Most Guantanamo detainees low-level fighters, task force report says

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By Peter Finn
Saturday, May 29, 2010; A03

About 10 percent of the 240 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when President Obama took office were "leaders, operatives and facilitators involved in plots against the United States," but the majority were low-level fighters, according to a previously undisclosed government report. About 5 percent of the detainees could not be categorized at all.

The final report by the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommends that 126 of the detainees be transferred either to their homes or to a third country; that 36 be prosecuted in either federal court or a military commission; and that 48 be held indefinitely under the laws of war. A group of 30 Yemenis was approved for release if security conditions in their home country improve.

The report was completed in January but sent to select committees on Capitol Hill just this week. The administration sat on the report in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day because there was little public or congressional appetite for further discussion of its plan to close the military detention center.

The figures are in line with previous estimates, but the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, could have important political implications. There is deepening bipartisan congressional opposition to the closure of Guantanamo, and the administration is attempting to show that it has conducted a rigorous review process and been attentive to security risks.

It remains unclear whether the administration can gain enough support on Capitol Hill to move forward with its plan to buy a state prison in Illinois to replace Guantanamo, where 181 detainees remain. Key House and Senate committees introduced language this month into defense bills that would bar funding for any such facility in the United States.

According to the task force report, more than 60 career professionals -- including intelligence analysts, law enforcement agents and prosecutors -- compiled files on each detainee. The files included capture information, interview reports, record searches by the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency, and Guantanamo Bay files on behavior, disciplinary infractions and mental health.

Before the review, there was no single repository of information for each detainee. The task force determined that there "were more than a thousand pieces of potentially relevant physical evidence (including electronic media) seized during raids in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks that had not yet been systematically catalogued."

Apart from the 10 percent implicated in plots against the United States, a group of about 20 percent of detainees had significant roles with al-Qaeda or associated groups. Fewer than 10 percent were Taliban leaders or members of groups opposed to the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.

The task force's recommendations were reviewed and largely approved by senior officials from six agencies, including the departments of Defense and Homeland Security. If there was disagreement among senior officials, cases went to agency heads.

"These weren't all easy calls," said a government official involved in the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But in the end, these were unanimous decisions among all six agencies."

The decision to hold 48 detainees without trial remains the most controversial part of the review process for key parts of Obama's constituency, including human rights activists. The task force said prosecution was not feasible for some detainees because the focus at the time of their capture was the "gathering of intelligence," not evidence. But these detainees still posed "a high level of threat."

The report says that obstacles to prosecution "typically did not stem from concerns over protecting sensitive sources or methods from disclosure, or concerns that evidence against the detainee was tainted."

The report says those recommended for indefinite detention had significant roles in al-Qaeda or the Taliban and advanced training or expertise. It notes that "some detainees designated for detention have, while at Guantanamo, expressly stated or otherwise exhibited an intent to reengage in extremist activity upon release."

For a handful of detainees cleared for transfer, there was scant evidence of any involvement with terrorist groups, the report says. Most were low-level fighters affiliated with al-Qaeda or other groups in Afghanistan.

"It is important to emphasize that a decision to approve a detainee for transfer does not reflect a decision that a detainee poses no threat or no risk of recidivism," the report says. "The review participants nonetheless considered those detainees appropriate candidates for transfer from a threat perspective, in light of their limited skills, minor organizational roles, or other factors."

Of the of 779 detainees held at Guantanamo since it opened in January 2002, about 70 percent, or 530, were released by the Bush administration. It had cleared 59 more for release by the time Obama took office.

Since January 2009, the Obama administration has resettled 33 detainees in third countries, repatriated 24 and sent two to Italy for prosecution. Of the remaining detainees cleared for release, 28 are Yemeni, 17 are candidates for repatriation and 22, including five Uighurs from China, have been approved for resettlement in third countries.

In a letter this month, seven Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee asked James L. Jones, the president's national security adviser, to recommend to Obama "an immediate prohibition on the transfer of any detainee out of Guantanamo Bay, and a halt to any action related to the closure of the facility."

