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The high-ranking military official has made confusing statements about possible U.S. involvement in coup plans in Venezuela. Contrary to the statements by White House and State Department officials, the head of U.S. Sourthern Command said Thursday that an unconstitutional change in government could be planned for Venezuela. “A coup? You know, I don't know anyone that would want to take that mess over, but it might be that we see, whether it's at the end of his term or whatever, I wouldn't say -- I wouldn't (say) necessarily a coup, but there might be with -- the same ruling party … some arrangements to change leadership,” said Marine General John Kelly, Commander of U.S. Southern Command. The Southern Command, or Southcom, is a joint command of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and several other U.S. federal agencies, with more than 1,200 military and civilian personnel. It is responsible for military planning and operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Venezuelan government has claimed, and shown proof, of thwarting a plan to overthrow it. The goverment says opposition leaders worked together with members of the Venezuelan navy and U.S. embassy offiicals. To date, U.S. officials have denied their involvement in such plans. The U.S. military leader continued with statements denying involvement in or knowledge of any coup plans. “I’m certainly not involved in any way, shape or form with coup planning. I don't know anyone who is. And I probably would know if someone was,” Kelly said in a press gathering speaking about Soutcom's 2015 Posture Statement to Congress. “And as far as the Air Force -- or, they claimed it was a U.S. Air Force pilot. This would really be a question for the State Department. But I believe it was a U.S. pilot,” he continued, referring to Venezuela detaining a U.S. pilot and accusing him of spying and recruiting Venezuelans to join the coup plot.

In the statement, Southcom identifies regional organizations such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Bolivarian Allliance for our Americas (ALBA) as “challenges … which deliberately exclude the United States and seek to limit (the United States') role in the hemisphere.” On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” Venezuelan and Latin American leaders have blasted the declaration as a form of U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of Latin American countries.

The British government's problems with missing files deepened dramatically when the Foreign Office claimed documents on the UK's role in the CIA's global abduction operation had been destroyed accidentally when they became soaked with water.In a statement that human rights groups said "smacked of a cover-up", the department maintained that records of post-9/11 flights in and out of Diego Garcia, the British territory in the Indian Ocean, were "incomplete due to water damage".The claim comes amid media reports in the US that a Senate report due to be published later this year identifies Diego Garcia as a location where the CIA established a secret prison as part of its extraordinary rendition programme. According to one report, classified CIA documents state that the prison was established with the "full cooperation" of the UK government.

Ministers of successive governments have repeatedly given misleading or incomplete information about the CIA's use of Diego Garcia. In February 2008, the then foreign secretary, David Miliband, was forced to apologise to MPs and explain that Tony Blair's "earlier explicit assurances that Diego Garcia had not been used for rendition flights" had not been correct. Miliband said at this point that two rendition flights had landed, but that the detainees on board had not disembarked.Miliband's admission was made after human rights groups produced irrefutable evidence that aircraft linked to the rendition programme had landed on Diego Garcia. Since then, far more aircraft have been shown to have been involved in the operation.The "water damage" claim was given in response to a parliamentary question by the Tory chair of the Treasury select committee, Andrew Tyrie, who has been investigating the UK's involvement in the rendition programme for several years.

The British government is particularly sensitive about the allegations that Diego Garcia hosted one of the CIA's prisons, at times claiming that it knows only that which it is told by Washington. Although the island has operated as a US military base since the islanders were evicted in the 1960s, it remains a British territory, and its use during the rendition programme would have placed the UK in breach of a raft of international and domestic laws.Belhaj and his wife are suing MI6, the agency's former head of counter-terrorism Sir Mark Allen and Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time that the couple were abducted.Last month, the Commons cross-party defence committee suggested that information about the extent to which the CIA used the island as a "black site" to transfer detainees was still being withheld. "Recent developments have once again brought into question the validity of assurances by the US about its use of Diego Garcia," it said.The committee warned that it will assess the implications for Britain and for "public confidence" in its previous statements on US use of Diego Garcia, and said the US should not in future be permitted to use the island, to transfer terror suspects, for combat operations, "or any other politically sensitive activity", without the explicit authorisation from the UK government.