Posted on 01/20/2009 2:48:21 AM PST by Cindy
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Plans to close Guantanamo are not sitting well with the Sept. 11 victims' relatives who sat stunned while two alleged terrorists declared they were proud of their role in the plot.
(Excerpt) Read more at wtop.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/warsame/index?tab=articles
#
Thanks to But Three Lefts Do for the ping to this thread.
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2245026/posts
Minn. terror suspect seeks release
StarTribune ^ | 5/5/09 | AMY FORLITI , Associated Press
Posted on May 5, 2009 6:49:01 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Attorneys for a Minneapolis man held in solitary confinement on terror charges for more than five years are asking he be released while he awaits trial, saying Mohammed Warsame’s pretrial incarceration has gone on so long it has become punitive.
After U.S. District Court Judge John Tunheim said he would take the request under advisement, Warsame stood up in court and said, “This is unfair, sir. I’ve been here a long time.”
Warsame, a Canadian of Somali descent, is charged with conspiracy to provide material support and resources to al-Qaida and with one count of providing such support. He’s also charged with three counts of lying to the FBI.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2246589/posts
AG Holder dodges and double-talks Republican Senators’ questions about Uighur terrorists
911FamiliesForAmerica.org ^ | May 7, 2009 | Tim Sumner
Posted on May 7, 2009 6:27:26 PM PDT by Sergeant Tim
Attorney General Eric Holder testified before the Senate today:
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., pressed Holder to say whether he believed he had the authority to release someone with terrorist training into the United States. The attorney general did not directly answer Shelby’s question, but said the government doesn’t have any plans to release terrorists.
“With regard to those who you would describe as terrorists, we would not bring them into this country and release them, anyone we would consider to be a terrorist,” Holder said. [emphasis added mine]
What does the law say? It says those who trained as terrorists or associated with terrorists are inadmissible into the United States. But Attorney General Eric Holder says it is a matter of judgment and we know his recommendation will have great influence on President Obama.
In 1999, then DAG Eric Holder released known terrorists free in the United States, by way of pardon recommendations for FALN terrorists that were approved by President Clinton. Many Members of Congress back then, from both sides of the aisle, indicated those pardons were motivated by politics, to help his boss help his wife get elected to the Senate. This January, AG-nominee Holder admitted he “had made some mistakes” yet he also said those pardons were “reasonable.” We have good reason to question his judgment and motivations.
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has twice written Holder and not received an answer.
I again reiterate my questions from last month and ask that I be given the same courtesy and dialogue you provided foreign government officials in Europe last week. Just four years ago, Congress enacted into law a prohibition on the admission of foreign terrorists and trained militants into this country. Accordingly, Congress is entitled to know what legal authority, if any, you believe the administration has to admit into the United States Uighurs and/or any other detainee who participated in terrorist-related activities covered by Section 1182(a)(3)(B). [emphasis added mine]
As you know, the current administration, including President Obama, has repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for legal decisions and authorizations that were made in efforts to defend the national security of this country. It would be both reckless and hypocritical for this administration to follow this criticism by acting in derogation of the law to permit an action that could endanger national security.
Knowing what we know now, the 19 hijackers would not have been legally admitted into the United States on their way to 9/11.
That is the point about the Uighurs. They trained in the same place as al Qaeda for the same purpose and hold the same ideology: Afghanistan, terrorism, and violent jihadism. If Eric Holder will not measure the Uighurs by those facts and standards, there is good cause to question his authority under the law and personal judgment.
http://www.911familiesforamerica.org/?p=1204
#
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2246775/posts
Obama and the 9/11 Families; The president isn’t sincere about ’swift and certain’ justice
Wall Street Journal ^ | May 8, 2009 | Debra Burlingame
Posted on May 8, 2009 3:45:07 AM PDT by Sergeant Tim
News reports described the meeting as a touching and powerful coming together of the president and these long-suffering families. Mr. Obama had won over even those who opposed his decision to close Gitmo by assuaging their fears that the review of some 245 current detainees would result in dangerous jihadists being set free. “I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you can’t help but believe in him,” said John Clodfelter to the New York Times. His son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole bombing. “[Mr. Obama] left me with a very positive feeling that he’s going to get this done right.”
“This isn’t goodbye,” said the president, signing autographs and posing for pictures before leaving for his next appointment, “this is hello.” His national security staff would have an open-door policy.
Believe … feel … hope.
We’d been had.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2247290/posts
“Coming Soon To A ‘Hood Near You: Gitmo (Ex?) Terrorists”
COUNTERTERRORISM BLOG.org ^ | May 8, 2009, 03:39 | James Gordon Meek
Posted on May 8, 2009 4:53:49 PM PDT by Cindy
Note: Video included.
#
http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2009/05/how-does-closing-gitmo-make-us/
“How Does Closing GITMO Make Us Safer?”
SNIPPET: “The question is fundamentally basic.
The contrarian answers are full of nuance and little sense.”
By ThreatsWatch on May 7, 2009 at 11:30 PM | Permalink
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=101745
“Guantanamo detainee set to start new life in France”
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Saturday, May 09, 2009
SNIPPET: “WASHINGTON: The family of an Algerian national held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo for seven years is delighted he is due to arrive in France next week to start a new life. Lakhdar Boumediene, 42, would be the first non-French citizen from Guantanamo to be taken in by France since President Barack Obama pledged to shut down the prison camp when he took office in January.
