Starting Points: Guantanamo

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Jun 19, 2010

U.S. considers partially lifting ban on transfers of detainees to Yemen

By Peter Finn
Saturday, June 19, 2010; A03

The Obama administration is considering partially lifting its suspension of all transfers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, officials said, following a federal court ruling that found "overwhelming" evidence to support a Yemeni's claim that he has been unlawfully detained by the United States for more than eight years.

The case of Mohammed Odaini has become so pressing that senior administration officials, including the secretaries of defense and state, or their deputies, will discuss it next week. A White House official stressed that any decision "should not be viewed as a reflection of a broader policy for other Yemeni detainees."

"What isn't being considered is lifting, in a blanket fashion, the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because deliberations are ongoing.

The administration, though, may come under further pressure to quickly release Yemenis besides Odaini. As many as 20 more Yemenis could be ordered released by the courts for lack of evidence to justify their continued detention, a second administration official estimated.

The official said the government may have to periodically carve out an exception to its ban.

"There is a group of Yemenis who are going to win their habeas cases," the official said. "Some of them will not be as clear as this case, but some will be, and that poses a real dilemma."

Odaini's detention

Odaini was a 17-year-old student at a religious institution in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in March 2002 when he accepted an invitation to spend the evening at a nearby guesthouse that he had never before visited. He ended up spending the night, and after Pakistani authorities raided the house overnight, they turned Odaini and a number of other men over to the United States.

The government argued "vehemently" that Odaini's presence in the guesthouse demonstrated that he was part of "the al-Qaeda affiliated network of a man named Abu Zubaydah," according to the court opinion. But a federal judge was unconvinced.

"The evidence before the court shows that holding Odaini in custody at such great cost to him has done nothing to make the United States more secure," wrote U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., ordering Odaini's release in an opinion that was declassified this month. "There is no evidence that Odaini has any connection to al Qaeda. . . . The court therefore emphatically concludes that Odaini's motion must be granted."

Transfers suspended

In January, after a Nigerian man who had been in Yemen allegedly tried to down a Detroit-bound airliner, President Obama suspended all transfers of detainees to Yemen. A month earlier, Republicans had strenuously objected to the repatriation of six Yemeni detainees.

An interagency task force Obama created has cleared 29 Yemenis for repatriation and conditionally cleared 30 more if security conditions in Yemen improve. Most are likely to stay at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for some time. But Odaini's case presents a particular challenge to the administration, and to those on Capitol Hill who are opposed to any transfers to Yemen.

"This is a bad case to argue. There is nothing there. The bottom line is: We don't have anything on this kid," said the administration official. "The judge wants a progress report by June 25th. We have to be able to report something other than we are thinking about it."

In previous cases in which Yemenis have been ordered released, the government has appealed. But the administration official said it would be "unconscionable" to appeal in this case.

Two options

Odaini was recommended or approved for transfer out of Guantanamo Bay by various military or government officials in 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2009, according to Kennedy's judgment. But he remained at Guantanamo Bay.

The administration official said there are basically two options in the case: repatriate Odaini, the son of a retired Yemeni security official, or quickly find another country willing to resettle him.

The second option may be complicated, however. Odaini's "strong preference" is to return home, according to his attorney, David Remes. And countries that have so far resettled Guantanamo detainees have accepted only those who had nowhere else to go and who wanted to be resettled.

There are about 90 Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay, the largest single group by nationality among the 181 detainees held at the military detention center.

Administration officials fear that the Yemeni government, which does not control all of its own territory and is facing a terrorist threat from a splinter group called al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is not able to ensure that released detainees will not return to the fight.

Advocates for some of the Yemeni detainees say they do not pose a security risk. Asked whether there are other cases as stark as Odaini's, his attorney, Remes, said he was "certain of it."

"Why the government fights so tenaciously to keep men such as Mr. Odaini in prison unless and until the government sees fit to release them is the great mystery of this litigation, especially since President Obama took office," said Remes, who represents 14 Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay. "They seem unable to admit they've ever made a mistake."

Dec 30, 2009

Former Guantanamo detainees fuel growing al-Qaeda cell

Image by katutaide via Flickr

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; A03

SANAA, YEMEN -- Former detainees of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have led and fueled the growing assertiveness of the al-Qaeda branch that claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner, potentially complicating the Obama administration's efforts to shut down the facility.

They include two Saudi nationals: the deputy leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Said Ali al-Shihri, and the group's chief theological adviser, Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish. Months after their release to Saudi Arabia, both crossed the kingdom's porous border into Yemen and rejoined the terrorist network.

Shihri and Rubaish were released under the Bush administration, as was a Yemeni man killed in a government raid this month while allegedly plotting an attack on the British Embassy. A Yemeni official said Tuesday that the government thinks he is the first Yemeni to have joined al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula after being released from Guantanamo.

That a group partially led by former Guantanamo detainees may have equipped and trained Nigerian bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is likely to raise more questions about plans to repatriate those prisoners to Yemen. Six were released last week; 80 Yemenis are now left at Guantanamo, nearly half the remaining detainee population. Many are heavily radicalized, with strong ties to extremist individuals or groups in Yemen, said U.S. officials and terrorism analysts.

Republicans have in recent months urged the Obama administration to rethink sending detainees to Yemen. They have cited al-Qaeda's growing footprint in the country, its instability and the case of Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., after exchanging e-mails with a radical Yemeni American cleric.

"This is a very dangerous policy that threatens the safety and security of the U.S. people," said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.).

A senior Obama administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said al-Qaeda has used the prison "as a rallying cry and recruiting tool." Closing the facility, the official said, "is a national security imperative."

