Shutting down Guantanamo Bay

[Mccordrm]

Interestingly, there hasn't been much chatter about closing Gitmo lately. The last word was the big O waffling about it.

To think this was his big campaign mantra......

OR, he took office and started to see the "behind the curtains" necessity of
GITMO and changed his tune.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not one of the blind followers. But at the same time,
I fully understand that there are things you DON'T tell the public. You as an
individual may be able to comprehend the "big picture" and understand
something, but "people" are stupid and haven't the balls or mentality for
making the tough decisions. Part of being a leader is accepting the fallout
and making the call regardless. I wish more folks understood that.

[SteveW]

OR, he took office and started to see the "behind the curtains" necessity of
GITMO and changed his tune.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not one of the blind followers. But at the same time,
I fully understand that there are things you DON'T tell the public. You as an
individual may be able to comprehend the "big picture" and understand
something, but "people" are stupid and haven't the balls or mentality for
making the tough decisions. Part of being a leader is accepting the fallout
and making the call regardless. I wish more folks understood that.

As a United States Senator Mr. Obama would have been privy to a lot of classified information.

I understand the need for Gitmo as do many others.

Obama isn't stupid. He used the emotion over Gitmo to whip up a firestorm for purely elective purposes.

George W. Bush most certainly had an understanding of fallout over decisions. The Big "O" is just now getting a nice taste of it.

[watertown28]

OR, he took office and started to see the "behind the curtains" necessity of
GITMO and changed his tune.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not one of the blind followers. But at the same time,
I fully understand that there are things you DON'T tell the public. You as an
individual may be able to comprehend the "big picture" and understand
something, but "people" are stupid and haven't the balls or mentality for
making the tough decisions. Part of being a leader is accepting the fallout
and making the call regardless. I wish more folks understood that.

then why lie about it. BO would get points for sure, along with any politician, if they would just come out and say it. nough of the pussyfooting around

[AMDScooter]

What a putz. GITMO works. It's simply too much to as for the messiah to simply do the right thing. Keep GITMO open and go ahead with the military commissions.

U.S. prison plan for Guantanamo inmates under review, officials say

Under a proposal, suspected terrorists would be tried and held in a hybrid 'courtroom within a detention facility' at an existing U.S. maximum-security prison.

By Josh Meyer and Julian E. Barnes
August 3, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration could transfer Guantanamo inmates to be tried and detained at a hybrid military-civilian prison in the United States as part of a proposal being examined by U.S. security agencies, officials said Sunday.

The proposal for creating a combined detention and trial facility for Guantanamo inmates in an existing U.S. maximum-security prison is likely to be controversial. Congress has opposed bringing detainees to the United States, despite President Obama's vow to close the naval prison in Cuba by January.

Officials at the White House, Justice Department and other agencies confirmed that the idea of a "courtroom within a detention facility" was being examined. But officials emphasized that nothing had been decided and that other options were under consideration by a multi-agency task force studying detainee issues.

"No decisions have been made," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

A spokesman at the Justice Department, which is leading the task force, also said that no decisions had been made about whether to establish such a facility. An Obama administration official said the task force was considering a wide array of options and was expected to make its recommendations as early as this month.

The proposal was first reported Sunday by the Associated Press.

The 229 inmates who remain at Guantanamo Bay are accused of belonging to Al Qaeda, allied extremist networks or the Taliban. U.S. officials hope to prosecute some of them in federal court and others before military commissions.

But complex questions must be resolved as part of the process of shutting down the base. About 60 prisoners have been cleared for release but cannot be sent to their homelands because of fears they would be persecuted.

The administration has been trying to persuade European allies to take in some in that group, although the U.S. has not accepted any. Several European governments have been reluctant because of the cost, political sensitivity and potential security risks.

U.S. law enforcement officials are also wrestling with decisions about the fate of suspected terrorists who are considered too dangerous to release but cannot be prosecuted because evidence is weak or has been tainted by alleged abuse. Those include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

When Congress passed a war-funding bill this year, it omitted the $80 million Obama requested to close Guantanamo. The measure also bars the administration from releasing detainees to freedom in the United States, at least until Sept. 30. It would, however, allow the administration to bring certain prisoners to U.S. jails for pretrial detention.

The Obama administration is looking at civilian and military detention facilities in the United States.