“I cannot hide the fact I am really happy. Soon, he is going to be freed,” his wife Abassia Bouadjimi told AFP Wednesday from Algeria.
“He really is keen to be free, and be with his wife and children,” said his sister-in-law Louiza Baghdadi, who plans to welcome him into her home in Nice, she told AFP.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said earlier in Paris that France was “finalizing details to be able to accept him in France before the end of next week.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy had agreed following a meeting with Obama in Strasbourg last month to take in the detainee who was cleared for release in November.
Sarkozy applauded Obama’s decision to shut down the camp that he described as an affront to US values and democracy.”
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2248957/posts
EDITORIAL: Al Qaeda in Alexandria
The Washington Times ^ | May 12, 2009 | Editorial
Posted on May 11, 2009 6:43:09 PM PDT by jazusamo
It’s not every day that a congressman asks for terrorists to be shipped to his hometown. So we were surprised to see Rep. Jim Moran, Democrat of Virginia, pen a column entitled “From Guantanamo to Alexandria” in Saturday’s Washington Post. He actually championed the idea of bringing terrorists like 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other al Qaeda detainees to historic Alexandria. What’s next? Does he want the nuclear waste that Nevada won’t take?
We understand why congressmen work to bring federal office buildings to their district or fight off noisome incineration plants. So we read Rep. Moran’s column with amazement. It simply makes no sense.
While acknowledging that other solutions might be suitable, Mr. Moran wrote: “Taking the easy route and joining the chorus of those crying ‘not in my backyard’ is appealing. But that’s not the Alexandria I know and have represented in Congress for nearly 20 years.”
~snip~
In light of these considerations, Alexandrians have a right to know what is motivating their congressman. Mr. Moran is a smart man. Would Alexandria get any additional federal subsidies? Would Northern Virginia get some other valuable concessions? Or is Mr. Moran merely playing to a Justice Department that is currently investigating the former PMA lobbying group that made him one of the top four recipients of its campaign-donation largesse in recent years?
Mr. Moran has made a career of playing it straight with his constituents, even when they didn’t like what he had to say. So he should step forward now and tell us: What was he promised in exchange for compromising Virginia’s security?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2250654/posts
#
FOX NEWS.com
(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/14/obama-considers-detaining-terror-suspects-indefinitely/
“Obama Considers Detaining Terror Suspects Indefinitely”
SNIPPET: “Obama is weighing plans to detain terror suspects on U.S. soil — indefinitely and without trial — as part of a plan to retool trials held for Guantanamo prisoners.”
The Wall Street Journal
FOXNews.com
Thursday, May 14, 2009
SNIPPET: “The Obama administration is weighing plans to detain some terror suspects on U.S. soil — indefinitely and without trial — as part of a plan to retool military commission trials that were conducted for prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The proposal being floated with members of Congress is another indication of President Barack Obama’s struggles to establish his counter-terrorism policies, balancing security concerns against attempts to alter Bush-administration practices he has harshly criticized.”
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2251693/posts
America, meet your new neighbors: the Uighurs
SF Examiner ^ | 05/14/09 | Newt Gingrich
Posted on May 15, 2009 9:52:24 AM PDT by freespirited
...America, meet the Uighurs.
Seventeen of the 241 terrorist detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay are Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs. They have been allied with and trained by al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist groups. The goal of the Uighurs is to establish a separate sharia state.
As part of its ongoing effort to close Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has had to figure out what to do with the Uighurs. Officials believe that if they’re sent back to China they will be persecuted, and no third country will take them.
So the Obama administration has decided to set the Uighurs loose in America.
But the Obama administration’s plan for the Uighurs doesn’t stop there. At Guantanamo Bay, the Uighurs are known for picking up television sets on which women with bare arms appear and hurling them across the room.
Perhaps understandably, the Obama administration believes the Uighurs will need help adjusting to American society, in which women with bare arms have been known to appear.
So last month, Obama administration Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair indicated that terrorist detainees released into the United States would receive public assistance.
By their own admission, Uighurs being held at Guantanamo Bay are members of or associated with the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an al-Qaida-affiliated group designated as a terrorist organization under U.S. law. The goal of ETIM is to establish a radical Islamist state in Asia.
Prior to 9/11, the Uighurs received jihadist training in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, a known al-Qaida and Taliban training ground. What’s more, they were trained, most likely in the weapons, explosives and ideology of mass killing, by Abdul Haq, a member of al-Qaida’s shura, or top advisory council. Obama’s own interagency review board found that at least some of the Uighurs are dangerous....
(Excerpt) Read more at sfexaminer.com ...
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2251467/posts
Skip to comments.
Lets NOT meet the Uighurs (Virginia terrorist release)
Washington Examiner ^ | May 15, 2009 | Newt Gingrich
Posted on May 15, 2009 5:01:05 AM PDT by angkor
President Obama has heeded his generals and decided not to release more photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and good for him. Now he needs to put our national security ahead of politics once again and reverse his dangerous decision to release trained terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay into American suburbs.
America, meet the Uighurs.
Seventeen of the 241 terrorist detainees currently being held at Guantanamo Bay are Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs. These Uighurs have been allied with and trained by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups. The goal of the Uighurs is to establish a separate sharia state.
