The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.”Yeah, it could be a mite bit inconvenient to his whole plan to close the place down. He can't find a place to put them in America. Congress refuses him money to close it up until he comes up with a plan for what he's going to do with the more than 200 guys who are still there. No wonder the Defense Department doesn't want to pour some more oil on the fire.
Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.
This is a total unforced error. Although Barack Obama enjoyed the moral position of saying that Gitmo was a violation of American principles, he has now had to support many of the Bush-era approaches to terrorism such as indeterminate detentions and keeping military tribunals. He walked into the Oval Office and ordered that Guantanamo be closed but didn't have any plan of what to do with the guys there. Perhaps he's finding that some of these questions aren't the open-and-shut cases that he thought they were as a candidate.
As Politico details today, there really is no good solution about where to put a large number of the rather mid-level detainees, not the big name terrorists, but the smaller guys. A particular problem are the 100 or so Yemenis.
Almost 100 of the roughly 240 prisoners left at Guantanamo hail from Yemen – the site of the USS Cole bombing in 2000. But the country’s checkered record when it comes to restraining and “rehabilitating” other Islamic militants has made U.S. officials leery about returning anywhere near 100 prisoners there.And holding trials are problematic, especially with the courts discounting any information that might have been gained from controversial interrogation techniques. So what should we do with these guys?
Some militants that Yemen tried to retrain “went to Iraq and carried out suicide attacks on U.S. forces,” while other prisoners broke out of jail, said Greg Johnsen, a foreign policy scholar at Princeton. The Yemeni government is barely in control of its own territory.
One possible option for the U.S. is to send the Yemenis to Saudi Arabia. However, it’s unclear if Saudis could handle or are willing to take such a large group of Yemenis. “In the long run, it might cause the same problems,” Johnsen said.
Courts have held that evidence obtained under harsh interrogations – torture, to the critics – isn’t admissible in court. The Bush administration tried to get around this by sending in “clean teams” to re-interview detainees without the use of sleep deprivation, water-boarding and other methods.Clearly, it's not as easy a problem to solve as political speeches on the campaign trail made it seem.
But it’s far from clear that courts will consider evidence gathered by these “clean teams” to be truly clean.
That could mean there is a significant number of prisoners who judges might rule simply cannot be given a fair trial, even under the new rules being set up by Obama. What then?
In another twist, the so-called clean teams, apparently at the instruction of the Bush administration, did not give Miranda rights warnings to Guantanamo prisoners, according to lawyers tracking the situation. That fact alone could complicate efforts to bring cases to federal courts in the United States.
The Bush administration tried to release as many of the detainees as possible and what did we get for that move? The recidivism of these militants. Perhaps, this is one Bush policy, Obama would be right to reverse.
14 comments:
Congress may have done Obama a favor by denying the funds. He won't be blamed for breaking a promise if he isn't provided the resources.
Correct. It is harder to close Gitmo than Obama planned(and remember that McCain also said he would close Gitmo). The fact that they were subjected to "EITs" (aka torture) makes it much harder to prosecute, as Betsy pointed out. Another reason for not using torture, I guess. Like a hardcore criminal who gets off because of police or prosecutorial misconduct, Bush/Cheney has made a bad situation even worse.
"They'" what documentation has been provided that suggests any such events occurred aside from the three already mentioned. They will be prosecuted by the same military tribunals that were characterized as extralegal kangaroo courts before the election but seem perfectly fine now.
I read a very interesting comment by a Vietnam Vet who was warerboarded during his training as a US Naval intellegence officer.
He wrote this in conclusion--
"But as someone who has gone through the procedure and reflected on it, I am somewhat amazed at all the hype about waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” as a clearcut case of torture. Torture is much easier to identify – for instance, when some enemy agent takes your eye out with a soldering iron, or a session in the ropes such as John McCain was subjected to in Hanoi. Real torture would never be used in this country as a training technique.
When I look at the profile of some of the politicians who are most prominent in the opposition to waterboarding, I find that many have no military experience. And those who did probably never had any stress training (or even, if truth be told, known how to handle themselves in the school yard). It’s easy to indulge in moral outrage about things you have never experienced, especially when the media will make you look brave and principled for doing so. Whether that is really the moral or wise thing to do when it may lead to putting others in danger is another thing entirely."
Skay - if waterboarding is effective, and not torture, why aren't you advocating for the police to use it?
"Perhaps he's finding that some of these questions aren't the open-and-shut cases that he thought they were as a candidate".