Jones replied to the letter this week, saying that "Guantanamo has compromised our standing in the world, undermined our core values, and diminished our moral authority." He said that the Pentagon spends $150 million a year for detention operations at Guantanamo and that costs at a possible facility in Thomson, Ill., would be $70 million to $80 million.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

• Final report by Guantanamo Review Task Force
• Status of Guantanamo Bay detainees

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U.S. Sees Saudi Program as an Option for Yemeni Detainees - washingtonpost.com

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By Sudarsan Raghavan and Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 14, 2009

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Four years after Khalid al-Jehani's release from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the 34-year-old Saudi lives a peaceful life in this sprawling coastal city. He has a car, a job and a well-furnished apartment -- courtesy of the Saudi government.

The rehabilitation of militants such as Jehani has convinced the Obama administration that Saudi Arabia is the ideal place to send dozens of Yemenis being held at Guantanamo. For months, U.S. officials have applied pressure on Riyadh. But Saudi officials say their success with former detainees such as Jehani lies in members of his family and tribe, who keep constant watch over him, and cannot be duplicated with those whose social networks and roots lie outside Saudi Arabia.

"If I try to do something bad, my family will tell the government about me," said Jehani, who joined a radical Islamist movement in the Philippines and trained al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. "How can you trust that will happen with a family living in Yemen?"

As President Obama's promised January deadline to close Guantanamo approaches, the fate of 97 Yemenis remains the administration's biggest obstacle to closing the facility and forging a new detention policy. They are the largest community left at Guantanamo, roughly half of the prisoners who remain there, and are viewed as among the most radicalized, with deep jihadist roots inside Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland.

Yemen is ruled by a weak central government battling an insurgency in the north, secessionists in the south and a growing al-Qaeda presence. The Obama administration is unwilling to send the detainees there because it has no faith in Yemeni security guarantees. Only 15 Yemenis have been sent back to Yemen in the past seven years, even as hundreds of Saudi and Afghan detainees have gone home.

Most countries that have agreed to resettle detainees from other countries are willing to take only those who have been cleared for release by the courts or by a Justice Department-led review team and who cannot be returned to their home countries because of fears of torture or other abuse.

The Yemenis do not meet those criteria. The majority of them have not been cleared for release. Moreover, the United States is reluctant to repatriate the 26 Yemenis who have been cleared, citing security concerns. That heightens suspicions among Saudi officials, as well as among European nations, that the Yemeni detainees constitute a risk they do not want to take.

Despite the impasse, U.S. officials hope to send the majority of the Yemenis to Saudi Arabia. They would be the only detainees, other than Saudis, sent there. "The talks with the Saudi and Yemeni governments over the disposition of the Yemeni detainees have been productive and are ongoing," an administration official said.

Publicly, Saudi officials have said they will accept the Yemenis only if they come willingly. Privately, Saudi officials interviewed here say they would like to find a different solution. If Saudi Arabia were to accept the Yemenis -- a decision that most observers say will require the blessing of King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz -- it risks becoming a greater al-Qaeda target. The kingdom also has close ties to Yemen's government, which would probably consider the detainees' transfer to Saudi Arabia a public embarrassment. Yemen has publicly declared that it wants its detainees to return home.

If the Yemenis participated and then rejoined al-Qaeda, it would be a severe blow to the program as well as to the kingdom's pride.

"It's a no-win situation for the Saudis. They can't rehabilitate these guys, and they don't want to become America's jailor," said Christopher Boucek, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who has studied the rehabilitation program.

Ties That Bind

When detainees from Guantanamo land in Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a high-ranking member of the Saudi ruling family and head of the kingdom's counterterrorism operations, personally informs their families that their sons have returned home.

A mix of religious, psychological and social programs wean participants off extremist ideology. At least 1,500 detainees have been released from the six-month-long program. Of the 120 detainees from Guantanamo, 108 have graduated; more than 80 percent remain active participants in the rehabilitation efforts and have not rejoined al-Qaeda, Saudi officials said. Nearly 20 percent have escaped abroad, disappeared or been rearrested.

