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We strongly object to the President creating a two-tier system of justice for terrorists in which those responsible for the death of thousands on 9/11 will be treated as common criminals and afforded the kind of platinum due process accorded American citizens, yet members of Al Qaeda who aspire to kill Americans but who do not yet have blood on their hands, will be treated as war criminals. The President offers no explanation or justification for this contradiction, even as he readily acknowledges that the 9/11 conspirators, now designated "unprivileged enemy belligerents," are appropriately accused of war crimes. We believe...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says detainees at Guantanamo Bay are not receiving vaccinations against the swine flu vaccine. Robert Gibbs on Tuesday said concern that terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba were receiving vaccines was misplaced. Gibbs says no vaccines are at the naval base and none are on the way

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base will soon get swine flu vaccines, despite complaints that American civilians should have priority, a military spokesman said Sunday. Army Maj. James Crabtree, a spokesman for the U.S. jail facility in southeast Cuba, said the doses should start arriving this month, with guards and then inmates scheduled for inoculations. He acknowledged there may be an "emotional response" from critics who argue that terror suspects should not be allocated swine-flu medications while members of the U.S. public are still waiting due to a vaccine shortage. But he...

As President Barack Obama's deadline to close Guantánamo looms, some occupants of the notorious detention centre would rather prolong their stay than be sent to maximum security prisons on the US mainland, according to camp officials. Despite its reputation, the regime at the Pentagon facility on Cuba's southern coast offers privileges that would not be enjoyed at the federal "supermax" prison at Florence, Colorado, the likely alternative for the most dangerous al-Qaeda suspects. Sensitive to criticism that the detention centre was not meeting international standards, the Pentagon has gradually improved living conditions at Guantánamo... Peter King, a Republican congressman who...

Catherine Herridge - FOXNews.com - October 30, 2009 Obama Administration Eyeing Navy Brig in South Carolina for Gitmo Detainees, Sources Say Sources tell Fox News that one scenario is that a "handful" of detainees who are already in the military courts at Guantanamo could be brought stateside as a "trial run" to test the system. The Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., is "very much in play" as an option to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees for military commission hearings in the U.S., multiple sources tell Fox News. Some sources describe the Naval Consolidated Brig -- which has housed at least two...

US House backs Guantanamo prisoner transfer 15 Oct 2009 17:26:42 GMT Source: Reuters WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted to allow the Obama administration to bring foreign terrorism suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison to the United States to face trial. The 307 to 114 vote removes one of many roadblocks the administration faces as it tries to empty the internationally condemned prison by January.

Republicans in the House have lost a bid to block the transfer of any detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison to the United States. Instead, the House stood by a Democratic plan to allow suspected enemy combatants held at Guantanamo to be shipped to U.S. soil only to be prosecuted for their suspected crimes. President Obama has ordered the facility closed in January but has yet to offer a plan to accomplish that.

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 facility in Cuba 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. The measure subsequently passed by a 307-114 vote.

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.

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Four years after Khalid al-Jehani's release from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the 34-year-old Saudi lives a peaceful life in this sprawling coastal city. He has a car, a job and a well-furnished apartment -- courtesy of the Saudi government. The rehabilitation of militants such as Jehani has convinced the Obama administration that Saudi Arabia is the ideal place to send dozens of Yemenis being held at Guantanamo. For months, U.S. officials have applied pressure on Riyadh. But Saudi officials say their success with former detainees such as Jehani lies in members of...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that it will be difficult to meet the administration's Jan. 22, 2010, deadline to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Another epic failure? President Obama never had a plan to close Camp Delta, the detainee facility for the worst of the worst terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Like many liberals, he felt it was the right thing to do, made a big deal about the issue during the campaign, and kicked off his term by committing to close the facility in one year. Epic Fail.