~ Betsy
Does that give President Obama the benefit of the doubt or does it really underscore that his position on Guantanamo and protecting the country from violent jihadists was uninformed and correspondingly unrealistic from the start? If the latter is true, it confirms what many believe about the President - that he simply does not think things through far enough to anticipate real world impacts.
A third option is available: Barrack Obama cynically used his campaign stance as currency to buy left wing support knowing full well that once that bill was paid off in full in 2008, he would have to then find a way to do the right thing while finding a way to mollify his left wing supporters who continue to demand that he should do the wrong things.
As for the report in question, I have not seen it yet but I have seen enough reporting on the subject to understand that knowledge of the full extent of the activities of Guantanamo graduates is far from comprehensive.
mark,
Campaign promises by McCain and Obama regarding the detention of terrorists were wrong. Releasing photos from Abu Ghraib is also wrong.
You can see that President Obama has found that these positions or promises, for what they were worth, are better off abandoned. Why? National security, the President's foremost responsibility.
As for the sanctimonious stance of those that impugn the Bush Administration for it's interrogation of terrorists but give the Clinton Administration a pass for it's policy and practice of rendition, those complaints were issued for short term political advantage but ultimately harmed national security. Claiming that harsh interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and two other HVTs yielded nothing but refusing to release documentation to the contrary is blatant politicization of intelligence. We do not benefit from such maneuvering in any way.
If you are to be consistent and avoid being revealed as nothing more than partisan and hypocritical, then you must be prepared to condemn the current administration for it's continuance of Bush Administration policies. I suggest you get started in earnest when the military tribunals begin. In the meantime, you need to be on guard against the selective release or non-release of intelligence for the sole purpose of attacking domestic political opponents.
Fight the war, not the other party.
tfhr,
"Fight the war, not the party." Amazing words coming from the mouth of someone who has constantly criticized Obama while defending Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Halliburton.
We now know that Rumsfeld's earlier removal would have saved thousands of lives of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens. Your support of him is a betrayal of the troops that died while Bush was playing politics. Do you defend the shoddy electrical work performed by KBR the way you defended tainted water? Several of your "fellow" soldiers have died from electrocution. I hope you've been shock-free, the way you boasted that your water was fine.
Obama was handed a mess. He wanted the job, and now he'll have to deal with it. That does not mean he can do a 180 on all Bush policies. I was always against the Iraq war, but I never agreed with those calling for an immediate pullout. Closing Gitmo is the right thing to do, but he's going to have to come up with a plan to do it - not just say it will be done. It's a bit disgraceful that we can't deal with the situation in the U.S. We were once a coutry that boasted we could do anything. Now we've become a nation of scared little wimps.
I guess i shouldn't be terribly surprised that mark would misrepresent those accidental deaths from electrocution. Considering that prior to this he also misrepresented the scope of the water problem in Iraq which oddly was not evident in any other country where KBR ran the facilities.
The blame for these current deaths lies squarely with the military and the civilian authorities who never bothered to read the reports that warned of these problems.
http://tinyurl.com/4xhmb2
Two lies, Pat
#1. I never presented the "scope" of the problem, so I didn't misrepresent the scope. BTW,Is there an acceptable number of soldiers receiving tainted water?
#2. The original shoddy electrical work was performed by KBR. They are denying responsiblity because they were not under contract to provide repairs to potential problems, only after a problem occured. Read your own link.
Once again, you're defending war-profiteers while betraying the troops.
Defense contractor Kellogg Brown & Root knowingly performed substandard electrical work in Iraq and threatened workers who "made a lot of noise" about shoddy construction and maintenance, according to ex-KBR electrician Debbie Crawford.
"There was quite a few complaints about soldiers or civilians, other subcontractors, being shocked, yes," Crawford said. Late last year KBR denied a CBS News investigation that it knowingly exposed U.S. soldiers to toxic materials in Iraq. In January, the company came under fire in a U.S. Army investigation for "negligent homicide" in the fatal electrocution of a solider.
mark,
First of all your claim that I constantly criticize Barrack Obama is groundless. In fact, I have maintained a wait and see stance regarding his defense policies. I was very critical of the candidate's campaign pledges during the run up to the election but you are wrong to suggest that my criticism of President Obama has been "constant" as I have enjoyed watching him refute many of his previously held positions now that he is in the job.
As for Rumsfeld and your remark that "[my] support of him is a betrayal of the troops that died while Bush was playing politics", I offer a curt "f**k you". The day that a pissant partisan liberal hack such as yourself can render such judgment about my years supporting and leading troops has not arrived. Where does it come from that dirt bag liberals like yourself and members of groups like Moveon.Soros (sponsors of the NYT Gen. Betrayus smear) get the idea that a member of the military that does not agree with their prized political agenda has betrayed their countrymen?
