President Bush, calling on Congress to quickly authorize trials of suspected terrorists by military tribunals, acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that the Central Intelligence Agency has subjected dozens of detainees to “tough” interrogation at secret prisons abroad and said the remaining 14 have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to await trial.
The 14 held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo include high-level Al Qaeda operatives responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as well as bombings and foiled plots targeting Americans at home and abroad, according to the president and senior aides.
The admission of the CIA’s long-concealed program, claims of its successes and the announcement of planned trials for several accused terrorists represent dramatic moves by the Bush administration to rivet public attention to persisting threats as both the anniversary of Sept. 11 and critical Nov. 7 congressional elections near.
The newest arrivals at Guantanamo include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom authorities blame for planning the Sept. 11 attacks as Al Qaeda’s former No. 3 man before his capture in 2003.
They also include Abu Zubaydah, a suspected link between Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and terrorist cells whose capture months after Sept. 11 and subsequent CIA interrogation led to the arrests of many more suspects. Bush said the information collected by interrogators prevented another assault on the United States.
The White House is using the imprisonment of these men, as well as acknowledging a CIA program said to hold no suspects at the moment, to prod Congress to enact legislation authorizing military trials for many of the more than 400 detainees held at Guantanamo.
“As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September the 11th, 2001, can face justice,” Bush said in a speech in the East Room of the White House. He spoke with many relatives of Sept. 11 victims in attendance, who applauded his call for justice.
While the president maintains that the CIA’s “tough” interrogation practices fall short of torture, the Defense Department issued new directives Wednesday to ensure that detainees and prisoners of war are treated equally and humanely. The Army has published a new field manual barring torture and inhumane or degrading treatment.
The manual includes specific prohibitions in response to abuses that Iraqi detainees suffered at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.
Bush is seeking passage of military tribunal legislation this month, and GOP leaders have pledged to commit their September agenda to national security. The White House and Republican leaders are attempting to underscore their party’s commitment to security with the approach of fall elections in which control of Congress is at stake.
Yet some complain that the administration is trying to ramrod legislation permitting military tribunals and authorizing the interrogation practices that the CIA has been using without giving Congress time to deliberate.
“Congress has been awaiting this legislation for two months and it is being given to the Congress with little time to consider the bill with the seriousness and deliberation that the American people deserve,” said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
The administration has maintained that it has the right to try suspects in military courts, but the Supreme Court ruled June 29 that Congress first must authorize such trials and that they must be fair under U.S. and international law.
The Supreme Court has overruled the administration’s claim that detainees at Guantanamo are not covered by a portion of the Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3, which guarantees a minimum level of humane treatment.
In response, Bush is asking Congress to sign off on a tribunal process similar to the one in use at the time of the court’s decision. He also is asking lawmakers to strictly define compliance with Common Article 3 and to insulate U.S. personnel from lawsuits or criminal charges for purported violations of the conventions.
Plan allows secret evidence
The tribunal process proposed by Bush allows for the use of hearsay and coerced testimony and for secret evidence. It also limits detainees’ rights to appeals in U.S. courts.
Administration lawyers say that they may need to keep some evidence secret in order to protect intelligence-gathering operations, but defense attorneys argue that their clients should have the right to review the evidence against them. Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have drafted a rival bill requiring such disclosure.
Bush’s proposal amounts to election-season posturing, according to Neal Katyal, a lawyer for Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni detainee and onetime driver for bin Laden whose case resulted in the Supreme Court ruling against the military tribunals.
“I think the proposal reflects politics and not national security,” Katyal said. “It conforms almost to a `T’ to the process struck down in Hamdan.”
More Top Picks Best Stainless Steel Brew Kettles
To bolster his case, Bush offered unusually explicit details about how the interrogation of Zubaydah gave the CIA invaluable information about Al Qaeda, and how the tougher interrogation led to the capture of Mohammed and other operatives.
“Were it not for this program,” Bush said, “our intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.”
