CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Updated Jan. 22, 2009 – 3:39 p.m.
Obama Orders Guantánamo Detention Camp Closed
By Adriel Bettelheim and Keith Perine, CQ Staff
President Obama moved on Thursday to make good on his campaign pledges to shut the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and limit harsh interrogation methods, prompting congressional Republicans try to block the release of detainees.
Obama signed three executive orders that address how the United States questions and tries suspected terrorists and foreign fighters. The third creates a Cabinet-level task force to develop detention policies for the future.
On the day he was inaugurated, Obama’s administration directed prosecutors to file a motion seeking to suspend military commission proceedings against a Guantánamo detainee, pending a 120-day review.
The Guantánamo prison, which opened after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, turned into a public relations nightmare for the Bush administration. During the presidential campaign, Obama asserted that the camp had become a recruiting tool for America’s enemies, and he questioned the effectiveness of its legal framework, noting that it had only resulted in one conviction.
The executive order on Guantánamo launches a Cabinet-level process, led by the attorney general, of sorting through the detainees to determine who can be tried, and in what venue, with the aim of closing the detention facility within a year.
The order directs Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to mount diplomatic efforts with other countries to repatriate or resettle some of the 245 detainees remaining at the camp. The Defense Department previously determined about 60 to be eligible for transfer or release.
But the order is vague on the specifics of how to rule on detainee cases or what to do with detainees who, for whatever reason, cannot be tried but might be considered potentially too dangerous to release.
Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said the orders weren’t intended to immediately answer every question but to instead “begin the process whereby the current administration can examine what exactly is going on and who exactly is there.”
The order does not extinguish the military commissions Congress established under a 2006 law (PL 109-366) to prosecute detainees but directs Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to stop prosecutions.
“The challenge that faces us ... is how to close Guantánamo and at the same time safeguard the security of the American people. There are answers to those questions but clearly we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Gates said.
Gates noted that several countries he would not name — that declined to accept Guantanamo detainees while the Bush administration was in power — have signaled they would do so for Obama.
In a separate order addressing interrogation techniques, Obama mandated that Guantánamo detainees must be treated in accordance with all applicable laws, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which, in part, forbids “humiliating and degrading” treatment.
In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that Common Article 3 applied to the detainees.
Hundreds of detainees have been imprisoned at the naval base since 2002. By the end of last year, 18 released detainees had resumed fighting in some fashion, and an additional 43 are suspected of having done so, according to statistics compiled by the Bush administration.
Congress will be largely sidelined from deliberations about what to do with the detainees, unless Obama decided he wants to use revamped military commissions; establish a new national security court, as some have advocated; or try detainees in military courts-martial.
If he goes the courts-martial route, Obama would likely need Congress to extend formal jurisdiction under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to the detainees.
In his order on interrogation methods, Obama required all agencies to limit themselves to techniques authorized by a September 2006 Army field manual on the subject, and specifically barred the government from relying on any legal guidance the Bush administration established after the Sept. 11 attacks.
He also ordered the CIA to close any existing prisons that it may be operating.
“I can say without equivocation the United States will not torture,” Obama said later during a visit to the State Department.
Obama also issued a separate memorandum requesting an administration review of the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari citizen who was arrested by the FBI on Dec. 12, 2001, in Peoria, Ill., where he was living with his family while studying for a master’s degree at a local university.
Al-Marri was initially held in New York as a material witness in the Sept. 11 attacks, and charged with criminal offenses. In June 2003, while al-Marri’s criminal case was pending, the Bush administration declared that he was an “enemy combatant.” Al-Marri was transferred to the naval brig in Charleston, S.C.
The Supreme Court has agreed to weigh whether the authorization for the use of force (PL 107-40) Congress passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks authorized the Bush administration to arrest and indefinitely detain al-Marri.
Republican Opposition
Congressional Democrats generally welcomed Obama’s moves. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., said the executive orders “set forth a process for confronting the terrorist threat we face, without resorting to tactics that are ultimately self-defeating.”
However, Republicans expressed concern about the risks.
“Our first responsibility is to protect our nation. And, in my opinion, it is safer for the American people to keep committed terrorists at a secure facility hundreds of miles away from our shores rather than in facilities located in or near American communities,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky..
House Republicans announced legislation to bar federal courts from ordering Guantánamo detainees released into the United States. “These suspected terrorists must now be relocated and if they are transferred to military prisons in the U.S., they automatically will be granted rights far beyond those given to enemy combatants by any other country,” said House Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith , R-Texas.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, stopped short of opposing the plan to shut the prison, but said he is concerned about where terrorism suspects will be sent when the prison is closed, whether they will get full legal rights if they are sent to prisons in the mainland United States and whether those who might be released could end up rejoining terrorist groups.
At a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair, Christopher S. Bond , R-Mo., expressed similar concerns.
“I can’t think of any city or town across the country that will be thrilled to have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah living down the street,” Bond said, referring to the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and another top al Qaeda leader. “And under what rules of evidence should they be tried? These are not ordinary bank robbers. They are terrorists apprehended overseas.”
Tim Starks, Edward Epstein and John M. Donnelly contributed to this story.
First posted Jan. 22, 2009 12:14 p.m.
Comments
Good Lawd! Is he mad? Why in the world would he release these terrorists???????? They don't care about killing and torturing us, why should we care about killing or torturing them? This will come back to bite Obama in the arse....actually, it will bite us all because its our lives that will be lost when these terrorists bomb or fly a plane into another skyscraper.
Under Obama's current directives, he will free some people unjustly held but will effectively end up freeing terrorists either by releasing them to foreign countries who will then free them or through our domestic court system which will not accept the bulk of the evidence gathered against them. Obama's direct actions will be responsible for the death of many Americans in the future. This is a fact and not an opinion.
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