Human rights groups have criticized the program, saying people have been detained without being charged. Earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that it was hard to measure the program's success. It has released "mostly minor offenders," and "many of the more hardened terrorists do not undergo rehabilitation," he said, according to a declassified document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that was obtained and released by the Federation of American Scientists.

Upon a detainee's release, family and tribal leaders sign guarantees vouching that he will not return to terrorism. At stake is their honor and family name -- essential in Saudi society. Security officials keep in close contact but rely heavily on the family to alert them to any potential problems. Financial assistance flows freely -- for education, jobs and marriage. Jehani said the government even paid for his wife's fertility treatment.

"When you get married and have children, you are busy," said Abdulrahman al-Hadlaq, who heads the counter-radicalization unit at the Saudi Interior Ministry. "You value the meaning of life, and you understand the culture of death more."

At the rehabilitation center last weekend, teachers learned that the baby son of one graduate, a former Guantanamo detainee, had died. Ahmed Gelan, the program coordinator, immediately called him to offer condolences -- and assistance.

"If we don't help the family, al-Qaeda will," said Hameed al-Shaygi, a sociologist at the center.

Shaygi said the system could never be as effective with the Yemeni detainees. Only about 20 of the Yemenis have some familial ties inside Saudi Arabia, and it is unclear how strong those are. "How will their families work with us?" Shaygi asked. Also, Yemenis and Saudis practice different strains of Sunni Islam. The vast majority of Saudis are in a higher economic class than Yemenis, which could lead to resentment.

"We will have a Riyadh-namo," Shaygi concluded. "We will become a target of al-Qaeda. Saudis will be seen as continuing what the Americans are doing."

High Stakes All Around

Saudi officials say they are most concerned about the Yemenis after graduation. In February, the government released a list of 85 most-wanted Saudi terrorists. At least 11 were graduates of the program; most had fled abroad, including at least two across the kingdom's porous southern border into Yemen.

They included Saeed al-Shehri, who became the second-ranking leader of al-Qaeda's wing in Yemen, and Mohammed Awfi, who became an al-Qaeda field commander. "You cannot guarantee results," said Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman. "What we are doing is like a last-chance effort. We can't put them behind bars since we have nothing against them."

Six weeks ago, a Saudi militant -- No. 40 on the most-wanted list -- nearly assassinated Prince Nayef after crossing over from Yemen with a bomb hidden in his body. "The Saudis have no way of controlling them once they leave for Yemen," Boucek said. "But the world will hold the Saudis responsible."

The stakes are high for the Obama administration, too. Barring a deal with Saudi Arabia, most of the Yemenis could end up in some system of prolonged detention, justified by the administration under the laws of war. And if Guantanamo is closed, they could end up in a prison camp on U.S. soil, probably on a military base, ensuring more political headaches for Obama.

Still, Saudi Arabia has a vested interest in ensuring the Yemenis don't rejoin al-Qaeda. One scenario, said Boucek, is that Saudi Arabia might be willing to host the Yemenis for a few months to buy the U.S. and Yemeni governments time to find a solution.

In interviews, some Saudi and Western officials said a possible solution is for the United States, Saudi Arabia and others to build a rehabilitation program in Yemen. But with Yemen plagued by official corruption and domestic turbulence, many are skeptical.

"Will this succeed with all the Yemenis? Maybe not," Jehani said. "Even in Saudi Arabia, it has not succeeded 100 percent."

Finn reported from Washington.

Detainees Face Severe Conditions if Moved to U.S. - washingtonpost.com

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By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 4, 2009

For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mohammed can also use that time to visit a media room to watch movies of his choice, read newspapers and books, or play handheld electronic games. He and other detainees have access to elliptical machines and stationary bikes.

At Guantanamo, such recreational activities interrupt an otherwise bleak existence, according to a Pentagon report of conditions at Camp 7, which houses 16 high-value detainees. But even those privileges may soon vanish.