For up to four hours a day, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, can sit outside in the Caribbean sun and chat through a chain-link fence with the detainee in the neighboring exercise yard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed can also use that time to visit a media room to watch movies of his choice, read newspapers and books, or play handheld electronic games. He and other detainees have access to elliptical machines and stationary bikes. At Guantanamo, such recreational activities interrupt an otherwise bleak existence, according to a Pentagon report of conditions at Camp...

NEW YORK — A judge cited national security concerns in ruling Wednesday that the CIA does not have to release hundreds of documents related to the destruction of videotapes of Sept. 11 detainee interrogations that used harsh methods. U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said he believed he had an obligation to let the CIA director decide what should be released when it pertains to methods used to make uncooperative detainees divulge information. "The need to keep confidential just how the CIA and other government agencies obtained their information is manifest, and that has to do with the identities of...

The Department of Justice Saturday evening announced that two detainees had been transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Ireland, and one had been transferred to Yemen. There are more than 220 detainees remaining at the prison. In the last couple months, the White House has made it increasingly clear that the President will not make his self-stated January 22, 2010 deadline to close to prison. Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a native of Yemen, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and returned to Yemen today. The Yemeni Embassy to the US issued a statement saying the country welcomed, "with enthusiasm, the...

<p>As one of its very first promises after the inaugural showing of Aretha Franklin's huge hat last Jan. 20, the Obama Democratic administration promised to close the terrorist-housing facility in Guantanamo Bay within one year.</p> <p>They're not going to make that deadline, Obama officials now admit. A big problem is where to put these fellows who want to kill Americans enmasse. The last Bush administration deemed communist Cuba a good spot.</p>

THE OBAMA administration announced last week that it did not need and would not seek new legislation to govern indefinite detention of some terrorism suspects at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In so doing, the administration has chosen the politically expedient and intellectually dishonest route.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is close to selecting a location on U.S. soil to house some detainees from the controversial American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an administration official said on Saturday. President Barack Obama has pledged to close the facility, which has been the target of international condemnation, by January 2010 but has faced legal, political and diplomatic difficulties that could make it hard to meet that deadline.

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. Even before the inauguration, President Obama's top advisers settled on a course of action they were counseled against: announcing that they would close the facility within one year. Today, officials are acknowledging that they will be hard-pressed to meet that goal. The White House has faltered in part because of the legal, political and diplomatic complexities...

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...Today, officials are acknowledging that they will be hard-pressed to meet that goal. The White House has faltered...because of the legal, political and diplomatic complexities involved in determining what to do with more than 200 terrorism suspects at the prison. But senior advisers privately acknowledge not devising a concrete plan for where to move the detainees and...

Remember when the Left scoffed at the argument from George W. Bush that claimed the authorization to use military force allowed the executive branch to hold captured terrorists indefinitely, without criminal trial? Bush’s opponents screamed about human rights and due process, and claimed that Bush had abused his power. Those critics included Barack Obama, who regularly castigated the Bush administration for its failure to provide his idea of due process to detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, as well as blasting Bush for his argument that he didn’t require Congress to act to maintain that power. Now? Change you can...

In late 2001, when the Pentagon decided to put detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the task of setting up a camp and establishing its rules went to Marine Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert. Lehnert planned to rely on what he learned while running a camp at Guantanamo in the mid-1990s for nearly 19,000 Cubans and Haitians trying to flee to the United States. And he was determined to follow the spirit, if not the letter, of the Geneva Convention, providing decent food, banning extreme interrogation and allowing religious services. He brought in a Muslim chaplain and...

NEW YORK - The Obama administration plans to issue new guidelines meant to provide prisoners at a U.S. detention center in Afghanistan greater latitude in challenging their detention, The New York Times reported in its Sunday edition. Citing Pentagon officials and advocates for detainees at the U.S.-run prison at Bagram Air Base, the newspaper said each of the approximately 600 detainees would be assigned a U.S. military official who would have the authority to look for evidence, including witnesses and classified material, for any detainee challenging his detention. The challenges would be heard by a military-appointed review board, the Times...

