Poland is the 51st State

From today's New York Times piece on the techniques used to interrogate 9/11 suspects:

Within days, Mr. Mohammed was flown to Afghanistan and then on to Poland, where the most important of the C.I.A.’s black sites had been established.... Poland was picked because there were no local cultural and religious ties to Al Qaeda, making infiltration or attack by sympathizers unlikely, one C.I.A. officer said. Most important, Polish intelligence officials were eager to cooperate.

“Poland is the 51st state,” one former C.I.A. official recalls James L. Pavitt, then director of the agency’s clandestine service, declaring. “Americans have no idea.”