The Justice Department has begun to hint in court filings that at least some of the defendants in the Sept. 11, 2001, case, as well as other prominent suspects, will be transferred to federal custody in the United States. While lawmakers and activist groups have been consumed with a debate over such a move, little attention has been paid to the conditions that Mohammed and other high-value detainees would face in the United States.

And those conditions, it turns out, would be vastly more draconian than they are at Guantanamo Bay.

"Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders," President Obama said in a speech at the National Archives in May. "Bear in mind the following fact: Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists."

Based on what is known about restrictions in the country's highest-security federal prisons, Mohammed and other terrorism suspects would face profound isolation in the United States.

If sent to a facility such as the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo., they would be sealed off for 23 hours a day in cells with four-inch-wide windows and concrete furniture. If they behave, and are allowed an hour's exercise each day in a tiny yard, they will do so alone. They will have little or no human contact except with prison officials. And the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only outside group with access to Camp 7, will no longer have contact with them.

"You will die with a whimper," U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema told Zacarias Moussaoui, before the Sept. 11 conspirator was taken to the supermax facility in Florence to serve a life sentence. "You will never again get a chance to speak."

The 490-bed prison, formally known as the Administrative Maximum Facility, holds some of the country's most infamous prisoners, including Mohammed's nephew Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center; the Unabomber, Theodore J. Kaczynski; FBI agent-turned-Soviet mole Robert P. Hanssen; and Terry L. Nichols, who was convicted in the 1995 bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building. Thirty-three international terrorists are held there.

Advocates for and against closing the Guantanamo Bay facility say the specter of hard time in Florence or elsewhere in the federal prison system is tangential to larger issues involved in Obama's decision to shut down the military prison.

The detention center at Guantanamo Bay "now provides the highest standard of security and humane detention of terrorists consistent with the standards of the Geneva Conventions," said Kirk S. Lippold, who served as the commander of the USS Cole and is now a senior military fellow at Military Families United, an advocacy group. "Unless the administration plans on spending millions of taxpayer dollars on drastically changing the conditions at the supermax facility, then moving the detainees to a prison like Florence would result in less humane conditions for detainees and less security for all Americans."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is assisting military defense lawyers at Guantanamo Bay, said its principal goal is to get detainees tried in federal court, where the group believes it has a better chance of preventing a death sentence in the event of any conviction.

"Protections in the federal system are vastly superior," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "The absence of due process at Guantanamo makes it more of a black hole than Florence."

Although the Pentagon says that it has abided by the Geneva Conventions at Camp 7, Romero said he remains unconvinced that conditions there are as liberal as officials suggest. Attorneys for some of the detainees at Camp 7 have expressed concern about their clients' mental health -- describing in a court filing, for instance, the desire of one detainee to plead guilty and receive the death penalty as the manifestation of his "depression, hopelessness and despair."

The experience of Moussaoui, who was tried in federal court in Alexandria, offers an idea of the conditions Guantanamo detainees might face if transferred to the United States.

Moussaoui spent 23 hours a day alone in an 80-square-foot cell, according to officials at the Alexandria jail where he was held. The cell had a cement floor, bare white walls, a toilet and a mattress atop concrete. An entire unit of six cells and a common area was sealed off just for him. He was monitored on a closed-circuit security camera, and he never saw other inmates.

He spent most of his time quietly reading the Koran and praying on the floor on a blanket, officials said. One hour each day, he was escorted from his cell for a shower and exercise. If he was moved even one floor inside the jail -- always in shackles -- both of those floors were locked down.

Two terrorism suspects in Britain have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to stop their extradition to the United States, arguing that conditions at Florence, where they assume they would be sent, are so severe that they amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Various studies have found that the isolation experienced at supermax prisons can cause or exacerbate mental illness.

At Florence, inmates deemed high-security risks are in almost permanent lockdown and have a small black-and-white television, a radio and books to pass the time.

Bernard Kleinman, a lawyer who represented Yousef, said his client told him he rarely exercised at the prison because he refused to submit to the body-cavity search required every time he returned to his cell. When he was moved, he was always shackled in leg irons and black-box handcuffs.