As part of their ongoing effort to close Guantanamo Bay, the Obama administration has had to figure out what to do with the Uighurs. Officials believe that if they’re sent back to China they will be persecuted, and no third country will take them.
So the Obama administration has decided to set the Uighurs loose in America. Most likely, the lucky community that will soon be hosting the Uighurs is a neighborhood near you: Fairfax Country Virginia, where there is already a sizable (non-terrorist) Uighur community.
But the Obama administration’s plan for the Uighurs doesn’t stop there. At Guantanamo Bay, the Uighurs are known for picking up television sets on which women with bared arms appear and hurling them across the room.
Perhaps understandably, the Obama administration believes the Uighurs will need help getting adjusted to northern Virginia society, in which women with bared arms have been known to appear.
So last month Obama Administration Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair indicated that terrorist detainees released into the United States would receive public assistance. “You can’t just put them on the street,” he said.
By their own admission, Uighurs being held at Guantanamo Bay are members of or associated with the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an al Qaeda-affiliated group designated as a terrorist organization under U.S law.
The goal of the ETIM is to establish a radical Islamist state in Asia. Last year, during the Beijing Olympics, the ETIM released a video in which an ETIM member stood in front of an al Qaeda flag and threatened anyone who attended the games.
Prior to 9/11, the Uighurs received jihadist training in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, a known al Qaeda and Taliban training ground. What’s more, they were trained, most likely in the weapons, explosives and ideology of mass killing, by Abdul Haq, a member of al Qaeda’s shura, or top advisory council. President Obama’s own interagency review board found that at least some of the Uighurs are dangerous.
Notwithstanding the paramount threat posed by the Uighurs, defending them and other terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay has become the trendy thing to do among leftwing civil liberties groups and private practice lawyers looking for fashionable pro bono work.
As a matter of fact, Attorney General Eric Holder’s law firm, Covington and Burlington, represents 17 Yemenis and one Pakistani currently being held at Guantanamo. In all, about a dozen Obama Justice Department lawyers are from private law firms that represent terrorist detainees.
These are the same officials who, led by Holder, are charged with determining the future home of terrorist detainees after Guantanamo closes. As former Federal Prosecutor Andy McCarthy writes, “has it dawned on people yet that it’s a huge problem to have a Justice Department stocked with lawyers who have spent (or whose firms have spent) the last eight years volunteering their services to America’s enemies?”
As you would expect, this army of leftwing activists and high-priced lawyers has led a public relations offense on behalf of the Uighurs to convince nervous suburbanites that the former terrorist detainees will make great neighbors. They claim that the Uighurs are harmless Chinese separatists who have been unjustly detained. Their real problem is with the repressive Chinese government, they claim, not us.
But as you can see, the truth about the Uighurs (which you definitely won’t hear from the anti-Guantanamo legal industry) is very different. Contrary to the claims of their defenders, the Guantanamo Uighurs are not pro-democracy activists unjustly held by American authorities.
Even if you accept the argument made by their defenders that the Uighurs’ true targets are Chinese, not Americans, it does nothing to change the fact that they are trained mass killers instructed by the same terrorists responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.
They have no place in American communities.
So congratulations to President Obama for defying his radical leftwing base and refusing to release the prisoner abuse photos. Now he should do the same with the Uighurs.
ADD to post no. 110:
Here is the original source url:
QUOTE:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2252116/posts
United States Transfers Lakhdar Boumediene to France
US DOJ.GOV/opa - Press Release ^ | May 15, 2009 | n/a
Posted on May 16, 2009 1:11:21 AM PDT by Cindy
May 15, 2009
Note: The following text is a quote:
United States Transfers Lakhdar Boumediene to France
Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since 2002, has been transferred to France.
As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009, Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of Boumediene’s case. As a result of that review, Boumediene was approved for transfer to France, which was carried out today pursuant to an arrangement between the United States and France.
Boumediene was involved in the Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush, which in June 2008 established the writ of habeas corpus for detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay. In November 2008, a federal court ordered the U.S. government to take all necessary and appropriate steps to facilitate the release of Boumediene from Guantanamo Bay. He is the second Guantanamo Bay detainee to be transferred to a foreign country following consideration by the Guantanamo Review Task Force.
“As we continue to make progress with our review of detainees, the assistance of our international allies is critical to the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay,” said Matthew Olsen, Executive Director of the Guantanamo Review Task Force. “We are extremely grateful to the French Government and the European Union for their assistance on the successful transfer of Lakhdar Boumediene and we commend the leadership they have demonstrated on this important issue.”
Since 2002, approximately 540 detainees have departed Guantanamo for other countries including Albania, Algeria, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, France, Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and Yemen.
###
09-477
Quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2191075/posts?page=25#25
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2009/05/obamas_gitmo-to-va_uyghur_plan.php
“Obama’s Gitmo-to-Va. Uyghur Plan Hits A Wall: Jim Webb”
By James Gordon Meek
SNIPPET: “But we reported in The News today that the TIP, who ran the Afghan camp, released a jihad video last month in which they praised Al Qaeda-in-Iraq and the Uyghurs’ former Afghan hosts, the Taliban. The video was released through an Al Qaeda-affiliated Web site, Al-Fajr, and includes clips showing “mujahadeen brothers” blowing up U.S. military Humvees. The Uyghur jihadis “will cause China to experience what America experienced in Iraq and in Afghanistan,” a narrator promises, according to a SITE Intelligence Group translation.