A second administration official said the government had little choice with the six detainees released last week. A federal judge had already ordered one to be released. The officials said the government concluded it did not have enough evidence to win against the remaining five in hearings in which the detainees had challenged their imprisonment under the doctrine of habeas corpus. The prospect of losing in federal court is likely to trigger other releases, the official said.

"We do not want a situation where the executive is defying the courts," the official said. "That's a recipe for a constitutional crisis."

Wolf, who did not object when the Bush administration repatriated 14 Yemeni detainees to their homeland, said that "conditions in Yemen have dramatically changed" with the emergence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Wolf added that he had access to classified biographies of the six Yemenis sent back last week.

"Did they read the bios? They are dangerous people," Wolf said.

A third administration official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Yemenis sent back had been carefully screened to assess their potential for being recruited by al-Qaeda upon their return. He also expressed confidence in the Yemeni government's ability to handle their reintegration: "We have been exceptionally pleased with the dialogue and cooperation with Yemen over the last 11 months."

The Yemeni former Guantanamo detainee who joined al-Qaeda was among four suspects killed by Yemeni forces in a Dec. 17 raid north of the capital, according to a Yemeni official and a human rights activist. Hani Abdo Shaalan, who was released from the U.S. facility in June 2007, and three other suspected militants were planning to bomb the British Embassy and other Western sites, said a Yemeni official who was briefed on the operation.

Shaalan, 30, had traveled to Afghanistan by way of Pakistan in July 2001. He was searching for work, according to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. He eventually found work as a chef's assistant in a Taliban camp and was at Tora Bora during the U.S. air campaign there. Pakistani forces captured him in their country, near the Afghan border.

Human rights lawyer Ahmed Amran, who assists the repatriated detainees, said Shaalan's family reported his disappearance last year.

After their release from Guantanamo, Shihri and Rubaish, both of whom trained and fought with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, were sent to a Saudi rehabilitation program that uses dialogue and art therapy to reform militants. In February, the Saudi government released a list of 85 most wanted Saudi terrorists. At least 11 were graduates of the program, including Shihri and Rubaish.

Shihri, now 36, became al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's deputy leader after the Yemeni and Saudi Arabian branches of al-Qaeda merged in January. Rubaish, now 30, is the branch's mufti, or Islamic scholar, responsible for religious guidance and theological justification for committing violence.

Another former Guantanamo detainee, Mohammed al-Awfi, was one of the merged group's key field commanders for months. He, too, had gone through the Saudi rehabilitation program, then fled to Yemen along with Shihri. In January, he appeared on a video by the group announcing that he had joined al-Qaeda. But a month later, his relatives in Saudi Arabia persuaded him to surrender to Saudi authorities.

Yemen has struggled with its handling of former militants.

A prison-based rehabilitation program was widely considered a failure. Graduates had no follow-up support, and many later traveled to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some were thought to have taken part in a September 2008 al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen that killed 16, including six assailants.

Other suspects became radicalized inside Yemeni prisons and joined al-Qaeda, according to human rights activists. All the surviving suspected al-Qaeda militants involved in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the southern city of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors, have either been released by Yemen's government or escaped in a 2006 jailbreak from a maximum-security prison. Among those who escaped was Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the current leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Yemeni officials say they are capable of rehabilitating detainees but lack the resources.

Amran, the human rights lawyer, said that he does not know why Shaalan joined al-Qaeda but that the government needs to improve its reintegration programs. "The Yemen government doesn't assist detainees. No employer wants to hire them without a guarantee," said Amran, who works for the Yemeni group Hood. "If there's no help for the detainees, they will join al-Qaeda."

Staff writer Peter Finn and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Dec 23, 2009

From Guantánamo to Desk at AlJazeera

Image via Wikipedia

By BRIAN STELTER

Of the 779 known detainees who have been held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — terrorism suspects, sympathizers of Al Qaeda, people deemed enemy combatants by the United States military — only one was a journalist.

The journalist, Sami al-Hajj, was working for Al Jazeera as a cameraman when he was stopped by Pakistani forces on the border with Afghanistan in late 2001. The United States military accused Mr. Hajj of, among other things, falsifying documents and delivering money to Chechen rebels, although he was never charged with a crime during his years in custody.

Now, more than a year after his release, Mr. Hajj, a 40-year-old native of Sudan, is back at work at the Arabic satellite news network, leading a new desk devoted to human rights and public liberties. The captive has become the correspondent.

“I wanted to talk for seven years, to make up for the seven years of silence,” Mr. Hajj said through an interpreter during an interview at the network’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

Among Al Jazeera’s viewers in the Arab world since the 9/11 attacks, perhaps nothing has damaged perceptions of America more than Guantánamo Bay. For that reason, Mr. Hajj, who did a six-part series on the prison after his release, is a potent weapon for the network, which does not always strive for journalistic objectivity on the subject of his treatment. In an interview, Ahmed Sheikh, the editor in chief of Al Jazeera, called Mr. Hajj “one of the victims of the human rights atrocities committed by the ex-U.S. administration.”

But Mr. Hajj has not restricted himself to Guantánamo and his own incarceration. He has expanded the network’s coverage of other rights issues, including press freedom in Iraq, Palestinians in Israeli prisons and the implications of the USA Patriot Act. On a Wednesday morning in mid-August, Mr. Hajj pushed Al Jazeera’s news desk to cover a hunger strike by political prisoners in Jordan, and he happily pointed to a nearby television when the Jordan news scrolled on the bottom of the screen.

Nor has his experience radicalized him: he said that, despite his upbringing in a violent and often repressive country and his experience in detention, he maintained a sustaining belief in democracy and the rule of law.

Terry Anderson, an Associated Press correspondent who was detained in Lebanon from 1985 to 1991 by Islamic fundamentalists, said he could understand Mr. Hajj’s chosen assignment.