"It is no secret the administration is considering bringing the detainees to the U.S.," said a government official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to discuss the internal deliberations.

The task force has been looking at a number of unused or underused civilian facilities, including a soon-to-be-closed maximum-security prison in Michigan. In fact, a source close to the deliberations said the courtroom-within-a-prison plan was floated in May by Michigan Republicans, including former Gov. John Engler, suggesting a site in their state.

The Associated Press reported Sunday that the facility was the Standish maximum security prison in eastern Michigan. But that option has been rejected, at least for now, the government official told The Times.

The Pentagon has also examined the detention facilities at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.; Camp Pendleton; and the Charleston, S.C., naval brig. But the government official said those were not designed to be supermax facilities.

"None of them are ideal options," the official said.

Congressional Republicans have said it would be dangerous and reckless to bring the Guantanamo detainees to the United States. During the last several years, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has waged a campaign to block any plans for using Leavenworth. He and Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) have scheduled a news conference for today to repeat their opposition, according to the AP.

In an opinion piece last year on LATimes.com, Brownback argued that the Leavenworth disciplinary barracks lacks the space, security and infrastructure to house Guantanamo inmates. He also said jailing alleged foreign terrorists with U.S. military personnel would violate international law.

"Though it is a maximum-security facility, 80% of its inmates have some freedom of movement through the prison," Brownback wrote. "In only one wing of the barracks does security meet requirements for detainees. That wing is far too small even to force-fit Guantanamo's detainees. Moreover, because the Department of Defense lacks other available maximum-security space, we would be unable to transfer military prisoners out of Ft. Leavenworth to make room for the Guantanamo detainees."

The proposed hybrid facility would be operated jointly by the departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security, officials said. But many delicate issues would need to be decided before such a plan could go forward, such as choosing a site that did not cause too much political opposition, especially among Republicans who say it would jeopardize Americans by making the prisons targets of terrorist attacks.

Logistical problems such as where judges and prosecutors would come from are also under discussion by the task force, according to the source familiar with its deliberations.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it would oppose such a facility, especially if it included holding some detainees indefinitely without charge or trial, which the Obama administration has indicated it is likely to support.

"Closing Guantanamo will be an empty gesture if we just reopen it on shore under a different name," Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a statement.

"While it's encouraging that the administration is attempting to meet the deadline for closing Guantanamo, any arrangement that allows indefinite detention without charge or trial will leave in place the problems that led President Obama to order the prison closed in the first place."

Jaffer said federal courts "have shown themselves capable of handling complex terrorism prosecutions while affording defendants the procedural protections that the Constitution requires."

"Given that the federal courts are fully capable of handling these prosecutions, a new system of indefinite detention without charge or trial would be not only unconstitutional but unnecessary as well," Jaffer said.

[AMDScooter]

Great....

Detainees Shown CIA Officers' Photos
Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo

The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged with organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

Investigators are looking into allegations that laws protecting classified information were breached when three lawyers showed their clients the photographs, the sources said. The lawyers were apparently attempting to identify CIA officers and contractors involved in the agency's interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects in facilities outside the United States, where the agency employed harsh techniques.

If detainees at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are tried, either in federal court or by a military commission, defense lawyers are expected to attempt to call CIA personnel to testify.

The photos were taken by researchers hired by the John Adams Project, a joint effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to support military counsel at Guantanamo Bay, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry. It was unclear whether the Justice Department is also examining those organizations.

Both groups have long said that they will zealously investigate the CIA's interrogation program at "black sites" worldwide as part of the defense of their clients. But government investigators are now looking into whether the defense team went too far by allegedly showing the detainees the photos of CIA officers, in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes.

If proved, the allegations would highlight how aggressively both military lawyers and their allies in the human rights community are moving to shed light on the CIA's interrogation practices and defend their clients. Defense attorneys, however, described the investigation as an attempt by the government to intimidate them into not exposing what happened to their clients.

When contacted about the investigation, the ACLU declined to discuss specifics.

"We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken as we investigated the circumstances of the torture of our clients and as we have vigorously defended our clients' interests," said Anthony D. Romero, the group's executive director. "Rather than investigate the CIA officials who undertook the torture, they are now investigating the military lawyers who have courageously stepped up to defend these clients in these sham proceedings."

