In Senate testimony of July 30, 2009, U.S. special envoy Scott Gration declared:
“‘There’s no evidence in our intelligence community that supports [Sudan] being on the state sponsors of terrorism. It’s a political decision,” Gration said. He also said the sanctions are getting in the way of development work, particularly in southern Sudan, which is still recovering from a long civil war.” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111422940 )
But in an interview with Radio Dabanga (September 15, 2009), Gration declared that, “‘he never said anything [about] lifting the sanctions and removing Sudan from the list of state-sponsored terrorism.'”
The contradiction, indeed prevarication, could hardly be clearer. And this leaves aside the question of whether Gration’s Senate testimony was itself accurate. The Guardian (UK) recently reported (December 6, 2010) on “Wikileaked” U.S. cables:
“In March 2009, Jordan and Egypt were informed by the US of new Iranian plans to ship a cargo of ‘lethal military equipment’ to Syria with onward transfer to Sudan and then to Hamas. Host nations were requested to require that the flights land for inspection or deny them overflight rights. It is not known whether any deliveries went ahead. In April Egypt’s interior minister, General Habib al-Adly, was described in US cables as being behind the dismantling of a Hezbollah cell in Sinai as well as ‘steps to disrupt the flow of Iranian-supplied arms from Sudan through Egypt to Gaza.'” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-sudan-iranian-arms-gaza )
On a related issue–Khartoum’s putative “cooperation” with the U.S. on counter-terrorism issues—Senator Russ Feingold has made clear his own skepticism about Khartoum’s “good behavior”:
“”I take serious issue with the way the report [on international terrorism by the US State Department] overstates the level of cooperation in our counterterrorism relationship with Sudan, a nation which the US classifies as a state sponsor of terrorism. A more accurate assessment is important not only for effectively countering terrorism in the region, but as part of a review of our overall policy toward Sudan.”
(Statement by Senator Russell Feingold, Chair of the Africa Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, May 1, 2009)