Gitmo News Round Up

March 25, 2010  |  Posted by Danielle Belton

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham continues to move forward on his "plans" to close Gitmo, but keep detention without charge and military commissions. He, naturally, is ignoring the fact that military commissions don't work, have only convicted three people in nine years, are beset with legal questions and are regularly challenged in court. He's also ignoring the Constitution and habeus corpus by encouraging the continuation the Bush era policy of holding people without charge or trial. The White House and even Graham say that nothing is a done deal, but things keep moving forward. We need to stay viligant about this because it doesn't look good.

From the Washington Post:

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has submitted draft legislation to the White House in an effort to create a broad framework for handling terrorism suspects, mapping out proposals that appeal to the administration and others that do not, officials said.

Senior White House officials have begun briefing leading Democrats on Capitol Hill on the Graham proposal, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter under negotiation.

President Obama opposes some items that Graham has promoted publicly, such as the creation of a national security court to handle detainees, but the White House is urging Democrats to treat the proposal seriously as a way to break the logjam over the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other detainee-related issues.

Newsweek is reporting that the Pentagon is moving forward in naming a new chief of military commissions. Another bad sign.

The appointment of retired Admiral Bruce MacDonald, who formerly served as the chief Judge Advocate of the Navy, as the new "convening authority" for the Office of Military Commissions is among the most important moves in an apparent gearing up for the expected new wave of trials. As convening authority, MacDonald--who replaces Susan Crawford, a Bush political appointee who retired two months ago--will have the responsibility to "refer" charges against Guantanamo terror suspects to trials after receiving recommendations from military prosecutors. Such "referrals"--the equivalent of indictments--have been on hold ever since last year when the White House ordered a halt to all military commission proceedings as part of its larger review about how to close Gitmo.

But now that "hold" is, for all intents and purposes, being lifted. Military prosecutors are actively working on as many as 50 cases of Gitmo detainees who can be referred for trial before the commissions, according to two commission sources. The trials would take place under new rules that were enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last year aimed at making the tribunals fairer and more respectful of the rights of defendants--even while they continue to offer greater latitude to prosecutors. (Under the new rules, for example, hearsay evidence that would be banned in civilian court trials continues to be admissible before military commissions.)

The Los Angeles Times has a story online featuring human rights activists and their growing disenchantment with President Obama, as they fear he is choosing political expediency over detainee rights.

Obama began his presidency vowing to close Guantanamo, end CIA detention practices and transform the post-9/11 system created by Bush. But the administration gradually has backtracked, and is now revisiting some of the practices in use under Bush: military tribunals, detention without trials and overseas prisons.

Human rights activists have objected to what they see as a trend in the administration toward favoring long-term detention of terrorism suspects and military commission proceedings rather than public court trials. In the latest possible shift, administration officials said last week that they may use a prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan for long-term detainees captured elsewhere.

"That would be George Bush's wish list," Christopher Anders, the senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the possible policy changes.

The activists believe the administration is not unified on the issue, saying that Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. believes the president should stick to the positions he outlined during the campaign, while others, including White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, see the detention issue more as a political problem.

The administration says no such divisions exist. The White House believes it must compromise with lawmakers to preserve Obama's core detention policies.

Read more here.

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