It is unclear whether the military lawyers under investigation identified the CIA personnel in the photographs to the al-Qaeda suspects or simply asked the detainees whether they had ever seen them. It is also unclear whether the inquiry involves violations of federal statutes prohibiting the identification of covert CIA officers or violations of military commission rules governing the disclosure of classified information, including to the defendants.

The investigation is being overseen by John Dion, head of the Justice Department's counter-espionage section, who has worked on many high-profile national security cases, including the prosecution of Aldrich H. Ames, the CIA mole who spied for the Soviet Union. The CIA reports security breaches to Dion's office. The Justice Department and the CIA declined to comment.

Air Force Col. Peter R. Masciola, chief military defense counsel at Guantanamo Bay, and his deputy, Michael J. Berrigan, also declined to comment.

The Washington Post could not determine how many and which CIA personnel were photographed, which photographs were shown to detainees, or when.

Romero said he does not know what laws the government thinks the military lawyers may have broken.

"That is the most vexing part of it," he said. "Usually when you're read your Miranda rights or visited by the Justice Department or the FBI, you are given some indication as to what laws are at stake."

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also declined to address the specifics of the inquiry but questioned its timing.

It is "customary in our experience that any kind of investigation like these are conducted after legal proceedings are finished in the case so as not to interfere with the defense function, not to interfere with the rights of defendants, not to give the appearance that the government is looking to chill the defense function," said Joshua L. Dratel, counsel for the John Adams Project and a former board member of the NACDL, who spoke on behalf of the group.

He added: "The lawyers have a duty to find out what happened to their clients, and to the extent that the government and certain agencies are resistant to that to protect themselves and to insulate themselves from accountability, there is a tension there, and to the extent that this investigation is part of that tension, it's most unfortunate. But the lawyers will not shirk their duty."

A wide variety of groups, including European investigators, human rights groups and news organizations, have compiled lists of people thought to have been involved in the CIA's program, including CIA station chiefs, agency interrogators and medical personnel who accompanied detainees on planes as they were moved from one secret location to another.

"It's a normal part of human rights research projects, and certainly in defense work, to compile lists of individuals who interacted with clients," Romero said.

Tracking international CIA-chartered flights, researchers have identified hotels in Europe where CIA personnel or contractors stayed. In some cases, through hotel phone records, they have been able to identify agency employees who jeopardized their cover by dialing numbers in the United States. Working from these lists, some of which include up to 45 names, researchers photographed agency workers and obtained other photos from public records, the sources said.

The government has largely cut off the airing of details about the CIA's interrogation program during proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, although many have been revealed in government documents.

At the courthouse at the prison, a court security officer, who is thought be in contact with CIA officials, can cut off the audio feed to the public gallery if there is any possibility of lawyers or defendants discussing CIA detention. At a hearing in July, the audio feed was cut when a lawyer for Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators, mentioned sleep deprivation, one of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used at the CIA's black sites.

[AMDScooter]

Gee.. whocouldaseenthiscoming...

Friday News Dump Comes Early: Obama Gitmo Policy Collapses

Obama is going to keep open the prison at Gitmo open at least a little while longer:

With four months left to meet its self-imposed deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration is working to recover from missteps that have put officials behind schedule and left them struggling to win the cooperation of Congress....

The White House has faltered in part because of the legal, political and diplomatic complexities involved in determining what to do with more than 200 terrorism suspects incarcerated at the prison. But senior advisers privately acknowledge failing to devise a concrete plan for where to move the detainees and mishandling Congress.

To address these setbacks, the administration has shifted its leadership team on the issue. White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who initially guided the effort to close the prison and who was an advocate of setting the deadline, is no longer in charge of the project, two senior administration officials said this week.

Craig said Thursday that some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. "I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives," he said.

You have to read the whole piece to appreciate just how much humble pie the administration is eating on this one. Craig dutifully throws himself under the bus and, per the Post, will be rewarded with a plum diplomatic assignment in the very near future. Meanwhile, the real blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Republicans in Congress, as Craig points out, the Bush administration, the international community, and the American people -- all of whom have let Obama down.

Apparently the Bush administration didn't keep tidy enough files -- they "had been left in disarray." And this made it impossible for the administration to know just what kind of animals were locked up down there before "boldly" setting a one-year deadline to close the facility. One anonymous government lawyer tells the Post ,"The entire civil service counseled him [Craig] not to set a deadline." Craig may have been wrong on this point, too.