It also probably didn’t help when Obama’s Treasury Department designated the group’s leader, Abdul Haq, as “a member of Al Qaeda’s Shura Council” on Apr. 20.
TIP’s praise for Al Qaeda in its video, “Persistence and Preparation for Jihad in the Cause of Allah,” was in some way payback to Osama Bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has mentioned the Uyghurs’ plight in China’s East Turkistan region five times in his tapes since 2005, according to IntelCenter. East Turkistan has been included in the context of major jihad struggles Zawahiri discussed, such as Somalia and Chechnya.”
May 18, 2009 12:57 PM
###
###
“Senator Jim Webb doesn’t want Guantanamo prisoners brought to U.S.”
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Monday, May 18th 2009, 4:57 AM
Bam to keep military tribunals for Gitmo prisoners, but with protections
WASHINGTON - A key senator Sunday denounced plans to settle a group of Guantanamo Bay inmates in the Virginia suburbs as a video surfaced showing the detainees’ cozy ties to Al Qaeda.
“They accepted training from Al Qaeda and as a result they have taken part in terrorism,” Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) told ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “I don’t believe they should come to the United States.”
Webb was referring to a half-dozen Gitmo Uyghurs, Muslims from China, who were mostly nabbed fleeing a terror training camp in eastern Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion.”
25 posted on May 18, 2009 10:57:31 PM PDT by Cindy
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254983/posts
1 in 7 Detainees Freed Returns to Terrorism, Pentagon Says
New York Times ^
Posted on May 20, 2009 2:18:13 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
1 in 7 Detainees Freed Returns to Terrorism, Pentagon Says By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report provides new details concluding that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.
The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against releasing any more prisoners as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January 2010. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism, however, have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail.
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.”
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.
The White House has said that Mr. Obama will provide further details about his plans for closing the prison there in a speech Thursday morning at the National Archives.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026198.php
(AP)
WASHINGTON
May 20, 2009
“Shock: Senate votes 90-6 to block funds for Gitmo closure”
My late Uncle's best friend, a Port Authority Police Officer, died in Tower One while helping to evacuate people.
As far as I am concerned, we should treat Enemy Combatants the way we treated them during WWII. You catch them, you interrogate them and then you shoot them. They die where they were caught. Dig a hole and throw them in. None of this weak liberal BS, War is War...
http://www.samjohnson.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=128970
Keep suspected terrorists out of America
by Congressman Sam Johnson
Washington, May 22 -
Two days after taking the oath of office, President Obama signed an executive order closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in one year. His recent speech sparked more questions than answers. I have grave concerns about shutting down the prison without a future plan for where these jihadists will go. I believe this could directly threaten the security of the American people. The shroud of secrecy and lack of information four months after this announcement are big red warning flags in my book and Americans want, need and deserve some answers.
This prison, often called Gitmo, holds hundreds of the world’s most dangerous terrorists – among them 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who gladly participated in the gruesome beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, among other horrors. Walid bin Attash was reportedly behind the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen. Ramzi Binalshibh was identified as one of the planners of 9/11 and was supposed to be a 9/11 hijacker but for the fact he was denied entry into America. I guess it’s not surprising then that five detainees have described themselves as “terrorists to the bone” and stated in a court filing that they describe their role in the 9/11 attacks as a “badge of honor.”
Furthermore, on March 11th CBS detailed how a detainee recently released from the facility became the operations commander of Taliban forces attacking U.S. and NATO forces in southern Afghanistan. There also have been news reports that 1 in 7 detainees who were processed and released from Guantanamo Bay returned to the fight.
If those individuals were deemed safe to release from custody yet returned to terrorist activities and killing Americans, what does that say about how dangerous the detainees still at Guantanamo Bay must be? If other countries won’t take their own jihadists – why should we?
These suspected terrorists simply cannot be transferred just anywhere. Yet nearly four months after issuing the order, the White House has not told the American people or the Congress the exact future of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay starting next January.
As a former Prisoner of War for nearly seven years in Vietnam, more than half of that time in solitary confinement, I consider myself one of the few Americans who knows exactly what it’s like to be held in another country against your will for years. Based on my experience, I think releasing these detainees within America – with a welfare check to start a new life – as suggested by Attorney General Eric Holder - will produce dangerous and deadly results and defies common sense.
The American people can’t afford to take the White House at its word that these detainees, many who were captured at terrorist training camps, are not a threat if housed and tried in our communities.
Call the White House at 202-456-1414 and the Attorney General at 202-514-2001 and make your voice heard. Tell them you vehemently oppose releasing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay and transferring them to the United States. I also ask you take the online poll on my website, SamJohnson.house.gov or call my office at 972-470-0892 to let me know where you stand on this critical issue.
I fear that this Administration may have taken on too many large projects at once and needs to slow down and really think this through. Moving jihadists to America surely can wait.
Editors Note: Johnson, a co-sponsor of the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act and the No Welfare for Terrorists Act of 2009, represents portions of Dallas and Collin Counties.
http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/05/cheney-v-obama-highlights
#
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Security-and-Values/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-On-National-Security-5-21-09/
#
CSPAN Video of former VP Cheney Here:
#
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.aei.org/speech/100050
SPEECHES & TESTIMONY
Remarks by Richard B. Cheney
By Richard B. Cheney | American Enterprise Institute
(May 21, 2009)
Richard B. Cheney
Peter Holden Photography for AEI
On May 21, 2009, former vice president Richard B. Cheney, now a member of AEI’s Board of Trustees, spoke at AEI on the serious and ongoing threat terrorism poses to the United States. He was introduced by AEI president Arthur C. Brooks. His remarks as prepared for delivery follow.