Attempts by prisoners and their attorneys to challenge in court the conditions of confinement in Florence have repeatedly failed.

Said Kleinman, who has represented Yousef since 1998: "It's effectively solitary confinement for life."

Meanwhile, at Guantanamo, some officials argue that the military should create more liberal conditions for detainees.

The Pentagon review of conditions there, led by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, recommended that Camp 7 detainees should be given opportunities for group prayer with three or more fellow prisoners. He also said recreation should be expanded to groups of three or more, with rotating partners.

It is unclear whether Walsh's recommendations were implemented. Military officials at Guantanamo Bay, despite repeated requests, did not provide information on current conditions at Camp 7.

Staff writer Jerry Markon contributed to this report.

Residents of Michigan Town Want Prison to Stay Open, Even If That Means Housing Guantanamo Bay Detainees

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

STANDISH, Mich., Aug. 4 -- From the road, the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility looks like it could be a country resort, lush wooded grounds surrounded by corn fields and flower beds.

Prison employees and residents of this northern Michigan town are proud of the facility and want to keep it open at all costs, even if that means becoming the new home of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The news that the Obama administration is considering moving some detainees at the military prison in Cuba to facilities within U.S. borders, including Standish and Fort Leavenworth, Kan., prompted Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm (D) and several state legislators Tuesday to voice their opposition. But residents here are most concerned about keeping some of the 340 jobs and other economic sustenance the prison provides, in a county where unemployment tops 17 percent.

A hand-painted sign outside the lockup begs "Save Our Town, Save Standish Max," referring to the collection of buildings behind razor-topped fencing that contains 604 beds, usually reserved for maximum-security inmates. Throughout the quaint, somewhat ramshackle borough of 1,500 people, marquees and handmade posters outside churches, bars and Denise's Beauty Barn carry the same message.

The facility is one of three prisons and five correctional camps slated to close because of the state budget crisis and a declining prison population. The Michigan Corrections Department needs to cut $120 million from its $2 billion budget for the fiscal year that will start in October, and 500 to 1,000 jobs will be lost with the closings.

State officials are making a last-ditch effort to turn Standish into a medium-security facility for about 1,100 California prisoners. They also proposed housing inmates from Alaska.

And then there is the Guantanamo Bay option.

Some residents loathe the idea of terrorism suspects locked up in their town, but relish the chance to keep people employed. Others scoff at the notion that current guards would keep their jobs in a federal facility housing such detainees. State and federal spokesmen said they had no information on likely hiring practices.

"The state officers are more than capable of doing anything the federal government would have us do," said Bob Davis, president of the local corrections officers union. "But if they bring them here, I think we'll be cut out of jobs. They'll want their own personnel, there will be CIA all over the place."

Standish warden Thomas Birkett first heard about the proposal on television over the weekend. "There had been rumors, but no one in our department knows what it means, no one can tell you anything," he said.

Over the past few months, former governor John Engler (R) and Michigan legislators and business leaders brought up the idea of housing Guantanamo Bay detainees in the state. Engler proposed putting them in the sparsely populated and remote Upper Peninsula, which has two maximum-security facilities.

Standish City Manager Michael Moran III supports bringing the detainees to town. Even if locals do not keep their jobs, he said, the economic stimulus would be crucial. The prison pays the town $36,000 per month in water and sewer fees, and new employees would help keep businesses afloat. If the prison closes, teachers probably will lose jobs as school enrollment drops, post office revenue will plummet, and family-owned restaurants and bars will suffer. The town is home to small factories making fire sprinklers, pet food and plastic parts, but the prison is by far the biggest employer.

Elementary school teacher Kitty Campau wants to keep the prison open, but she considers Guantanamo Bay detainees a last resort.

"That scares me," she said after choir practice at a Catholic church whose parishioners have been protesting the closure plan. "We have high-risk prisoners there now, but not terrorists."

Michigan Sen. Carl M. Levin (D) and Reps. Dale E. Kildee (D) and Bart Stupak (D), who represents Standish, have supported the idea of bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the state. On the question of whether Standish should be the site, Stupak said he will reserve his opinion until federal and state officials have further studied economic and security issues.