The administration also blames the international community for being so uncooperative in the terrorist resettlement program. But then that one is also kind of Craig's fault. "They essentially snuck them in, and we were furious," a senior British official tells the Post in regard to the al Qaeda trained Uighurs now working at a Bermuda golf course. Our allies were inexplicably less cooperative after all that.

And then there's the American people, whose opposition to the administration's plans to for resettling detainees in suburban America oddly spiked as the spring wore on -- and as •••• Cheney pummeled the administration. "Senior adviser David Axelrod and deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer were brought in to craft a more effective message around detainee policy," the Post reports. That happened in May -- no indication of whether it came before or after the decision to send Obama out for a head to head match up with the former vice president. Remember that speech? Obama at the National Archives and •••• Cheney at AEI going one after the other? At the time the press couldn't get enough of the mismatch storyline -- the popular new president against the loathed former VP.

The Post's report concludes with this: "In coming weeks, officials say, they expect to complete the initial review of all the files of those held at Guantanamo." They haven't even reviewed all the files yet! Marc Ambinder offers this delightful spin on twitter: "GTMO was messy, but it's gonna close, nearly on time. Obama thinks Craig did yoeman's work on GTMO. If there's a problem, it's not that." Right. Gitmo is going to close real soon -- and at no risk to national security -- just after Obama brings peace to the Middle East, adds 40 million uninsured to the system for not a penny more than you're paying today, talks the North Koreans and Iranians into abandoning the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and wins the war in Afghanistan after tying General McChrystal's hands behind his back.

Gubberning is teh hard..

[Dutchcedar]

^^^ And yet, knowing that Gitmo won't close as he promised, he used it as his first accomplishment as president when speaking to the bafoons at the UN, just yesterday.

What an idiot.

[AMDScooter]

^^^ And yet, knowing that Gitmo won't close as he promised, he used it as his first accomplishment as president when speaking to the bafoons at the UN, just yesterday.

What an idiot.

Getting pretty tried of your racism Dutch....

[Dutchcedar]

^^^ In that case, add a couple "a's" for me... raaacist!!!

Then bold, color and enlarge: raaacist!!!

[AMDScooter]

^^^ In that case, add a couple "a's" for me... raaacist!!!

Then bold, color and enlarge: raaacist!!!

Yup... were all racists. Oh.. BTW.. didya hear it's all still Bushy's fault? And a lil ours also? Bet you are as surprised as I am to hear that.

Obama Can't Make Deadline for Closing Gitmo, and He Takes Full Responsibility on Behalf of Bush, Congressional Republicans, and the American People Whose Fault This Is (Bumped)

Bumped [DrewM.] Ace posted this late last night but it's being talked about this morning, so I bumped in case anyone missed it.

It's Bush's fault because the files were in "disarray" which prevented Obama's people from realizing quickly enough there are monsters at Gitmo that really kinda have to be kept locked up.

And it's your fault for not being a little more chill about terrorists moving in next door and keeping a messy lawn and leaving toys all over and that great big dog that barks all night. All that stuff annoying terrorist neighbors do.

Your bad, dudes. Dicks.

Ya.. The Won is a dipsh*t... but a predictable dipsh*t. I can hear the heads of his minions nodding furiously in agreement from here.

[AMDScooter]

Swell idea Dianne... in which of your homes are you clearing rooms out in order to accommodate your new pals?

Feinstein: Let’s house Gitmo detainees in California

California has already begun working to empty its prisons in response to its massive budget gap, so at least they’ll have some room for a few al-Qaeda terrorists, if Senator Dianne Feinstein gets her way. Not only did Feinstein volunteer California, she also volunteered Missouri as well. Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) was not eager to accept, as he said to Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace:

WALLACE: We’ve got about a minute left. Senator Feinstein, I’m going to throw one other thing into the hopper. The White House is now acknowledging they almost certainly are not going to meet their deadline by next January for closing the prison at Guantanamo. And there is a story today that indicates they are close to making a decision to send some of the detainees, the 223 detainees, to locations here in the U.S. Will Congress allow that?

FEINSTEIN: Well, as you know, I’m one that believes very strongly Guantanamo should be closed, and I believe it can be done. I’m also one that’s somewhat familiar with the prison structure in the United States. And I know that there are maximum security prisons from which no one escapes in the United States, which are isolated from neighborhoods. And no one is going to put these people in anyone’s neighborhood, as some have tried to say.