Thank you all very much, and Arthur, thank you for that introduction. It’s good to be back at AEI, where we have many friends. Lynne is one of your longtime scholars, and I’m looking forward to spending more time here myself as a returning trustee. What happened was, they were looking for a new member of the board of trustees, and they asked me to head up the search committee.
I first came to AEI after serving at the Pentagon, and departed only after a very interesting job offer came along. I had no expectation of returning to public life, but my career worked out a little differently. Those eight years as vice president were quite a journey, and during a time of big events and great decisions, I don’t think I missed much.
Being the first vice president who had also served as secretary of defense, naturally my duties tended toward national security. I focused on those challenges day to day, mostly free from the usual political distractions. I had the advantage of being a vice president content with the responsibilities I had, and going about my work with no higher ambition. Today, I’m an even freer man. Your kind invitation brings me here as a private citizen—a career in politics behind me, no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek.
The responsibilities we carried belong to others now. And though I’m not here to speak for George W. Bush, I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do. We understand the complexities of national security decisions. We understand the pressures that confront a president and his advisers. Above all, we know what is at stake. And though administrations and policies have changed, the stakes for America have not changed.
Right now there is considerable debate in this city about the measures our administration took to defend the American people. Today I want to set forth the strategic thinking behind our policies. I do so as one who was there every day of the Bush administration who supported the policies when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances.
When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer. The point is not to look backward. Now and for years to come, a lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.
Our administration always faced its share of criticism, and from some quarters it was always intense. That was especially so in the later years of our term, when the dangers were as serious as ever, but the sense of general alarm after September 11, 2001 was a fading memory. Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America . . . and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse.
That attack itself was, of course, the most devastating strike in a series of terrorist plots carried out against Americans at home and abroad. In 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, hoping to bring down the towers with a blast from below. The attacks continued in 1995, with the bombing of U.S. facilities in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; the killing of servicemen at Khobar Towers in 1996; the attack on our embassies in East Africa in 1998; the murder of American sailors on the USS Cole in 2000; and then the hijackings of 9/11, and all the grief and loss we suffered on that day.
9/11 caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while, and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated. Throughout the 90s, America had responded to these attacks, if at all, on an ad hoc basis. The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact—crime scene, arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed.
That’s how it seemed from a law enforcement perspective, at least—but for the terrorists the case was not closed. For them, it was another offensive strike in their ongoing war against the United States. And it turned their minds to even harder strikes with higher casualties. Nine-eleven made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat—what the Congress called “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” From that moment forward, instead of merely preparing to round up the suspects and count up the victims after the next attack, we were determined to prevent attacks in the first place.
We could count on almost universal support back then, because everyone understood the environment we were in. We’d just been hit by a foreign enemy—leaving 3,000 Americans dead, more than we lost at Pearl Harbor. In Manhattan, we were staring at 16 acres of ashes. The Pentagon took a direct hit, and the Capitol or the White House were spared only by the Americans on Flight 93, who died bravely and defiantly.
Everyone expected a follow-on attack, and our job was to stop it. We didn’t know what was coming next, but everything we did know in that autumn of 2001 looked bad. This was the world in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear technology, and A. Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps of Afghanistan, and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.
These are just a few of the problems we had on our hands. And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass—a 9/11 with nuclear weapons.
For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.
There in the bunker came the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day—word of the crash in Pennsylvania, the final phone calls from hijacked planes, the final horror for those who jumped to their death to escape burning alive. In the years since, I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that. But I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.
To make certain our nation country never again faced such a day of horror, we developed a comprehensive strategy, beginning with far greater homeland security to make the United States a harder target. But since wars cannot be won on the defensive, we moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks. We decided, as well, to confront the regimes that sponsored terrorists, and to go after those who provide sanctuary, funding, and weapons to enemies of the United States. We turned special attention to regimes that had the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction, and might transfer such weapons to terrorists.
We did all of these things, and with bipartisan support put all these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations: the take-down of the A.Q. Khan network and the dismantling of Libya’s nuclear program. It’s required the commitment of many thousands of troops in two theaters of war, with high points and some low points in both Iraq and Afghanistan—and at every turn, the people of our military carried the heaviest burden. Well over seven years into the effort, one thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive—and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.
So we’re left to draw one of two conclusions—and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event—coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come.
The key to any strategy is accurate intelligence, and skilled professionals to get that information in time to use it. In seeking to guard this nation against the threat of catastrophic violence, our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn’t invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the American people.
Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.
In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. And in a few cases, that information could be gained only through tough interrogations.
In top secret meetings about enhanced interrogations, I made my own beliefs clear. I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.
Our successors in office have their own views on all of these matters.
By presidential decision, last month we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know. We’re informed, as well, that there was much agonizing over this decision.
Yet somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.
Over on the left wing of the president’s party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they’re after would be heard before a so-called “Truth Commission.” Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense, and political opponents as criminals. It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.
Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security, and what it requires. I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the course ahead. All the zeal that has been directed at interrogations is utterly misplaced. And staying on that path will only lead our government further away from its duty to protect the American people.
One person who by all accounts objected to the release of the interrogation memos was the Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta. He was joined in that view by at least four of his predecessors. I assume they felt this way because they understand the importance of protecting intelligence sources, methods, and personnel. But now that this once top-secret information is out for all to see—including the enemy—let me draw your attention to some points that are routinely overlooked.
It is a fact that only detainees of the highest intelligence value were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation. You’ve heard endlessly about waterboarding. It happened to three terrorists. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Muhammed—the mastermind of 9/11, who has also boasted about beheading Daniel Pearl.
We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country. We didn’t know about al-Qaeda’s plans, but Khalid Sheikh Muhammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we didn’t think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all.
Maybe you’ve heard that when we captured KSM, he said he would talk as soon as he got to New York City and saw his lawyer. But like many critics of interrogations, he clearly misunderstood the business at hand. American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people.
In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America’s cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.
Even before the interrogation program began, and throughout its operation, it was closely reviewed to ensure that every method used was in full compliance with the Constitution, statutes, and treaty obligations. On numerous occasions, leading members of Congress, including the current speaker of the House, were briefed on the program and on the methods.
Yet for all these exacting efforts to do a hard and necessary job and to do it right, we hear from some quarters nothing but feigned outrage based on a false narrative. In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists.
I might add that people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about “values.” Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance. Intelligence officers were not trying to get terrorists to confess to past killings; they were trying to prevent future killings. From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought, and we in fact obtained, specific information on terrorist plans.
Those are the basic facts on enhanced interrogations. And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.
The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. They may take comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum. If liberals are unhappy about some decisions, and conservatives are unhappy about other decisions, then it may seem to them that the President is on the path of sensible compromise. But in the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half exposed. You cannot keep just some nuclear-armed terrorists out of the United States, you must keep every nuclear-armed terrorist out of the United States. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy. When just a single clue that goes unlearned, one lead that goes unpursued, can bring on catastrophe—it’s no time for splitting differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.
Behind the overwrought reaction to enhanced interrogations is a broader misconception about the threats that still face our country. You can sense the problem in the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and the terrorist enemy. Apparently using the term “war” where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated. So henceforth we’re advised by the administration to think of the fight against terrorists as, quote, “Overseas contingency operations.” In the event of another terrorist attack on America, the Homeland Security Department assures us it will be ready for this, quote, “man-made disaster”—never mind that the whole Department was created for the purpose of protecting Americans from terrorist attack.
And when you hear that there are no more, quote, “enemy combatants,” as there were back in the days of that scary war on terror, at first that sounds like progress. The only problem is that the phrase is gone, but the same assortment of killers and would-be mass murderers are still there. And finding some less judgmental or more pleasant-sounding name for terrorists doesn’t change what they are—or what they would do if we let them loose.
On his second day in office, President Obama announced that he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation and no plan. Now the President says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries. But so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists. So what happens then? Attorney General Holder and others have admitted that the United States will be compelled to accept a number of the terrorists here, in the homeland, and it has even been suggested US taxpayer dollars will be used to support them. On this one, I find myself in complete agreement with many in the President’s own party. Unsure how to explain to their constituents why terrorists might soon be relocating into their states, these Democrats chose instead to strip funding for such a move out of the most recent war supplemental.
The administration has found that it’s easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo. But it’s tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interests of justice and America’s national security. Keep in mind that these are hardened terrorists picked up overseas since 9/11. The ones that were considered low-risk were released a long time ago. And among these, we learned yesterday, many were treated too leniently, because 1 in 7 cut a straight path back to their prior line of work and have conducted murderous attacks in the Middle East. I think the President will find, upon reflection, that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.
In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we’ve captured as, quote, “abducted.” Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.
It’s one thing to adopt the euphemisms that suggest we’re no longer engaged in a war. These are just words, and in the end it’s the policies that matter most. You don’t want to call them enemy combatants? Fine. Call them what you want—just don’t bring them into the United States. Tired of calling it a war? Use any term you prefer. Just remember it is a serious step to begin unraveling some of the very policies that have kept our people safe since 9/11.
Another term out there that slipped into the discussion is the notion that American interrogation practices were a “recruitment tool” for the enemy. On this theory, by the tough questioning of killers, we have supposedly fallen short of our own values. This recruitment-tool theory has become something of a mantra lately, including from the President himself. And after a familiar fashion, it excuses the violent and blames America for the evil that others do. It’s another version of that same old refrain from the Left, “We brought it on ourselves.”
It is much closer to the truth that terrorists hate this country precisely because of the values we profess and seek to live by, not by some alleged failure to do so. Nor are terrorists or those who see them as victims exactly the best judges of America’s moral standards, one way or the other.
Critics of our policies are given to lecturing on the theme of being consistent with American values. But no moral value held dear by the American people obliges public servants ever to sacrifice innocent lives to spare a captured terrorist from unpleasant things. And when an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them.
As a practical matter, too, terrorists may lack much, but they have never lacked for grievances against the United States. Our belief in freedom of speech and religion, our belief in equal rights for women, our support for Israel, our cultural and political influence in the world—these are the true sources of resentment, all mixed in with the lies and conspiracy theories of the radical clerics. These recruitment tools were in vigorous use throughout the 1990s, and they were sufficient to motivate the nineteen recruits who boarded those planes on September 11, 2001.