“In prison, what do you do? You think about your life. You think about what you were doing, and how it led you here,” Mr. Anderson said.

Mr. Hajj’s story is well known to Al Jazeera viewers, but not to most Americans. (As with the experiences of many detainees at Guantánamo Bay, his version is uncorroborated by American officials or any documents.) After working at a beverage company and then trying to start a business in Azerbaijan, he began working as a cameraman for Al Jazeera in 2000. He was captured on Dec. 15, 2001, trying to cross the border back into Afghanistan with his camera and a correspondent.

He later came to believe that the Americans were seeking another Al Jazeera cameraman, one with a similar name who had recorded an interview with Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 attacks.

After being detained by local authorities in Pakistan, Mr. Hajj was transferred into American custody and, he says, tortured and beaten at a prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. He was moved to Kandahar and then transported to Guantánamo Bay in mid-2002. Looking back, he says he thinks that he was sent there in part because he was a journalist.

“I had seen a lot of things that I shouldn’t have seen,” he said, citing the treatment of prisoners at Bagram in particular. Mr. Hajj claims that in lengthy interrogations he was asked for details of the network’s staff, policies and processes and that some guards started calling him “Al Jazeera” as a nickname.

He said an interrogator once asked him, “How much does bin Laden pay Al Jazeera for all the propaganda that Al Jazeera supplies?”

“You’re asking the wrong question,” he replied, emphasizing that bin Laden was not a propaganda partner of Al Jazeera, “he’s a newsmaker.”

In American custody, he tried to keep practicing journalism, he said, writing eyewitness accounts for his lawyers and family members, interpreting fellow detainees’ stories of abuse and even making drawings of forced feedings during a hunger strike.

“I felt that I needed to document this for history,” he said, “so that the next generation knows the depth of the crime that was committed.” He audibly emphasized the Arabic word for depth as he spoke.

During the interview, Mr. Hajj displayed a deep wound on his left leg, which he said he suffered when he was pinned against cell bars during a beating at Guantánamo. He reiterated that the emotional trauma was more extensive than the physical; he says he continues to see psychotherapists.

Asked about questioning about Al Jazeera, a Pentagon spokesman said members of the media “are not targeted by U.S. forces, but there is no special category that gives members of media organizations immunity if captured engaging in suspicious, terror-related activity.” The spokesman added that all detainees were treated humanely while in custody.

According to Zachary Katznelson, the legal director for Reprieve, a human rights group that represented Mr. Hajj, the allegations changed over the years: “First, he was alleged to have filmed an interview of Osama bin Laden. It was another cameraman. So, that allegation disappeared. Then the U.S. said Sami ran a jihadist Web site. Turns out, there was no such site. So that allegation disappeared. Then, the U.S. said Sami was in Afghanistan to arrange missile sales to Chechen rebels. There was no evidence to back that up at all. So that allegation disappeared.”

Mr. Hajj’s release, back to Sudan on a stretcher, came in May 2008 after lobbying by human rights groups and the government of Sudan. The Pentagon spokesman said Mr. Hajj’s release to Sudan “indicated our belief that the government of Sudan could effectively mitigate the threat posed” by him.

Since his release, he has put on weight and honed his rhetoric. He splits his time between Al Jazeera and the Guantánamo Justice Center, a group he co-founded for former detainees. Through the center he is helping to prepare legal action against former President George W. Bush and officials of his administration.

Even during a translated interview, he remained keenly sensitive to language, calling the detainees at Guantánamo “captives,” to call attention to what he says is a “place outside of law.”

When a visitor mentioned “enhanced interrogation techniques,” an American term that characterizes harsh treatment of detainees, Mr. Hajj interrupted the interpreter and said, in Arabic, “instead of torture?”

“We are giving the wrong impression” with that term, he said. “We as journalists are violating human rights because we are changing the perception of reality.”

Oddly, while in a prison sanctioned by American authorities, Mr. Hajj put his faith in the American political system. He gathered bits of news from the guards and, leading up to the 2004 election, was sure that American voters would reject Mr. Bush, which would lead to his freedom. When the guards informed him that the president had been re-elected, he was stunned.

“I was sure I would outlive Bush,” he said.

Dec 16, 2009

Obama administration to buy Illinois prison for Guantanamo detainees

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

CONGRESS MUST VOTE ON PLAN
Critics are calling facility 'Gitmo North'

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 16, 2009; A03

CHICAGO -- President Obama, determined to change U.S. detention policy and shut the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, pointed Tuesday to a small town in Illinois as a big part of the answer.

A state prison in rural Thomson will be purchased and refitted to house dozens of terrorism suspects now held at Guantanamo Bay, the administration announced. But Obama immediately drew criticism that revealed just how controversial the issue remains.

Republicans in Illinois and in Washington called the president's move risky and reminded the administration that a congressional vote is required before detainees not facing trial can be held indefinitely on U.S. soil. GOP members of the House will "seek every remedy at our disposal to stop this dangerous plan," vowed Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). A vote is weeks or months away, Democrats said.

Civil liberties groups, while embracing the goal of closing Guantanamo Bay, said the administration would be wrong to move prisoners to the heartland without charging them with a crime.

"If Thomson will be used to facilitate their lawful prosecution, then this is truly a positive step," said Joanne Mariner, counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. If not, "President Obama will simply have moved Guantanamo to Illinois."

White House officials did not say how many inmates are likely to be transferred to the Thomson Correctional Center. Some detainees will be held for trial by military commissions on the prison grounds, while others could be held without charges.

"We are trying to get to zero here with the detainees," one administration official said, referring to the prison in Cuba. "If we have to detain any without trial, we will only do so as a last resort."

The official said individual cases will be subject to oversight by Congress and the federal courts.