WALLACE: So you’ll be OK with having some of these detainees in California?

FEINSTEIN: Yes. In a maximum security prison, I don’t worry about it, provided the prison is set up to accommodate it, and I believe we have facilities that are.

WALLACE: Senator Bond, you get the last word.

BOND: I — this is one of the areas on which Senator Feinstein and I disagree. I think Guantanamo is the best place to hold these hardened criminals. We don’t want to put them in our general prison population where they have and will radicalize other prisoners. They will draw their friends in Al Qaeda to come into the area from the outside. I wouldn’t mind seeing them at Alcatraz, but my California friends have minimum amount of high enthusiasm for that. But if they’re sick, they’re transferred to the federal Springfield, Missouri medical facility in my state, and my constituents and I think that would be a very bad idea.

Bond points out the logistical problems in housing international terrorists in facilities designed to hold domestic criminals. They can recruit among the prison population, not all of whom would spend the rest of their lives behind bars. When they get sick, the US has to get them to medical facilities within the community, which means increased risk, no matter what Feinstein says.

More problematic, though, is the legal consequences of committing them to domestic facilities. That gives them access to the courts, which they will use and abuse in any attempt to free themselves. They will get funding for unending and ludicrous complaints, which will eat up valuable resources, or worse, succeed in finding a judge with more time than sense.

What Feinstein cannot answer is why Gitmo has to be closed in the first place. It was designed for its purpose, which is military detention in a time of war. If Feinstein doesn’t like the processes and procedures, then fix them — but the detention of unlawful combatants is a military problem, not a civil problem, and should be conducted by the military in a facility expressly designed for that purpose.

[Dutchcedar]

^^^ Hold on. Maybe I've misunderstood this California prison thing, but understood that the anticipated release of a slew of prisoners had to do with a court order that said our prisons are over-populated. If that's the case, and the budget deficit we have only made releasing them more palatable, isn't it fair to say that Diane has her ideas in a sort of log jam?

Ya know, we just don't have enough problems in California, so sheet, let's take on some more.

[AMDScooter]

Ruh~roh..

Congress blocking Gitmo-closing funds in 2010

Regardless of whether Barack Obama thinks he can make his self-imposed deadline for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Congress has no intention of helping him do it. Republicans and Democrats have combined in both chambers of Congress to deny funding in 2010 for any effort to close Gitmo and transfer its detainees to the US. Almost 90 Democrats in the House defied their party leadership to support a ban on the funds:

Lawmakers are using their authority to direct federal spending to prevent the Obama administration from closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In their race to complete a dozen appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began this week, members of both chambers are including policy language aimed at halting the administration’s decision to transfer prisoners from the Cuban facility to prisons in their districts.

The latest example came on Thursday when the House instructed conferees negotiating with the Senate on a final version of the Homeland Security spending bill to include language prohibiting the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil. The bill already includes a provision prohibiting the detainees from air travel within or to the United States.

They’re not being subtle about it, either, or leaving it to chance. The Hill reports that the House has passed four appropriations bills with language denying funds for the purpose of closing Gitmo. The Senate seems just as adamant about it, too. They have already inserted the language into the Defense appropriation, which is still under consideration.

Rep. David Obey called Congress an “unjointed turkey” on the question for failing to come up with its own plan to close Gitmo. He apparently labors under the delusion that a grand consensus exists to close the one facility built for the express purpose of housing unlawful combatants captured in the war on terror. Rasmussen’s last polling on this question showed that 55% of likely voters oppose closing Gitmo, while only 32% support the idea. Three-quarters believe that the process will free dangerous terrorists, with 56% “very concerned” about that prospect. Only 56% of Democrats support the closure of Gitmo, hardly a mandate, while 62% of independents oppose it. There isn’t an age or income demographic that supports Obama’s policy.

Can Obama close Gitmo with these funding restrictions? He’s not likely to stop trying, but Congress is doing all it can to block him.

[AMDScooter]

Looks like the messiah has already selected his fall guy... is that the bus I hear warming up??

Obama's Gitmo blame game

October 6, 2009 05:15 AM EST

Greg Craig, the top in-house lawyer for President Barack Obama, is getting the blame for botching the strategy to shut down Guantanamo Bay prison by January — so much so that he’s expected to leave the White House in short order.

