WZZM : Bush outlines Gitmo trial plan, transfer of CIA-held terror suspects

Bush outlines Gitmo trial plan, transfer of CIA-held terror suspects

Gannett News Service | September 6, 2006

WASHINGTON - Fourteen senior members of al-Qaeda, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, have been transfered from CIA custody to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, President Bush said today as he outlined plans to try prisoners held in the war on terror.

The announcement is the first time the administration has acknowledged the existence of CIA prisons. The United States currently holds about 445 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Many have been held without charges for more than four years.

The 14 include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, and Abu Zubaydah, a top lieutenant to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Bush said. The list also includes Riduan Isamuddin, known additionally as Hambali, who was suspected of being Jemaah Islamiyah's main link to al-Qaeda and the mastermind of a string of deadly bomb attacks in Indonesia until his 2003 arrest in Thailand.

"They are in custody so they cannot murder our people," Bush said in a White House address in which he defended the administation's policies on prisoners in the war on terror.

"In this new war, the most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves," he said. That has required the United States to hold prisoners in several locations, including military prisons near battlefieds, in Guantanamo Bay and a "small number" in secret, he said.

Defending the program, the president said the questioning of these detainees has provided critical intelligence information about terrorist activities that have enabled officials to prevent attacks not only in the United States, but Europe and other countries. He said the program has been reviewed by administration lawyers and been the subject of strict oversight from within the CIA.

Bush would not detail the type of interrogation techniques that are used through the program, saying they are tough but do not constitute torture.

"This program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they have a chance to kill," the president said. "It is invaluable to America and our allies.'

Bush said he was sending to Congress legislation to authorize the creation of military commissions to try enemy combatants for war crimes. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration's military tribunal system to try the prisoners is illegal. The court said the tribunals lacked congressional authorization and did not meet U.S. military or international justice standards.

That system would have allowed the defendants, most of whom were captured in Afghanistan, to be barred from their own trials. It also would have limited their access to evidence and allowed testimony from interrogations.

"We intend to prosecute these men as appropriate for these crimes," Bush said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the administration would propose trying enemy combatants based on military court martial procedures, although with a number of key changes such as admitting hearsay evidence, limiting rights against self-incrimination before a trial and limiting defendants' access to classified information.

Gonzales also told lawmakers the administration's plan might allow testimony obtained by coercion if it was reliable and useful.

Democrats have said those provisions would leave the new trial system vulnerable to another Supreme Court rebuke.

Senate leaders were briefed on the legislative plan Tuesday night. It already has met resistance from lawmakers who say it would set a dangerous precedent.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said he and Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were circulating their version of legislation, which adheres more closely to military court martial procedures.

Warner's spokesman John Ullyot said there were "some sticking points with the administration" on it.

The House Armed Services Committee also was set to release its version of the bill in hopes of producing final legislation before Congress breaks in early October to campaign for November congressional elections.

The administration also plans to brief lawmakers today on a new Army field manual that would set guidelines for the treatment of military detainees. Congress passed legislation late last year requiring military interrogators to follow the manual, which abided by Geneva Conventions standards.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the new Army manual "reflects the department's continued commitment to humane, professional and effective detention operations and builds on lessons learned and a review of detention operations."

The new manual specifically forbids intimidating prisoners with military dogs, putting hoods over their heads and simulating the sensation of drowning with a procedure called "water boarding," one defense official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the manual had not yet been released.

Sixteen of the manual's 19 interrogation techniques were covered in the old manual and three new ones were added on the basis of lessons learned in the war on terrorism, the official said, adding only that the techniques are "not more aggressive" than those in the manual used before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said from the start of the war that prisoners are treated humanely and in a manner "consistent with Geneva Conventions."

But Bush decided shortly after 9/11 that since it is not a conventional war, "enemy combatants" captured in the fight against al-Qaeda would not be considered prisoners of war and thus would not be afforded the protections of the convention.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Armed Services Committee Democrat, said after being briefed on the proposed changes that the Army "looks as though it's moving in the right direction."

Congress last year passed a law championed by McCain to prohibit cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners and to create uniform standards for treating them.

It spells out appropriate conduct and procedures on a wide range of military issues and applies to all the armed services, not just the Army. It doesn't cover the CIA, which also has come under investigation for mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan and for allegedly keeping suspects in secret prisons elsewhere around the world since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Contributing: USA TODAY's David Jackson; Associated Press