Officials from the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security will visit potential sites for Guantanamo Bay detainees in the next few weeks, Stupak's office said. Michigan corrections spokesman John Cordell said the California deal may be finalized soon, which could mean no inmates from the prison in Cuba.

"It's hard to believe the feds and lawmakers could get their act together overnight, and California could make a decision any minute now," said Mel Grieshaber, executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing prison guards.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) said he opposes bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to Michigan, based on information he sees as the ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He thinks locals would be endangered by affiliates of the detainees coming to the area.

"If President Obama wants to move Gitmo jihadists to Standish, I would hope he would brief the local officials and guards," he said. "I want to make sure everyone has a much more comprehensive view of who these people are and the threat they pose to those in the facility and the community. I think if they knew what I know, they would make the same decision as me. Michigan can do a lot better than becoming the federal government's penal colony."

During a media call for the Republican National Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) echoed this sentiment, saying Guantanamo Bay inmates should not be anywhere in the continental United States. Roberts threatened to shut down the Senate before allowing the detainees in Kansas, and Rogers suggested that Guantanamo Bay's name be changed rather than closing the facility.

But auto mechanic Gary Church, 50, laughed at the idea that locals would be in danger.

"If they do get out, they're not going to rob the general store," he said. "They are thinkers and planners, not street criminals. They do big stuff."

New Detainee Facility in U.S. Being Considered for Guantanamo Prisoners

By Peter Finn and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 3, 2009

The administration is considering whether to transfer some detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to a facility in the United States that would contain courtrooms to hold federal criminal trials and military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects, administration officials said Sunday.

The maximum-security facility would be jointly run by the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, with each assuming responsibility for different sets of inmates. Officials said such a facility could also house prisoners held in indefinite detention and those cleared for release but who have no country willing to accept them. Those convicted in federal court or military commissions could serve their terms there.

Officials said administration planners looking for one site for the facility have focused on the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and a state maximum-security prison in Standish, Mich., that is scheduled to be closed.

An administration official confirmed that the ideas, which were first reported by the Associated Press on Sunday, have been debated by an interagency task force examining detention policy, but stressed that they have not moved beyond that stage.

"This is one of the ideas that's been floated and come under discussion," the official said, adding that the task force has not decided whether to recommend such a proposal to department heads or, eventually, to President Obama. The official and others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

In one of his first acts in the White House, Obama signed an executive order that committed his administration to closing Guantanamo Bay within one year. But those plans have run into fierce political opposition, including from some Democrats, and have prolonged internal debates about how to formulate detention policy.

Administration officials said the transfer plan would mitigate the challenge of scattering detainees across numerous jurisdictions, a move that would require a detailed security plan for each and upgrades for many facilities. A single prison would also localize political opposition and, in the case of Michigan, might draw political backing.

"If state and local officials are supportive, the senator believes the idea should be considered," said Tara Andringa, a spokeswoman for Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

Some members of the Michigan congressional delegation initially suggested renovating the prison for Guantanamo Bay detainees as a way to help stimulate the economy through public-works jobs in the state's Upper Peninsula, according to administration and congressional sources. But there has also been bipartisan opposition in the state to closing the prison in Cuba.

The U.S. senators from Kansas, Republicans Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, have been vocal in their opposition to using Fort Leavenworth to house Guantanamo Bay detainees, arguing that the facility in Cuba should be kept open. They also said that any transfer of detainees to Kansas would undermine the ability of the base's Command and General Staff College to attract foreign military personnel who would be reluctant to attend programs at Fort Leavenworth if former Guantanamo Bay detainees were held there.

"It makes no sense to spend millions and millions of dollars to build what we already have at Guantanamo," Brownback said in a statement Sunday. "Fort Leavenworth is a medium security facility with one maximum security wing that can house only 30 prisoners. That wing could not handle all that is required for detainees, support staff, and court facilities. . . . This is a bad idea chasing after another bad idea on a hurry up timeline."