One piece in the puzzle

The Thomson decision alone will not get Obama to his goal of shutting Guantanamo Bay, which became a symbol of what critics said was the Bush administration's willingness to flout international conventions.

But the plan is another piece of a puzzle that includes the prospective departure of 116 detainees recommended for release by an interagency team led by Justice Department prosecutors. The administration also announced last month that several suspects will be tried in New York federal court and others by the military.

Prisoners scheduled for transfer overseas will go directly from Guantanamo Bay, a White House official said, while detainees scheduled for trial in U.S. district courts will be held in nearby facilities.

To try to convince skeptics that terrorism suspects can be held safely in a farming town of fewer than 600 residents about 150 miles west of Chicago, U.S. officials pledged to create "the most secure facility in the nation."

Prisoners will not be permitted visits by family or friends, officials said. They will be guarded by military personnel. They will not mix with federal inmates who will share the prison. They will not be released in the United States.

The Pentagon said 1,000 to 1,500 personnel would move to the Thomson area to operate the military side of the prison once it is upgraded. About two-thirds would be members of the uniformed military, and the others would be civilians.

Improvements to the 1,600-bed prison, built eight years ago for $145 million and now housing fewer than 200 minimum-security inmates, are likely to take six months or more. Congress will be asked to approve the funding.

In addition to extra security, the prison is expected to need a courthouse for trials, an improved medical facility and a kitchen staff trained to prepare religiously appropriate meals.

'It's a wonderful thing'

Democrats pushed the prison's selection after Gov. Pat Quinn (D) relayed the suggestion to Obama in a White House meeting. They argued that a federal purchase of the 146-acre facility would produce as many as 3,000 jobs in a region with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate.

"It's a wonderful thing," said Thomson real estate agent Jeannine Mills. "At first, I was very apprehensive, but now I feel it will be very secure and, all in all, a good thing. We certainly need the economic boost."

Republicans have focused on security. Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) and several colleagues warned Obama in a letter last month that "our state and the Chicago metropolitan area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization."

"The administration," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), "has failed to explain how transferring terrorists to Gitmo North will make Americans safer than keeping these terrorists off of our shores in the secure facility in Cuba."

Democrats on Capitol Hill voiced confidence that, once it is clear that sturdy security measures will be in place, Congress will reverse the bipartisan vote that barred prisoners from being held without trial on U.S. soil.

In a letter to Quinn announcing the decision, leaders of Obama's national security team said closing Guantanamo Bay "should not be a political or partisan issue." They said the project is backed by "the nation's highest military and civilian leaders who prosecuted the war against al Qaeda under the previous administration and continue to do so today."

Staff writers Kari Lydersen in Chicago and Perry Bacon Jr. and Peter Finn in Washington contributed to this report.

Nov 16, 2009

Illinois Democrats Back Plan to House Guantánamo Prisoners - NYTimes.com

Image by horizontal.integration via Flickr

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — Top Illinois Democrats on Sunday wholeheartedly embraced the idea of sending terrorism suspects from Guantánamo Bay to a maximum-security prison about 150 miles west of Chicago, raising the possibility of a major breakthrough in the Obama administration’s efforts to close the military detention facility in Cuba.

But while Gov. Patrick J. Quinn and Senator Richard J. Durbin endorsed housing the detainees at the Thomson Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in a rural area, other local leaders were drumming up opposition to the idea, which could still face considerable opposition in Congress.

For the White House, which confirmed the administration’s interest, it could be the best chance so far to cut through the legal and political knots that have stopped it from closing down the prison camp in Cuba. For supporters in Illinois, it is an attractive economic opportunity. And just as opponents have done elsewhere, some in Illinois cast this plan as an unacceptable risk.

Mr. Quinn and Mr. Durbin, in news conferences to promote the plan, said that turning over the state prison, which is unoccupied, to the federal penal system, and using it for maximum-security inmates including as many as 100 captives from the campaign against terrorism, would create several thousand jobs.

But leading Republicans in the state — including Representatives Donald Manzullo, whose district includes Thomson, and Mark Steven Kirk, who is running for the United States Senate seat once held by Mr. Obama — signed a letter to the president on Sunday strongly opposing any such move.

“As home to America’s tallest building, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its No. 1 target,” the letter said, referring to the Willis Tower in Chicago, formerly the Sears Tower. “The United States spent more than $50 million to build the Guantánamo Bay detention facility to keep terrorists away from U.S. soil. Al Qaeda terrorists should stay where they cannot endanger American citizens.”

The sharp local debate echoed vehement arguments heard all weekend, after the administration announced that it would try the man accused as the operational leader of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and several co-conspirators, in a federal court in New York, while putting others accused of terrorism before military commissions for an attack on the U.S.S. Cole. That, too, was presented as a step along the path to closing Guantánamo.

News of the possible deal in Illinois was first reported over the weekend by The Chicago Tribune. On Sunday, a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity because no decision had been made, said that Thomson had emerged as “a leading option” for becoming the new facility the administration needs, and confirmed that government officials would tour the prison site on Monday.

Days after his inauguration, Mr. Obama declared that within a year he would close the Guantánamo prison, a signature component of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policy. In a speech at the National Archives in May, Mr. Obama proposed bringing those detainees deemed too dangerous to release to a facility inside the United States — including some who could not be tried for lack of evidence but were called committed Al Qaeda terrorists and might be held as “combatants.”

Lawmakers of both parties have expressed deep unease all along. Congress enacted a law this year forbidding the administration from bringing Guantánamo detainees into the United States except for the purpose of prosecution. But leading Democratic lawmakers said at the time that they were open to rescinding the restriction once the administration came up with a plan for how to handle the detainees.

As a home-state ally of Mr. Obama, Mr. Quinn provided the kind of enthusiasm no other governor has offered. He called the proposal “good for our state, good for economy and good for our public safety.” By some estimates, it would provide 3,200 jobs and cut the local unemployment rate in half.