The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today. List all the things that make us a force for good in the world—for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences—and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America. If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for—our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
What is equally certain is this: The broad-based strategy set in motion by President Bush obviously had nothing to do with causing the events of 9/11. But the serious way we dealt with terrorists from then on, and all the intelligence we gathered in that time, had everything to do with preventing another 9/11 on our watch. The enhanced interrogations of high-value detainees and the terrorist surveillance program have without question made our country safer. Every senior official who has been briefed on these classified matters knows of specific attacks that were in the planning stages and were stopped by the programs we put in place.
This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.
Releasing the interrogation memos was flatly contrary to the national security interest of the United States. The harm done only begins with top secret information now in the hands of the terrorists, who have just received a lengthy insert for their training manual. Across the world, governments that have helped us capture terrorists will fear that sensitive joint operations will be compromised. And at the CIA, operatives are left to wonder if they can depend on the White House or Congress to back them up when the going gets tough. Why should any agency employee take on a difficult assignment when, even though they act lawfully and in good faith, years down the road the press and Congress will treat everything they do with suspicion, outright hostility, and second-guessing? Some members of Congress are notorious for demanding they be briefed into the most sensitive intelligence programs. They support them in private, and then head for the hills at the first sign of controversy.
As far as the interrogations are concerned, all that remains an official secret is the information we gained as a result. Some of his defenders say the unseen memos are inconclusive, which only raises the question why they won’t let the American people decide that for themselves. I saw that information as vice president, and I reviewed some of it again at the National Archives last month. I’ve formally asked that it be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained, the things we learned, and the consequences for national security. And as you may have heard, last week that request was formally rejected. It’s worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the President himself. President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen, thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.
I believe this information will confirm the value of interrogations—and I am not alone. President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration—the missing twenty-six words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn’t change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it’ll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11. It may help us to stay focused on dangers that have not gone away. Instead of idly debating which political opponents to prosecute and punish, our attention will return to where it belongs—on the continuing threat of terrorist violence, and on stopping the men who are planning it.
For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history—not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them. And when I think about all that was to come during our administration and afterward—the recriminations, the second-guessing, the charges of “hubris”—my mind always goes back to that moment.
To put things in perspective, suppose that on the evening of 9/11, President Bush and I had promised that for as long as we held office—which was to be another 2,689 days—there would never be another terrorist attack inside this country. Talk about hubris—it would have seemed a rash and irresponsible thing to say. People would have doubted that we even understood the enormity of what had just happened. Everyone had a very bad feeling about all of this, and felt certain that the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville were only the beginning of the violence.
Of course, we made no such promise. Instead, we promised an all-out effort to protect this country. We said we would marshal all elements of our nation’s power to fight this war and to win it. We said we would never forget what had happened on 9/11, even if the day came when many others did forget. We spoke of a war that would “include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.” We followed through on all of this, and we stayed true to our word.
To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.
Along the way there were some hard calls. No decision of national security was ever made lightly, and certainly never made in haste. As in all warfare, there have been costs—none higher than the sacrifices of those killed and wounded in our country’s service. And even the most decisive victories can never take away the sorrow of losing so many of our own—all those innocent victims of 9/11, and the heroic souls who died trying to save them.
For all that we’ve lost in this conflict, the United States has never lost its moral bearings. And when the moral reckoning turns to the men known as high-value terrorists, I can assure you they were neither innocent nor victims. As for those who asked them questions and got answers: they did the right thing, they made our country safer, and a lot of Americans are alive today because of them.
Like so many others who serve America, they are not the kind to insist on a thank-you. But I will always be grateful to each one of them, and proud to have served with them for a time in the same cause. They, and so many others, have given honorable service to our country through all the difficulties and all the dangers. I will always admire them and wish them well. And I am confident that this nation will never take their work, their dedication, or their achievements, for granted.
Thank you very much.
Richard B. Cheney, the forty-sixth vice president of the United States, is a trustee of AEI.
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54477
Gates Cites ‘Taint’ Attached to Guantanamo’s Name
By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 22, 2009 – President Barack Obama has little choice in closing the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because its name alone is a “taint” on U.S. war efforts, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today.
“The truth is, it’s probably one of the finest prisons in the world today, but it has a taint,” Gates said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. “The name itself is a condemnation.”
The president said yesterday that the use of now-banned interrogations techniques at Guantanamo set back the moral authority of the United States. Intended as a tool to combat terrorism, the prison became a symbol used by al-Qaida to recruit more terrorists, he said.
“Indeed, the existence of Guantanamo likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained,” Obama said.
Just after taking office, the president ordered the prison’s closure within a year. But that task has proven easier said than done. On May 20, the Senate stripped from a supplemental spending bill $80 million earmarked to fund closing the prison, asking first for a more detailed plan.
At issue is what will happen to the 240 detainees left in the prison. Many in the United States are wary of transferring them to prisons here. But Gates, a former CIA director, said in the interview today that many terrorists already are in U.S. “supermax” prisons.
“This started 20 years ago when I was at CIA, and we captured a Hezbollah terrorist who had been involved in killing an American sailor on an aircraft that had been taken hostage in Beirut. We brought him to the United States, put him on trial and put him in prison,” Gates said.