Congress has blocked the administration from using money to transfer to the United States any of the 229 detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay. And politicians in both parties have said they want to see a detailed plan from the administration before they would support the arrival of prisoners such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The administration has transferred one Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States for trial in federal court. Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in June to multiple charges in connection with the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

An administration official said the creation of a prison-detention-courthouse facility would not preclude the possibility that a select group of detainees might be tried in New York or Virginia, where the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. Mohammed and four other detainees were facing a capital trial before a military commission until the Obama administration suspended proceedings at Guantanamo Bay.

Administration officials insist they are determined to work with Congress, and any new detention policy, as well as a hybrid facility, would almost certainly need legislative backing. Issues such as how jury pools would be formed for federal trials at such a prison have not been resolved.

The administration has said it has cleared more than 50 Guantanamo Bay prisoners for release, and the State Department is negotiating with governments in Europe and elsewhere to find homes for them. If the administration does not transfer some detainees by January, a new stateside facility could include a lower-security unit like the one at the Cuban facility for detainees who have been cleared for release.

The administration has signaled that some Guantanamo Bay detainees will be tried in federal court and some in military commissions. It also said that there may be a third category of prisoners who are deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be tried because of a lack of evidence or the need to protect intelligence material.

Administration officials said any system of indefinite detention will include legal safeguards such as periodic reviews by judges and congressional oversight. But human rights and civil liberties groups such as Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose detention without trial.

Obama Administration to Miss Deadline for Guantanamo Bay Reviews

By VOA News 21 July 2009

In pool photo, reviewed by US military, Guantanamo detainee speaks with guards, inside Camp 6 detention facility, 31 May 2009

Officials with the Obama administration say they will miss a self-imposed deadline for completing a detailed plan on dealing with terrorist suspects detained at a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The officials said the deadline for the report by a Justice Department-led task force, set for Tuesday, has been extended for another six months. The panel has instead issued a short interim report summarizing how they would prosecute the 229 detainees still held at the facility.


A separate task force created to examine interrogation policy has been given a two-month extension to submit its report.

President Barack Obama created the task forces shortly after taking office in January, when he ordered the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by next January. The officials insist the administration will meet that deadline, despite the delay in the reports.

Mr. Obama has vowed to close the facility, which has been denounced by human rights groups over allegations of harsh treatment of the detainees.

But the president has been hampered in his goal to shut down Guantanamo by congressional lawmakers opposed to transferring the detainees to U.S. soil for trial.

More than 50 detainees have been approved for transfer to other countries.

The interim memo submitted by the task force dealing with detention policy calls for prosecuting the detainees either in civilian courts or military commissions. The memo says the prosecutions must occur as soon as possible, but insists the accused be given "a full and fair opportunity to contest the charges against them."

Pentagon Seeks to Overhaul Prisons in Afghanistan

By ERIC SCHMITT

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — A sweeping United States military review calls for overhauling the troubled American-run prison here as well as the entire Afghan jail and judicial systems, a reaction to worries that abuses and militant recruiting within the prisons are helping to strengthen the Taliban.

In a further sign of high-level concern over detention practices, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent a confidential message last week to all of the military service chiefs and senior field commanders asking them to redouble their efforts to alert troops to the importance of treating detainees properly.

The prison at this air base north of Kabul has become an ominous symbol for Afghans — a place where harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were used routinely in its early years, and where two Afghan detainees died in 2002 after being beaten by American soldiers and hung by their arms from the ceiling of isolation cells.

Bagram also became a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq.

But even as treatment at Bagram improved in recent years, conditions worsened in the larger Afghan-run prison network, which houses more than 15,000 detainees at three dozen overcrowded and often violent sites. The country’s deeply flawed judicial system affords prisoners virtually no legal protections, human rights advocates say.

“Throughout Afghanistan, Afghans are arbitrarily detained by police, prosecutors, judges and detention center officials with alarming regularity,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a report in January.

To help address these problems, Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone of the Marines, credited with successfully revamping American detention practices in Iraq, was assigned to review all detention issues in Afghanistan.