But the governor acknowledged the hurdles ahead, saying, “This is not a done deal.” The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, said on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the detainees should not be moved to prisons on United States soil from the base in Cuba, which is also known as Gitmo.

“What problem is the president going to solve by moving these trials to New York or by moving Gitmo prisoners to Michigan, to Illinois, to Colorado?” Mr. Hoekstra said. “Why move them into the United States while we are still under the threat from radical jihadists?”

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, said in three appearances on television talk shows that by treating these prisoners in the civilian system, the administration was mishandling the fight against terrorism.

“It would seem to me what the Obama administration is telling us loud and clear is that both in substance and reality, the war on terror, from their point of view, is over,” Mr. Giuliani said on Fox News Sunday. “We’re no longer going to treat these people as if this was an act of war.”

For months, an interagency administration task force has been examining ways to handle the Guantánamo population, including looking at state and federal prisons around the country that might be used. Thomson, a maximum-security state prison that was built in 2001 at a cost to Illinois taxpayers of about $120 million, only to sit almost unused, is one of them.

Its chances got a lift last month when the president of the Village of Thomson, Jerry Hebeler, contacted Mr. Quinn’s office to suggest a federal takeover of the prison, according to a letter Mr. Quinn sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last week. Mr. Quinn agreed and personally raised the issue in a meeting with Mr. Obama two weeks ago.

The Thomson prison is contained by a 146-acre reservation near the Mississippi River and has eight 200-cell compartments designed for strict control of inmates. It is surrounded by an electrified fence capable of carrying 7,000 volts, has 312 surveillance cameras with motion detection capability, and armed inner and outer perimeter towers.

If a decision is made to proceed, the official said, the Federal Bureau of Prisons would buy the prison from Illinois and convert it into a maximum-security federal penitentiary. The bureau would house ordinary federal inmates in part of the facility and lease another part to the Defense Department to hold former Guantánamo detainees. The two populations would not have contact, the official said.

The federal government would also retrofit the facility to take it beyond the security specifications of the federal “Supermax” facility in Florence, Colo., from which no prisoner has ever escaped, including by adding extra external perimeter fencing, the official said. It would be operated with the most restrictive security conditions, “including individual confinement and isolation capabilities,” the official said.

Susan Saulny contributed reporting.

Nov 13, 2009

White House counsel steps down, will be replaced by Bob Bauer - washingtonpost.com

Tenure marked by struggles over closing Guantanamo

By Anne E. Kornblut and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff writer
Friday, November 13, 2009 11:30 AM

TOKYO -- White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig will step down from his post and be replaced by Bob Bauer, a prominent Democratic lawyer who is President Obama's personal attorney, the White House said Friday.

The departure is the highest-level White House shake-up since Obama took office in January. It comes after months of dissatisfaction over Craig's management of the closure of the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other matters, and less than a month after officials said Craig was no longer guiding the effort to close the prison.

White House officials nevertheless praised Craig for laying the groundwork for the closure and for guiding the nomination and confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina on the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Greg Craig is a close friend and trusted advisor who tackled many tough challenges as White House Counsel," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "Because of Greg's leadership, we have confirmed the first Latina justice on the Supreme Court, set the toughest ethics standards for any administration in history, and ensured that we are keeping the nation secure in a manner that is consistent with our laws and our values."

Bauer, currently a partner at Perkins Coie, will begin his new job by year's end, the White House said. Obama's statement said Bauer is "well-positioned to lead the Counsel's office as it addresses a wide variety of responsibilities, including managing the large amount of litigation the administration inherited, identifying judicial nominees for the federal courts, and assuring that White House officials continue to be held to the highest legal and ethical standards."

The announcement that Craig will leave coincides with a long-awaited Justice Department decision to transfer the prosecutions of five high-profile Guantanamo Bay detainees linked to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- including Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- to federal court in New York.

As a lawyer for House Democrats during their time in the minority, Bauer pursued an aggressive legal strategy aimed at undercutting the GOP's political advantages. In 2000, Bauer, in his capacity as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's attorney, filed a racketeering lawsuit against Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), then the House majority whip, and three affiliated political groups, charging that DeLay had engaged in extortion and money laundering.

The two parties reached a settlement a year later in which both sides claimed victory, but Bauer argued that the Democrats had effectively neutralized one of the GOP's most effective fundraising methods.

"We shut it down," Bauer said at the time. "There is no DeLay shadow network. We didn't have to worry about it in 2000, and we don't have to worry about it in 2002."

DeLay called the lawsuit, which cost him more than $450,000 in legal fees, "nothing more than a desperate political ploy to win back the House."

Shortly after Bauer's appointment was announced, Republicans began to raise questions about the propriety of a president's personal lawyer serving as White House counsel. One described the move as a serious housecleaning of the White House counsel's office.

Craig had once hoped for a post in the Obama administration conducting foreign policy. But when that job did not materialize, and Obama asked Craig to serve as counsel, Craig felt he could not refuse, people close to him said.

Before the release of Craig's letter to Obama stating he would return to private practice, some White House officials had said they expected him to receive a judicial appointment or diplomatic posting.

Craig, a respected lawyer whose storied career includes representing President Bill Clinton during his Senate impeachment trial, became one of the earliest Clinton allies to support the Obama campaign during the 2008 race. At the height of the campaign, he penned a memo sharply criticizing then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's foreign policy credentials, a reflection of how passionately he cared about international relations.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that Craig's exit was related to Guantanamo and noted that Craig had never sought to serve as the administration lawyer.

"Greg is, as you know, somebody who served in a previous administration in foreign policy. That's his passion," Gibbs said. He called Craig a "reluctant acceptor" of the counsel position who had never expected to stay long.