But sources familiar with the process believe Craig is being set-up as the fall guy and say the blame for missing the deadline extends well beyond him.

Instead, it was a widespread breakdown on the political, legislative, policy and planning fronts that contributed to what is shaping up as one of Obama’s most high-profile setbacks, these people say.

The White House misread the congressional mood – as it found out abruptly in May, when the Senate voted 90-6 against funds for closing the base after Republicans stoked fears about bringing prisoners to the U.S. The House also went on record last week opposing bringing Gitmo detainees here.

The White House misread the public mood – as roughly half of Americans surveyed say they disagree with Obama’s approach. A strong element of NIMBY-ism permeates those results, as Americans say they don’t want the prisoners in their backyards.

But most of all Obama’s aides mistook that political consensus from the campaign trail for a deep commitment in Washington to do whatever it takes to close the prison.

“The administration came in reading there to be wide support for closing Guantanamo at home and abroad, and I think it misread that attitude,” said Matthew Waxman, a Columbia law professor who held Defense and State Department positions on detainee policy. “In general, they were right….but there was very little willingness to accept the costs and risks of getting it done.”

The White House declined to make Craig available for an interview, or discuss the Gitmo deliberations in detail, but several allies and even some critics scoffed at suggestions that Craig bears the main responsibility for the missteps.

“This clearly was a decision that had the full support of the entire national security team,” said Ken Gude, who tracks Guantanamo issues for the liberal Center for American Progress think tank. “It’s typical Washington that someone has their head on the chopping block, but it’s ridiculous that it’s Craig.”

“The implication that this was the brainchild of the White House counsel is not really credible,” said Elisa Massimino of Human Rights First.

When Obama signed a series of executive orders on Guantanamo during his second full day in office, what grabbed attention was not his promise to close the prison but his pledge to do it within one year.

During the presidential campaign, Obama talked almost daily about closing Guantanamo, but he rarely offered a timeline. His Republican rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), spoke in a far greater specificity, proposing to move the Gitmo prisoners to Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas.

However, back in July 2007, Obama co-sponsored an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) that called for Guantanamo to close within a year. Obama’s primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) was also a co-sponsor.

Some Bush administration officials contend that the one-year timeline was driven by a naïveté on the part of Obama’s aides.

“To a certain extent, they had drunk a lot of the far-left Kool-aid: that everybody, or most people, at Guantanamo were innocent and shouldn’t be there, and the Bush administration was not working very hard to resolve these issues, and that the issues were fairly easy to resolve once adults who were really committed to doing something about it in charge,” said one Bush official who met with Obama’s aides during the transition on Gitmo. “It became clear to me they had not really done their homework on the details.”

But even back on Jan. 22, 2009, the same day Obama signed the orders, Craig acknowledged some of the difficulties involved – including that some of the detainees can never be tried, a problem Craig called “difficult” and “most controversial.”


Now Obama’s decision to set a one-year deadline is being widely second-guessed. Craig supported the idea – and Craig’s allies say that a deadline was needed to persuade foreign governments that Obama was serious. They note that President George W. Bush talked on at least eight occasions about his desire to close Guantanamo – and left office with 250 prisoners there.

“Simply reasserting the intention to close Guantanamo would not have been sufficient in the international community,” Gude said. “They had to have a firm date and they had to have a timeline.”

Gude had advocated an 18-month timeline to “build in a cushion” but he said the only real mistakes the White House made involved failing to anticipate the resistance in Congress – particularly surrounding the Senate’s sharp rejection of Obama’s $80 million request to close Gitmo.

“They made that request without much supporting information and opened the door for Republicans in Congress to make it a Congressional issue and they did it very successfully,” Gude said. “The White House didn’t have a plan to support Democrats who were willing to back up their proposal and it all fell apart.”

Craig’s backers contend that, if that was the White House’s key misjudgment, other top officials share responsibility for the breakdown.

“It seems very unlikely to me that Greg Craig, by himself, engineered a DOD appropriations request,” one lawyer close to Craig said.

In retrospect, there were early signs of possible trouble ahead. Within hours of Obama signing the orders, McCain warned of a backlash and said the time frame the president set out would be “very difficult” to achieve.

A McCain adviser said the Obama team should have known. “I don’t think they realized how much heat McCain took from conservatives” during the GOP primary, said the aide, who asked not to be named. “Had they been aware of that I don’t think they would have handled it this way…..It shouldn’t have surprised anybody.”