General Stone’s report, which has not been made public but is circulating among senior American officials, recommends separating extremist militants from more moderate detainees instead of having them mixed together as they are now, according to two American officials who have read or been briefed on his report.

Under the new approach, the United States would help build and finance a new Afghan-run prison for the hard-core extremists who are now using the poorly run Afghan corrections system as a camp to train petty thieves and other common criminals to be deadly militants, the American officials said.

The remaining inmates would be taught vocational skills and offered other classes, and they would be taught about moderate Islam with the aim of reintegrating them into society, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the review’s findings had not been publicly disclosed. The review also presses for training new Afghan prison guards, prosecutors and judges.

The recommendations come as American officials express fears that the notoriously overcrowded Afghan-run prisons will be overwhelmed by waves of new prisoners captured in the American-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of Marines are battling Taliban fighters.

President Obama signed an executive order in January to review policy options for detention, interrogation and rendition.

The Defense and Justice Departments are leading two government task forces studying those issues and are scheduled to deliver reports to the president on Tuesday.

But administration officials said Sunday that the task forces — which are grappling with questions like whether terrorism suspects should be turned over to other countries and how to deal with detainees who are thought to be dangerous but who cannot be brought to trial — were likely to seek extensions on some contentious issues.

Last month The Wall Street Journal reported elements of General Stone’s review, but in recent days American military officials provided a more detailed description of the report’s scope, findings and recommendations.

A spokesman for the Afghan Embassy in Washington, Martin Austermuhle, said he was unaware of the review, and did not know if the government in Kabul had been apprised of it.

Admiral Mullen felt compelled to issue his message last week after viewing photographs documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by American military personnel in the early years of the wars there, a senior military official said.

Mr. Obama decided in May not to make the photographs public, warning that the images could ignite a deadly backlash against American troops.

The admiral urged top American field commanders to step up their efforts to ensure that prisoners were treated properly both at the point of capture and in military prisons.

He told the service chiefs to emphasize detainee treatment when preparing and training troops who deploy to the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

“It is essential to who we are as a fighting force that we get this right,” Admiral Mullen said in the message. “We are better than what I saw in those pictures.”

American officials say many of the changes that General Stone’s review recommends for Bagram are already in the works as part of the scheduled opening this fall of a 40-acre replacement complex that officials say will accommodate about 600 detainees in a more modern and humane setting.

The problems at the existing American-run prison, the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, have been well documented.

The prison is a converted aircraft hangar that still holds some of the decrepit aircraft-repair machinery left by the Soviet troops who occupied the country in the 1980s.

Military personnel who know Bagram and the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, describe the Afghan site as tougher and more spartan.

The prisoners have fewer privileges and virtually no access to lawyers or the judicial process. Many are still held communally in big cages.

In the past two weeks, prisoners have refused to leave their cells to protest their indefinite imprisonment.

In 2005, the Bush administration began trying to scale back American involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan, mainly by transferring Bagram prisoners to an American-financed high-security prison outside of Kabul guarded by American-trained Afghan soldiers.

But United States officials conceded that the new Afghan block, at Pul-i-Charkhi prison, could not absorb all the Bagram prisoners. It now holds about 4,300 detainees, including some 360 from Bagram or Guantánamo Bay, Afghan prison officials said.

Officials from the general directorate for prisons complained about the lack of detention space based on international standards in provinces of Afghanistan. They said most of those prisons were rented houses and not suitable for detention.

Gen. Safiullah Safi, commander of the Afghan National Army brigade responsible for the section of Pul-i-Charkhi that holds the transferred inmates from Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, said his part of the prison had maintained good order and followed Islamic cultural customs.

But last December, detainees in the other blocks of the prison staged a revolt in an attempt to resist a security sweep for hidden weapons and cellphones. Eight inmates died.

“There’s a general concern that the Afghan national prisons need to be rehabilitated,” said Sahr MuhammedAlly, a senior associate for law and security at Human Rights First, an advocacy group that is to issue its own report on Bagram on Wednesday.

Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.