In February 2008 I learned of the electrocution death of an SF soldier in Iraq. I immediately contacted our engineers in our compound to determine if they had certified our shower facilities and learned that this had been done already, had been ordered redone, and had also been followed up by the contractor as well. Our local chain of command was vigilant and thorough. There were no incidents at our location.
Whatever shoddy work has been done by contractors or military personnel does not invalidate the mission. Show a little maturity on the issue, if you can't muster the intellectual honesty.
You said you were against the war but that puts you at odds with most of the Democrats in the Senate that voted to give Bush the authorization needed to use force. You must have had better intel than they did but I wonder why you reserve your criticism for Bush and Cheney when so many from the other side of the aisle were of like mind regarding the threat? Could it be partisanship? Me thinks so.
"Now we've become a nation of scared little wimps". ~ mark
Speak for yourself, liberal. And while you're at it, show enough backbone to withstand the whining complaints of Europeans and others that find Guantanamo so awful but are unwilling to reclaim their wonderful citizen-terrorists. The Obama administration is finding out that they are getting just about as much cooperation from the same nations as the Bush Administration did when it came to unloading the Guantanamo inmates. The right move is to leave them where they are and deny al Qaeda the opportunity for show trials and propaganda bonanzas. The "right thing to do", to borrow your phrase, would have been to form a plan before announcing to the world that the detention facility would be closed. President Obama tied his own hands and now has to find a smart way regain control of the situation. I wish him luck.
"Now we've become a nation of scared little wimps."
Gee Mark-how brave you are.
I believe we just stopped an attempt by thugs converted to Islam in prison(where Obama wants to put the Gitmo terrorists) who wanted to blow up Jewish Temples(because they say they just hate Jews)and shoot down misitary planes.
Since Obama was elected, I am amazed they did not just magically drop all of their plans to do these evil things.
We will see what the more sophisticated muslim terrorists will attempt.
Obama may be allowing some to come in from Gaza, Gitmo or accross the border - but -not to worry. Obama is President.
I'll stand by my original comment, the first because you did say that the Army and KBR was using tainted water in Iraq in spite of tfhr and myself showing that in spite of the claims no documented cases of deaths, disease or even skin rash were reported.
No one in the link I provided stated that KBR was responsible for the actual construction of the sites where these accidents occured and a contract to fix only broken items is pretty standard not only for government facilities but construction in general. Midway through the article, e-mails that CNN published, acknowledged that competent civilian authorities either ignored or were not capable of responding to the KBR reports.
This five-year old issue is analogous to taking your car in for an oil change and being informed by the mechanic that the brakes need work. It's rather perverse to then turn around and criticize the mechanic for not fixing the brakes if not told to. But this is still part of that drumbeat of exaggerating small issues to impugn the larger situation. Cancer hot spots in Iraq, depleted uranium, white phosphorous, museum lootings just to name a few all serve the anti-war groups efforts to delegitimize the wars.
tfhr,
Again, nice rant.
I know it's futile, but I have a few minutes, so what the heck.
No, I've never had special insight into Iraq or WMDs. I just employed some common sense. I was for the war in Afghanistan, and supported Bush when that war began. I had no reason to doubt Hussein had WMDs, but it never made sense to divert efforts from Afghanistan to go to Iraq. We should have finished the job. We'll never know what would have happened had we focused on Afghanistan instead of going to Iraq, but I believe we'd be far better off.
And yeah, Rumsfeld's incompetence did cost the lives of thousands. Your continued defense of him is bizarre.
Last week, you defended torture saying that anything that saves American lives is justifiable. That is cowardly and un-American. There are many actions we can take to eliminate potential dangers. Some involve using violence against non-Americans, some involve banning dangerous/unhealthy practices (over which conservatives would be screaming about their freedoms - and they would be right). Bush/Cheney have used fear to achieve their goals. Unfortunately, too many others, including dems, have joined them.
I guess if you define torture as coughing out loud then we are all guilty. But merely saying it thus does not make it so. Considering the one document everybody seems to rely on, Geneva Convention III, refers to torture as exteme pain or discomfort and as yet no one has proven that any of the US detainees have experienced that. Even the so-called torture memos talk about the types of horrendous tortures, burning, electrocuting, beating, pain positions(not discomfort), asphyxia, etc were not allowed.
It just occurred to me that if KBR had gone ahead and fixed some of the potentially dangerous equipment and then asked for payment would mark now be demanding an investigation into no bid contracts that were performed unnecessarily? Would mark argue that since the repairs were done without permission and the problem solved quickly was there really a problem at all?
Post a Comment