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon has begun putting into place a new program under which hundreds of prisoners being held by the military in Afghanistan will be given the right to challenge their detentions, a defense official said Sunday. Prisoners at Bagram military base are all to be given a U.S. military official to serve as their personal representative and a chance to go before new so-called Detainee Review Boards, to have their cases considered, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to discuss a program that has not been formally announced

In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture. Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group's plans, ideology and operatives," said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement...

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials." In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture. Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours...

On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the principal planner of the September 11 attacks, was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. U.S. interrogators quickly went about the business of getting him to talk, and for good reasons. KSM's operatives were already here, inside America, planning attacks. Shortly after KSM was detained, an Ohio-based truck driver named Iyman Faris was arrested by the FBI. Faris had reportedly been under suspicion beforehand, but U.S. authorities suddenly determined that they had to arrest him. It turned out that Faris, an al Qaeda-trained sleeper agent, had been dispatched to the United States by KSM...

President Barack Obama said, "Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal, supermax prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists," during his May 21, 2009 speech at the National Archives. In this morning's Washington Post, they report a 2006 Department of Justice memo states that convicted al Qaeda prisoners in Supermax at Florence, Colorado "coordinated the beginning of a hunger strike" and developed "a sophisticated method to resist compulsory feeding" by communicated via "tapping on the pipes." (Has no one at the Bureau of Prisons ever heard of the Hanoi Hilton and how John McCain et al communicated by...

CAMP BUCCA, Iraq, Aug. 27, 2009 – Moving several hundred detainees across Iraq is a daunting task, but for two Wisconsin Army National Guard companies, it's just another day on the job. Army Sgt. Joseph Vanbuskirk, with Company A, 132nd Brigade Support Battalion, and a native of Glenbeulah, Wis., keeps an eye on detainees while they are prepared for transfer. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tyler Lasure  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The two companies -- Company A, 132nd Brigade Support Battalion, from Janesville, and Company C, 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, from Fond du Lac, -- are responsible for...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday. Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse. “It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice...

"Sleep deprivation, "insult slaps," water dousing and "walling," or slamming a detainee's head against a wall, were techniques used by CIA interrogators to break high-value detainees, according to an agency memo." Holder decision "promises political headaches for President Barack Obama, came after the Justice Department's ethics watchdog recommended considering prosecution of CIA employees or contractors for interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan that went beyond approved limits." Cheney said ""The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions," he said in a statement."

Report Shows Tight C.I.A. Control on Interrogations By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI WASHINGTON — Two 17-watt fluorescent-tube bulbs — no more, no less — illuminated each cell, 24 hours a day. White noise played constantly but was never to exceed 79 decibels. A prisoner could be doused with 41-degree water but for only 20 minutes at a stretch. The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program operated under strict rules, and the rules were dictated from Washington with the painstaking, eye-glazing detail beloved by any bureaucracy. The first news reports this week about hundreds of pages of newly released documents...

ABC's Brian Ross and NBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday night each listed some al Qaeda plots uncovered via CIA interrogations, but both balked when it came to vindicating former Vice President Dick Cheney on whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) led to information which prevented attacks. “Nowhere in the reports...does the CIA ever draw a direct connection between the valuable information and the specific use of harsh tactics,” Ross declared on World News in citing reports Cheney requested be released. NBC's Andrea Mitchell cited only Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and related how “administration officials say there is no way to know whether...

There are three reasons for President Barack Husein Obama’s decision to take a late-summer vacation this week: 1. There’s the damage he did to his popularity by trying – and failing – to convince us that we need ObamaCare (ie, socialized medicine). Obama’s popularity rating has taken a major hit. 2. There’s also the president’s forced revision of the projected 10-year debt America faces as a result of his Porkulus Bill. Obama & Co. tried to convince us our debt would swell no higher than seven trillion dollars, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) knew better and now estimates the...