Craig did not return a phone call placed to his house Thursday night. In a letter to Obama released by the White House, he said he was honored to have worked for the administration and would return to private practice Jan. 3.

As White House counsel, Craig tried to influence some initiatives he cared most about, including reversing the Bush-era detainee policies. He took the job of closing the Guantanamo prison so seriously that when Bermuda agreed to take several detainees, Craig personally flew with them to the island.

But just a few months in office left Craig disenchanted with the political process, and some senior White House officials frustrated with the operations of the counsel's office. Some critics pointed to mistakes along the way, including the administration's failure to anticipate congressional opposition to closing the detention facility.

White House officials have conceded they will not make the January closure deadline that Craig helped Obama settle on and are at a loss as to where to house a number of hard cases who cannot be transferred to foreign countries or tried in U.S. civilian or military courts.

And there were other problems in his path. The vetting of nominees, a job typically overseen by the counsel's office, did not go well at first. Craig never quite penetrated the president's inner circle of advisers, despite his close personal relationship with Obama. And his high-profile role in the Guantanamo struggle made him an easy target, according to defenders of his who said he should not have been held responsible for the politics of such a thorny issue.

His allies praised him for trying to keep Obama in sync with some of the ideologically liberal ideas he promoted in the campaign.

Oct 30, 2009

Judge considers time served in sentencing al-Qaeda aide - washingtonpost.com

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Qatari spent 6 years on Navy brig, gets half of maximum penalty

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 2009

In a decision that could carry implications for the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks, a judge on Thursday sentenced an al-Qaeda sleeper agent with ties to the group's senior leaders to eight years and four months in prison.

The sentence sliced away nearly half of the 15-year maximum available penalty against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who entered the country as a graduate student on Sept. 10, 2001, under instructions from al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm essentially gave Marri credit for spending more than six years on a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Marri was held in isolation without criminal charges as one of only three enemy combatants on American soil.

Over the course of the two-day sentencing hearing in Peoria, Ill., attorneys for Marri presented evidence of his often-bleak detention conditions, arguing that he was held in a dark and chilly cell without a blanket, a mattress and his prescription eyeglasses for long stretches, and that his mouth sometimes was covered with duct tape. The judge said he pared nine months from the prison term because of the harsh conditions.

Justice Department lawyers had exhorted the judge to ignore Marri's indefinite detention, ordered in 2003 by President George W. Bush, and to focus instead on the alleged danger he posed. They pointed to evidence uncovered in an FBI search that Marri had performed research on hazardous chemicals and had bookmarked possible U.S. targets such as dams and reservoirs.

The Obama administration moved Marri out of the military brig and into a federal court in February. He eventually pleaded guilty there to a single charge of conspiring to provide support to terrorists. That felony charge, used often by prosecutors in national security cases because of its relatively low burden of proof, carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Experts on terrorism and advocacy groups for victims had been closely watching Marri's case for clues about what it could mean for the architects of the Sept. 11 attacks, who may soon be moved onto U.S. soil for trial in federal courts in New York and Virginia.

Given the years Marri has already served, he will spend about five more years behind bars, with the possibility of returning to his native Qatar, his attorneys said.

Kirk S. Lippold, commander of the USS Cole when it was targeted by Islamist terrorists while the vessel docked in Yemen in 2000, called the sentence "appalling" and "grossly inadequate." Lippold said that if prosecutors move other defendants from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for trials in regular U.S. federal courts, it could "create an era of unacceptable compromise to our national security."

Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies sentencing in terrorism cases, said the Marri sentence "probably comes with the territory in switching somebody out of military detention and into the criminal justice system."

The case is one of the few concrete examples, Chesney said, of an ongoing debate over whether the U.S. criminal justice system is "up to the task" of trying and convicting terrorism suspects.

An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because a government task force is still reviewing the cases of Guantanamo detainees, said possible criminal charges against them could be far more serious and could carry much longer prison terms than Marri received.

For instance, the Justice Department this year moved detainee Ahmed Ghailani from Guantanamo to a federal courthouse in New York, where he will stand trial on murder charges relating to the deaths of 224 people in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. decided not to seek the death penalty against Ghailani, but he faces multiple life sentences.

The government's record on sentencing among terrorism suspects has been mixed, even in cases decided by military commissions, which are sometimes touted as tougher venues.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a driver for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was convicted in a military trial of providing material support for terrorism and sentenced to 66 months, but he was given credit by the presiding judge for the 61 months he had spent at Guantanamo.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said, "This administration is committed to bringing terrorists to justice for their crimes."

Marri cried in the courtroom when he told the judge about the years he spent without any word from his wife and five children. His attorneys said they were "very pleased" with the resolution of the case.

Lawrence Lustberg, Marri's attorney, said in a telephone interview that his client's case "shows our system can handle [terrorism cases] in an evenhanded way, consistent with our ideals of justice."

Oct 20, 2009

Justices to Decide if Detainees Can Be Released Into U.S. - NYTimes.com

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By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide whether federal courts have the power to order prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay to be released into the United States.

The case concerns 17 men from the largely Muslim Uighur region of western China who continue to be held although the government has determined that they pose no threat to the United States.

Last October, a federal judge here ordered the men released. But a federal appeals court reversed that ruling in February, saying that judges do not have the power to override immigration laws and force the executive branch to release foreigners into the United States.

An appeal from the Uighurs has been pending in the Supreme Court since April, and it is not clear why the justices acted on it now. The Obama administration has sent some of the prisoners to Bermuda, and Palau has said it will accept most of the rest. But one prisoner apparently has nowhere to go.

The prisoners have said they fear they will be tortured or executed if they are returned to China, where they are viewed as terrorists.

