Kate Allen

Director, Amnesty International UK

• Listening to the assertion of wise monkey "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" Eliza Manningham-Buller claiming not to know about the torture of detainees, I can't help feeling that I would like the head of my intelligence service to have the intelligence to know that other intelligence services, such as the CIA, might not always tell the truth.

Christopher Orlik

Bristol.

First published here.