Montreal Gazette : Secret prisons confirmed

Secret prisons confirmed

Bush owns up to cia facilities; 14 Al-Qa'ida terrorism suspects transferred to Guantanamo Bay

SHELDON ALBERTS | CanWest News Service | September 7, 2006

U.S. President George W. Bush revealed yesterday that 14 of the world's most notorious terrorists, held until recently at secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons overseas, have been transferred to the U.S. military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will be put on trial for war crimes against the United States.

Confirming details of the controversial CIA program publicly for the first time, Bush mounted a vigorous defence of U.S. interrogation tactics and said the Al-Qa'ida detainees had divulged information that prevented at least two terror attacks following the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings.

The list of Al-Qa'ida leaders shipped to Guantanamo include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot; would-be hijacker Ramzi bin al-Shibh; and Abu Zubaydah, a lieutenant to Osama bin Laden.

The United States said it also planned to prosecute suspected terrorists who concocted attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen six years ago and against U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.

The intelligence gleaned during prolonged CIA interrogation of the suspects "has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks," Bush told a White House audience that included family members of some 9/11 victims.

"Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that Al-Qa'ida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland."

The official disclosure of details about the CIA prisons came amid a flurry of White House activity as U.S. citizens prepare to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 on Monday.

Answering a June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that declared Bush's system of military tribunals at Guantanamo illegal, the White House sent Congress legislation to authorize new war-crimes trials that could give expanded rights to detainees.

Canadian teenager Omar Khadr, accused of murdering a U.S. Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan, is one of 10 Guantanamo prisoners who had been previously charged under the original tribunal system.

The new war crimes trials proposed by Bush would closely follow existing military courts martial rules, the White House said. But detainees could still be denied access to evidence against them for security reasons, a potential deal-breaker for members of Congress drafting their own military tribunals bill.

"The families of those murdered (on Sept. 11, 2001) have waited patiently for justice. ... They should have to wait no longer," said Bush, urging swift passage of the new legislation. "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 Sept. 11, 2001, can face justice."

The Pentagon, meantime, issued new rules on detainee interrogation, explicitly prohibiting U.S. soldiers from placing hoods or sacks over prisoners' heads, duct-taping their mouths, stripping them naked, giving them shock treatment, performing mock executions and using dogs in interrogation. "No good intelligence comes from abusive practices," said Lt.-Gen. John Kimmons, the U.S. army's deputy chief of intelligence.

The changes to the army field manual were made in response to past scandals at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and United Nations calls for the closing of the Guantanamo prison.

While Bush has expressed his desire to shut the facility, which opened in November 2003, the transfer of the 14 new terrorism suspects almost certainly assures it will remain open for several years to come.

The CIA had imprisoned the high-value suspects at covert facilities in eight countries across eastern Europe and in Thailand and Afghanistan, according to reports first published last November by the Washington Post. Bush said he could not reveal the exact location of the prisons.

The decision to transfer the terror suspects from the CIA to the U.S. military at Guantanamo was made because "we have largely completed our questioning of the men," Bush said. "To start the process for bringing them to trial, we must bring them into the open."

The secret CIA prisons had come under sharp criticism from the European Union, which launched a probe into U.S. activities in the former Soviet bloc.

The CIA no longer holds any prisoners overseas, Bush said, but the interrogation program would be revived if other high-level terrorist suspects were captured.
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006