The case presents the next logical legal question in the series of detainee cases to reach the court. Last year, in Boumediene v. Bush, the court ruled that federal judges have jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus claims from prisoners held at Guantánamo.

Lawyers for the Uighur prisoners say the Boumediene ruling would be an empty one if it did not imply giving judges the power to order prisoners who cannot be returned to their home countries or settled elsewhere to be released into the United States.

The new case, Kiyemba v. Obama, 08-1234, is likely to be argued early next year. But if the administration is successful in settling all of the Uighur prisoners abroad, it may turn out to be moot.

The Obama administration has so far avoided confrontation with the court over its detention policies. After the court agreed last year to hear the case of Ali al-Marri, a Qatari student held as an enemy combatant, the administration transferred him to civilian court, mooting his appeal. Mr. Marri later pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges.

In urging the court not to hear the new case, the Justice Department said that the Uighurs were “free to leave Guantánamo Bay to go to any country that is willing to accept them, and in the meantime, they are housed in facilities separate from those for enemy combatants under the least restrictive conditions practicable.”

But, the Justice Department’s brief continued, “there is a fundamental difference between ordering the release of a detained alien to permit him to return home or to another country and ordering that the alien be brought to and released in the United States without regard to immigration laws.”

Lawyers for the Uighurs, who were captured in Pakistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, argued that the appeals court’s ruling rendered the writ of habeas corpus an empty gesture. It made courts “powerless to relieve unlawful imprisonment, even when the executive brought the prisoners to our threshold, imprisons them there without legal justification, and — as seven years have so poignantly proved — there is nowhere else to go,” the Uighurs’ brief said.

Oct 12, 2009

White House Bid to Close Gitmo Hampered by Snags in Congress - WSJ.com

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By EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by January faces snags in Congress that some of the president's supporters say result from a lack of White House muscle.

The Obama administration won a measure of support last week when House and Senate negotiators agreed on a joint Homeland Security appropriations bill that allows Guantanamo prisoners to be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution if the administration provides a plan for handling each detainee case.

However, just days before, in the full House, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed nonbinding resolutions barring the transfer of prisoners, even for trial.

Both the House and Senate must now sort out what to do when the Homeland Security appropriations legislation reaches the floor.

Republicans assailed the Homeland Security legislation because the language allowing some prisoner transfers emerged during last-minute conference negotiations instead of during earlier committee hearings. Republicans are calling for stronger prohibitions on moving Guantanamo prisoners to the U.S. and hope to use the votes in the full Senate and House to highlight what they describe as dangerous Democratic policies.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R., Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, said Democrats in the Homeland Security bill "defied the will of Congress and the American people and have voted to allow terrorist detainees to be brought onto American soil at taxpayer expense."

Supporters of closing Guantanamo quickly are criticizing the White House, saying the administration has a scattershot approach toward corralling Democrats in Congress. "There hasn't been a visible effort to make the case," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. He said the White House effort has lacked a "point person" for the issue on Capitol Hill and the president himself hasn't spoken out.

"There's nothing outside groups can do to meet the cynical criticism in Congress, to buck up the president's supporters if he's not seen talking about these issues himself," Mr. Malinowski said.

Administration officials acknowledge they will likely not meet the president's January deadline to close the prison, where 221 detainees remain after Friday's announced transfer of prisoners to Belgium and Kuwait. Even if some are allowed to come to the U.S. to face trial, the Obama administration still has no clear route for dealing with those it says must be held indefinitely without trial.

Administration officials play down criticism about their Guantanamo management. They cite the Homeland Security appropriations bill as a sign that the administration's fortunes on Guantanamo are turning around.

The administration last week also won House passage of legislation that makes changes Mr. Obama sought to military commissions, a Bush-era creation that the Obama administration wants to use in modified form to try some detainees. Just because the administration's lobbying isn't visible doesn't mean it isn't happening and gaining traction, White House officials said.

A White House aide, citing the Homeland Security bill, said: "Allowing transfers for trial is a positive development that will allow us to bring many of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay to swift and certain justice. President Obama, President Bush, and Sen. McCain all publicly committed to closing Guantanamo and prosecuting detainees when possible because it is in our national security interest, and we will continue our dialogue with Congress to ensure those goals are achieved."

Mr. Obama's Jan. 22 executive order calling for closure of Guantanamo within a year was part of the new president's symbolic sweeping away of the Bush administration's terrorism policies, which helped win him international support.

But moving beyond the symbolism has proved difficult for the president and top officials.

The closure was initially managed by White House Counsel Greg Craig but is now under the direction of the National Security Council, following missteps.

Attorney General Eric Holder, at a briefing with reporters last Tuesday, a day before the deal was worked out on the Homeland Security appropriations bill, expressed frustration that lawmakers keep citing security concerns about housing Guantanamo detainees in federal prisons.

"The restrictions that we've had to deal with on the Hill give me great concern," he said. "We have to get up on the Hill -- maybe people like myself have to get up there and speak to those members who have concerns." Pressed by reporters on whether he personally would make the administration's case to Congress, Mr. Holder said, "I'm sure that at some point I will."

Write to Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com

Oct 10, 2009

US: New Legislation on Military Commissions Doesn’t Fix Fundamental Flaws - Human Rights Watch

Proceedings to Try Detainees at Guantanamo Remain Substandard

October 8, 2009

Other Material:

More Human Rights Watch reporting on the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay

Special feature on military commissions trials

Tinkering with the discredited military commissions system is not enough. Although the pending military commissions legislation makes important improvements on the Bush administration’s system, the commissions remain a substandard system of justice.

Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director

(New York) - Draft legislation on military commissions fails to remedy the system's serious flaws, Human Rights Watch said today.

