Last November a story broke that the CIA had a series of secret prisons around the world where we were holding suspected terrorists, and at the time US officials (including Condi Rice) danced around it, suggesting it was true.
Well it was, because this week Bush announced he's moving 14 terror suspects from secret CIA prisons to military custody at Guantanamo. They are also getting Geneva Conventions protections and Bush wants Congress to bring about legal military tribunals to try them. Sounds good right? Well not really. Bush gave the details this week at a press conference. The details of his proposal are in this fact sheet.
First off, the New York Times points of three of Bush's lies. "President Bush said the detention system had used lawful interrogation techniques, was fully described to select members of Congress and led directly to the capture of a string of terrorists over the past four years."
A Justice department document from August 2002 was leaked to reporters in 2004 described interrogation methods "just short of those that might cause pain comparable to 'organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death' could be allowable without being considered torture." We know a CIA contractor killed one prisoner during interrorgation. Congress asked for more info, the administration never replied. How is that even fucking possible?!?!
Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV) is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said the administration had "withheld details of the C.I.A. detention and interrogation program from the Congressional intelligence committees"
Bush in his speech said "Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed...was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and used the alias 'Muktar'. This was a vital piece of the puzzle that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM." However, the 9/11 Commission Report says the CIA knew this as of Aug 28, 2001. Maybe Bush should read it. The CIA stands by Bush's speech. Maybe they should read the report.
Ok, so he started off lying, but what's his plan moving forward? First off it seems to codify two existing tracks. First we have military prisoners and they get better protections and less torture. Second we still have secret CIA prisions that toture people. Great huh? The New York Times describes this in depth.
There's another problem with the proposal involving military tribunals. It seems they would allow some evidience to be keep secret but still used against the defendant. Bush says it's important to protect intelligence sources.
It turns out that some some "key Republicans and top military lawyers" don't like this proposal.
Brigadier Gen. James C. Walker, staff judge advocate to the Marine Corps commandant told the House Armed Services Committee "I am not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognized by civilized people where an individual can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence against him" and the US "should not be the first".
Also, "Major General Scott C. Black, the judge advocate general of the Army, made the same point, and Rear Admiral Bruce E. MacDonald, the judge advocate general of the Navy, said military law provided rules for using classified evidence, whereby a judge could prepare an unclassified version of the evidence to share with the jury and the accused and his lawyer."
John McCain (R-AZ) is of course against the proposal. So is Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner (R-VA). Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a former Air Force lawyer, said "It would be unacceptable, legally, in my opinion, to give someone the death penalty in a trial where they never heard the evidence against them... 'Trust us, you're guilty, we're going to execute you, but we can't tell you why'? That's not going to pass muster; that's not necessary." But then John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) support the president.
Democrats, sheep that they are "were inclined to go along with Senate Republicans drafting an alternative to the White House plan". They're willing to let the Republicans battle it out amongst themselves. Apparently they don't listen to any of the media or blogger or John Stewart who have all been screaming for the Democrats to stand for something or offer some plan. Here's they can't even say what they're going to do with captured suspected terrorists.
Edward MacMahon, the chief defense lawyer for Zacarias Moussaoui questioned why national security secrets couldn't be handled the way they are in traditional military courts. "You could use classified information in a case and show it to the lawyers, the defendant and the jury and never let [the public see it]. That happens all the time in these kinds of cases."
Another fun point, the Secretary of Defense picks the judges to determine if torture has occured. Retired Adm. John Hutson, a former judge advocate general of the Navy and dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in NH said "It's unheard of for the secretary of defense to be that involved in the process...The key to this thing is that judges be absolutely independent."
Apparently these issues have been an 18 month battle between Rice and Cheney. Rice wanted stronger legislative support and Cheney didn't. Evidently Bush is an ineffective leader and couldn't get his staff to resolve the issue. Instead the Supreme Court did it for him in the Hamdan decision, proving Rice correct.
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