Today, the National Security Council and Obama senior adviser Pete Rouse are effectively in charge of closing Gitmo, though Press Secretary Robert Gibbs denied Craig had been stripped of his responsibilities on the prison. “There are number of people that are working on it, Greg being one of them,” Gibbs said.

A review of Guantanamo prisoners is also nearly complete, with about 80 detainees up for release and State Department envoy Dan Fried lining up places to receive them.

“Our friends and allies have accepted or agreed to accept more than 30 of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be sent home due to humane treatment concerns, and are seriously considering taking others,” said a White House official who asked not to be named.

But it’s been slow. Obama’s administration has transferred 17 Guantanamo prisoners to other countries so far – compared to 19 by the Bush administration in the first nine months of 2008.

Obama aides have blamed the delays on disarray in government files about the detainees, but several former officials said that is not directly linked to the thorniest questions such as where to locate detainees in the U.S. “Those issues that have been kicked down the road are by far the hardest,” Waxman said.

[AMDScooter]

Oh joy...

Dems vote to allow Gitmo detainees into US for trials

Handing President Barack Obama a partial victory in his effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, House Democrats on Thursday repelled a Republican effort to block transfer of any of the detainees to the U.S.

Instead, by a 224-193 vote, the House stood by a Democratic plan to allow suspected enemy combatants held at the controversial Guantanamo facility to be shipped to U.S. soil — but only to be prosecuted for their suspected crimes.

The Guantanamo restrictions were attached by House-Senate negotiators on a $42.8 billion homeland security appropriations bill.

President Barack Obama has ordered the facility closed in January but has yet to offer a plan to meet his deadline. cm-bd

Democratic leaders had to push hard to win the vote because many Democrats two weeks ago had cast a nonbinding but politically safe vote against any Guantanamo detainee transfers. But several Democrats from swing districts said they saw little political risk on Thursday’s vote.

“It’s a non-issue. Inside the beltway stuff,” said first-term Rep. Dan Maffai, D-N.Y. “People care about jobs, the economy, health care.”

“I haven’t had one person ask me about Guantanamo,” said Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind. He added that he does “not in the least” fear it as an issue in next year’s elections.

Permitting Guantanamo prisoners to be transferred to U.S. soil to stand trial had been a bipartisan compromise earlier. It mostly tracks current restrictions put in place in June and is similar to a version backed by Republicans earlier in the year. In fact, Republicans such as top Appropriations panel Rep. Jerry Lewis of California helped fashion the compromise.

But in the absence of a plan from the administration for closing the facility, Lewis has toughened his talk, calling the administration’s plan misguided and potentially dangerous.

“Terrorists should not be treated like common criminals in federal court,” Lewis said. “These detainees are enemies of the state, and should be treated as such by being held and brought to justice right where they are — in Guantanamo Bay.”

Democrats say that Republicans are simply seeking a political opening.

Still, the public is mixed at best on the idea of closing Guantanamo and transferring some of its prisoners to the U.S. Respondents to an AP/Gfk poll in June found Americans evenly divided on whether they support Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo. A Gallup poll taken around the same time — but with the question worded differently — found that respondents opposed closing Guantanamo by a 2-1 margin and rejected the idea of moving detainees to their states by a 4-1 margin.

Several of the fiscal 2010 funding bills contain varying restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees, reflecting widespread opposition among voters. The Senate-passed defense appropriations bill, for example, contains an outright ban on releasing Guantanamo detainees into the U.S., including for trial or incarceration.

The underlying spending bill also backs the Obama administration’s refusal to release new photos showing U.S. personnel abusing detainees held overseas. The measure supports Obama’s decision to allow the secretary of defense to bar the release of detainee photos for three years.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit to obtain unreleased photos of detainee abuse under the Freedom of Information Act and won two rounds in federal court. The measure would essentially trump the ACLU’s case.

In response, the administration has appealed to the Supreme Court and Obama has said he would use every available means to block release of additional detainee abuse photos because they could whip up anti-American sentiment overseas and endanger U.S. troops. His powers include issuing an order to classify the photos, thus blocking their release.

But the detainee photos provision earned a sharp rebuke from Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., normally a leadership loyalist from her perch as chairwoman of the powerful Rules Committee. She said that “the people’s right to know is more important than the government’s desire to keep things secret.”