The amendments to existing military commissions legislation - to be called the Military Commissions Act of 2009 - were included in the conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The new rules are expected to be passed by Congress this week.

"Tinkering with the discredited military commissions system is not enough," said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director at Human Rights Watch. "Although the pending military commissions legislation makes important improvements on the Bush administration's system, the commissions remain a substandard system of justice."

The Military Commissions Act of 2009 revises the procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien "unprivileged enemy belligerents" (individuals labeled "unlawful enemy combatants" during the previous administration). The draft legislation addresses some of the worst due-process failings of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Notably, the bill limits the admission of coerced and hearsay evidence and grants greater resources to defense counsel. The revised system would still, however, depart in fundamental ways from the trial procedures that apply in the US federal courts and courts-martial. Nor does it satisfy the constitutional and policy concerns set forth by the Obama administration in recent months. It does not, for example, include a sunset clause to set a time limit on military commission trials, a provision the administration had specifically requested.

Human Rights Watch warned that as the latest version of the military commissions created by the Bush administration, the revised tribunals would be viewed globally as unfair, harming international cooperation on counterterrorism. It noted that trying only non-US citizens before the commissions would raise further concerns about fairness and discrimination. And it pointed out that by allowing child suspects to be prosecuted in military proceedings, the US was bucking a global trend to end this practice.

The very purpose of the military commissions is to permit trials that lack the full due-process protections available to defendants in federal courts, Human Rights Watch said. Tinkering with the procedures of tribunals created from scratch forfeits the benefits of using long-established civilian criminal courts whose procedures and protections have been tried and tested via years of litigation.

The federal courts have shown themselves to be fully capable of trying terrorism cases while protecting intelligence sources and the due-process rights of the accused. In the more than seven years since the military commissions were announced, only three suspects have been prosecuted, while the federal courts have tried more than 145 terrorism cases during the same period.

Unlike the federal courts, which enjoy constitutional protection against executive pressure, the commissions lack independence. Indeed, the previous commissions were highly susceptible to improper political influence, leading several military prosecutors to resign in protest.

Human Rights Watch also raised concerns about the overbroad scope of the commissions' jurisdiction, emphasizing that civilians should not be prosecuted before military tribunals. The administration has continued to deem terrorism suspects unconnected to armed conflict to be law-of-war detainees, and the new legislation even allows alleged supporters of terrorism to be tried in military proceedings.

In light of President Barack Obama's promise that the federal courts would be the first option for trying detainees, Human Rights Watch called on the Obama administration to prosecute terrorism suspects currently held at Guantanamo in the federal courts.

"Anyone responsible for terrorist activity against the US should be tried in the regular courts, whose verdicts, unlike those of military commissions, are recognized both domestically and internationally as legitimate," said Mariner. "Any verdict obtained in the military commissions will be controversial and subject to reversal on appeal."

Nobel Spotlights Need for Obama to Act on Rights - Human Rights Watch

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Stand up for Persecuted Human Rights Activists; Shut Guantanamo

October 9, 2009

(New York) - The award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama should encourage him to apply his stated principles to both foreign and domestic human rights policy, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Nobel committee awarded the prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," and Obama said he would accept it "as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations." Human Rights Watch said Obama should now act decisively to end abuses in US counterterrorism policy, promote accountability for serious human rights crimes wherever they occur, and push for the protection of human rights defenders worldwide.

"As a Nobel laureate, President Obama has a special responsibility to speak up for activists jailed and persecuted for promoting human rights," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "The president will honor his Nobel Prize when he puts a meaningful end to the debacle at Guantanamo, by trying or releasing all of the prisoners held there."

Human Rights Watch said Obama should use his status and celebrity to protect human rights activists under threat or marginalized, including Nobel laureates Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama, and Shirin Ebadi, and other reported candidates for the prize such as the Chinese dissidents Hu Jia, Liu Xiaobo, Gao Zhisheng and Chen Guangcheng, the Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour, and the Russian human rights group Memorial.

Obama, who said the prize "must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity," spoke of "the young woman who marches silently in the streets on behalf of her right to be heard even in the face of beatings and bullets; for the leader imprisoned in her own home because she refuses to abandon her commitment to democracy." The latter was a reference to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese leader who has been jailed or under house arrest for almost two decades.

However, Human Rights Watch said Obama - who was recently unwilling to meet the Dalai Lama - should push for a vigorous public discussion of Tibet during his Beijing visit in November.

Obama should also institute real reforms on counterterrorism issues, Human Rights Watch said. The president signaled his clear intention to repudiate the Bush administration's abusive legacy on his second full day in office by announcing the shutdown of CIA "black sites" and the planned closure of the military prison at Guantanamo. But he later backtracked significantly from his promise of reform by resurrecting the failed system of military commissions and suggesting that his administration would continue to hold some prisoners in preventive detention.

Human Rights Watch said Obama should end the practice of arbitrary detention by abolishing Guantanamo. Simply moving the prisoners from Cuba to the United States, as his administration has signaled it may do, will not solve the problem, but rather give it a new name.

US counterterrorism abuses had been a boon to terrorist recruiters and a key irritant in relations between the United States and the Muslim world, Human Rights Watch said. By eliminating these abuses - and bringing to justice those responsible for such abuses - Obama's reforms would lessen the likelihood of future conflict.

The Obama administration has strongly defended the principles of international justice as applied to Congo, Kenya, and Sudan, but changed its position when the UN Goldstone report urged investigation of Israel and Hamas for possible war crimes. Human Rights Watch urged Obama to apply those principles to all parties, regardless of whether they are US allies or not.

"Justice is a critical component for lasting peace, because impunity for perpetrators of serious crimes fuels further violence," Roth said. "President Obama should use his leadership to press for justice for all victims of human rights abuses, wherever they live."