The secretary said much of the worry is unfounded, and that there are no plans to release terrorists on American soil.
“The truth is, there’s a lot of fear-mongering about this,” Gates said. “We’ve never had an escape from a supermax prison, and that’s where these guys will go; and if not one of the existing ones, we’ll create a new one.”
Defense department officials said the detention center has housed nearly 800 suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places since the start of the global war on terrorism that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Of the more than 500 detainees who have been transferred from Defense Department custody, 18 allegedly have resumed terrorist activities.
Last week, the president moved to reform and revive the military commissions at Guantanamo that have been stalled since the change in administrations. The department has sent a handful of changes to Congress that officials say will afford more protections to defendants at the commissions.
The rule changes do not require a change in law, but the law does require that the department give Congress 60 days’ notice before the rules can be implemented. Department officials will ask for a 120-day continuance for pending military commission cases while Congress reviews the rules.
Biographies:
Robert M. Gates
Related Articles:
Obama Vows to Protect American People, Stay True to American Values
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54488
Top U.S. Military Officer Favors Guantanamo Closure
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, May 24, 2009 – The detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be closed, the Pentagon’s senior military officer said here today.
“I have advocated for a long time now that it (Guantanamo) needs to be closed,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a wide-ranging interview with ABC’s “This Week” television news program host George Stephanopoulos.
President Barack Obama has pledged to shut down Guantanamo by next January, Mullen noted. The U.S.-military-managed Guantanamo detention facility was opened shortly after the start of the war against terrorism. It currently houses about 240 detainees.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military is working to meet the president’s deadline to close Guantanamo, Mullen said. The detention facility, he said, has served as a recruiting symbol for Islamic extremists to take up arms against the United States.
“So, I think that is at the heart of the concern for Guantanamo’s continued existance, in which I spoke to a fews years ago for the need to close it,” Mullen said.
Mullen acknowledged that closing Guantanamo poses a challenge, with regard to finding another place to hold some very dangerous people. Yet, he said, a number of terrorists are already being held in some high-security prisons in the United States.
“We’re working hard now to figure out what the options are and what the best one would be,” Mullen said, “and that really is a decision the president is going to have to make.”
Mullen also fielded Stephanopoulos-posed questions on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, gays in the military, and the performance of U.S. servicemembers.
It’s clear that Iran intends to develop nuclear-weapons capability, said Mullen, pointing to Iran’s recent successful ballistic-missile test.
Iran’s strategic objective “is to achieve nuclear weapons, and that path continues,” Mullen said. “Their leadership is committed to it.”
If Iran were to have nuclear weapons, he said, it would be an “incredibly destabilizing” event in the Middle East region and for the world.
Meanwhile, the current U.S. policy of employing diplomatic dialogue with Iran to persuade it to jettison its nuclear weapons ambitions is the right path to take, Mullen said.
Turning to Iraq, Mullen said the recent increase in insurgent-committed violence there still remains much lower than that experienced at the height of fighting a few years ago.
And, the U.S. military is “still very much on track” in its plans to remove its forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, Mullen said. Today, there are more than 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
Mullen said current plans call for a reduction to between 35,000 and 50,000 U.S. forces from Iraq by August 2010.
The situation in Iraq “is still fragile,” Mullen said. But, he added, the Iraqi security forces are vastly improved.
Though al-Qaida in Iraq is still active, its capacity to commit violence in Iraq has been much diminished, Mullen said. Iraq’s future, he said, will become much clearer over the next 12 to 18 months.
Switching to the topic of Afghanistan, Mullen said the current U.S. troop build up there would bolster efforts to “stem the tide” in reducing violence committed by resurgent Taliban extremists.
However, a military solution “is not enough” to achieve success in Afghanistan, Mullen said.
“We’ve got to have governance capability increased dramatically” in Afghanistan, Mullen explained, as well as economic development.
Turning to the discussion of changing federal law in order to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the U.S. military, Mullen said that if the law were changed, then the U.S. military would follow suit.
President Obama has said he wants to jettison the U.S. military’s current rules governing homosexuals in uniform, that’s called, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” That policy enables gays to serve in uniform, as long as they don’t openly announce or demonstrate their sexual preference.
Mullen also said that his job regarding a change in the U.S. military’s policy toward gays is to gauge its potential impact and provide his best advice to the president.
If the law is changed, Mullen continued, he would also need to develop an implementation plan.
“We follow the law, and if the law changes, we’ll comply,” Mullen said. “There is absolutely no question about that.”
Mullen also said he is impressed with the president’s thought processes and decisions regarding U.S. military policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“I find that to be a method that gives the military the kind of focus it needs for where we’re going,” Mullen said.
On this year’s Memorial Day weekend, Mullen observed that today’s U.S. servicemembers constitute “the best military I’ve ever been associated with in my 41 years of wearing the uniform.”
Mullen cited the “tremendous resolve” demonstrated by America’s servicemembers as they fight two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
America’s men and women in uniform “have performed incredibly,” Mullen said, noting that they deserve the support of their fellow citizens.
On Monday, this Memorial Day, Mullen said he’d like America “to remember those who’ve served and those that we’ve lost and their families.”
Mullen also saluted the nation’s support of its wounded warriors.
Communities across America “reach out to these young people,” Mullen said, noting wounded warriors have “gone forward, sacrificed greatly,” to protect their fellow citizens.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.