Bush, calling the tactics “an alternative set of procedures” for interrogations, said the Justice Department had deemed them lawful. But the vast majority of information gleaned from detainees that he cited Wednesday appears to have come during a 29-month period in which Justice Department lawyers relied on a now-repudiated definition of “torture.”
Torture memo rescinded
That definition, according to an August 2002 Justice Department memo, said that physical pain “amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
The 50-page memo outlining “standards of conduct for interrogation” was rescinded in December 2004 in the wake of the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
The acknowledgment of the CIA program, which senior administration officials say has involved “fewer than 100” suspects, also is intended to allay congressional concerns that the administration is concealing information.
“We thought it was time to put it all on the table with the Congress,” a senior administration official said.
While thousands of “enemy combatants” have been captured, senior administration officials said many have been returned to their home countries, 770 have been detained at Guantanamo at one time or another and only “a small number of the most notorious and dangerous terrorists” have been interrogated in the CIA-run program.
Bush and intelligence chief John Negroponte detailed a string of alleged plots that they said were foiled with information obtained from interrogations of those in secret CIA custody, although most have previously been made public.
The CIA’s inspector general has audited the program, Negroponte’s office said, and “multiple safeguards” were built in.
Specially trained teams of senior CIA officers have worked under scripted guidelines in the interrogation of suspects.
“These are unwilling sources deliberately and actively attempting to withhold and distort information,” another administration official said. “We, the Central Intelligence Agency, need to have direct and thorough access to them.”
———-
– – –
14 from CIA prisons sent to Guantanamo
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, described by the U.S. as the mastermind and “driving force” behind the Sept. 11 attacks, is a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University. Mohammed was captured near Islamabad, Pakistan, in March 2003 by Pakistani authorities and CIA officers. He was born in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province and raised in Kuwait.
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, also known as Ammar Al-Baluchi, is accused of serving as a key lieutenant to Mohammed in Pakistan and delivering funds to the Sept. 11 hijackers. He was born in Baluchistan and raised in Kuwait.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian, allegedly helped coordinate the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Ramzi Binalshibh is considered the key go-between linking Al Qaeda’s leadership and the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Binalshibh was supposed to be one of the Sept. 11 hijackers but was unable to get a U.S. visa. He was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, after a shootout in September 2002.
Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesia native also known as Hambali, is believed to be the main link between Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terror group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.
Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, reportedly arranged financing and travel for the Sept. 11 plot participants.
Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, a Malaysian also known as Lillie, allegedly helped transfer Al Qaeda funds for a 2003 car bombing at a hotel in Jakarta that killed 12.
Majid Khan, also known as Yusif, allegedly was being groomed by Mohammed for an attack inside the United States. A Pakistani native, he attended high school in Baltimore in the late 1990s before returning in 2002 to Pakistan.
Waleed bin Attash, better known as Khallad, allegedly was an Al Qaeda operative and bodyguard for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a Sept. 11 hijacker, but he was prevented from participating when he was arrested and briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, was convicted in absentia in Yemen as the mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian raised in Saudi Arabia, is accused of helping Al Qaeda recruit followers, arrange secret travel and forge documents. Though not believed directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, he has been linked to the millennium plot that targeted Los Angeles International Airport. Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and reportedly provided key information on other Al Qaeda operatives.
Abu Faraj al-Libi, a Libyan, became the most wanted man in Pakistan for masterminding two bombings 11 days apart in December 2003 that targeted President Pervez Musharraf.
Mohd Farik Bin Amin, a Malaysian better known as Zubair, allegedly assisted Jemaah Islamiyah in casing targets for planned attacks. He is believed to have been tapped to be a suicide operative for an Al Qaeda attack on Los Angeles.
More Top Picks Best Preacher Curl Benches For Home Gyms
Gouled Hassan Dourad, a native of Somalia, allegedly headed a Mogadishu-based network that supported Al Qaeda members in the country.
SOURCES: Tribune news services and U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.