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO. "It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense." "It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s...

(CNSNews.com) - A terror suspect charged with the attempted murder of two U.S. soldiers -- before a judge ruled that his confession was coerced and inadmissible -- returned home to Afghanistan on Monday, the same day news broke of a policy change in interrogations. After many Democrats and some Republican lawmakers called the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation techniques such as playing loud music and waterboarding “torture,” President Barack Obama reassigned interrogation responsibilities from the CIA to the National Security Council – which is run out of the White House, the Washington Post first reported.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration launched a criminal investigation Monday into harsh questioning of detainees during President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, revealing CIA interrogators' threats to kill one suspect's children and to force another to watch his mother sexually assaulted. At the same time, President Barack Obama ordered changes in future interrogations, bringing in other agencies besides the CIA under the direction of the FBI and supervised by his own national security adviser.

The sad part in the news tonight that the interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda DID, in fact, result in the disruption of our enemies attacks against the United States and the capture of many members of AQ is the fact that these techniques will no longer be used. Meaning.....it's a waiting game until the next successful attack: A redacted version of the CIA Inspector General Report on the CIA interrogation program was released today. Media coverage seems to imply that CIA interrogators were constantly going beyond programmatic guidance, where the IG Report found the reality to be that “there were...

Gee! What coincidental timing. ObamaCare is on the ropes and the Leftwing loons are growing angry with Obama. What to do? What to do? Simple. Try to make the loons forget their disappointment about public option ObamaCare fading away as well as punish those Wascally Republicans by unleashing the Attorney General Hound Eric Holder on the EVIL Bush administration by investigating laughable torture allegations. Does anybody think Obama would have given the thumbs up to Holder if ObamaCare were sailing along thanx in part to cooperative Republicans? Of course not. This is an entirely POLITICAL investigation. And if you...

The CIA released the documents today that former Vice President Dick Cheney requested earlier this year in an attempt to prove his assertion that using enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees saved U.S. lives. The documents back up the Bush administration's claims that intelligence gleaned from captured terror suspects had thwarted terrorist attacks, but the visible portions of the heavily redacted reports do not indicate whether such information was obtained as a result of controversial interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding. Cheney's initial request in the spring that the documents be declassified was rejected by the CIA. Lawmakers derided his claims...

The Justice Department's ethics office had recommended pursuing alleged prisoner-abuse cases, which could expose CIA employees and contractors to prosecution for their treatment of terror suspects. DEVELOPING After months of consideration, Attorney General Eric Holder plans to appoint a special prosecutor to examine allegations that terror suspects were abused at the hands of their CIA interrogators. The decision, confirmed by FOX News, comes as the Department of Justice releases a 2004 report from the CIA's inspector general detailing allegations of harsh interrogation practices. Several details in the review had already been reported. FOX News confirmed over the weekend that the...

A newly declassified CIA report says interrogators threatened to kill the children of a Sept. 11 suspect. The document, released Monday by the Justice Department, says one interrogator said a colleague had told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that if any other attacks happened in the United States, "We're going to kill your children." Another interrogator allegedly tried to convince a different terror suspect detainee that his mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him—though the interrogator in question denied making such a threat. The report, written in 2004, examined CIA treatment of terror detainees following the terror attacks of Sept....

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad is in Afghanistan and will be released into his family's custody today. Jawad was arrested by Afghan police in December 2002 for allegedly throwing a grenade into a vehicle containing two U.S. troops and an Afghan interpreter. In July, a judge granted his writ of habeas corpus; Justice Department officials had 22 days to determine whether they would attempt to try Jawad in a criminal court in the U.S. Despite talk of new evidence, ultimately they didn't file any new charges.

President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday. Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council -- shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight. (snip) Holder...

The ACLU’s campaign on behalf of Islamic terrorists now includes helping them to identify CIA operatives, who can be targeted for assassination after the liberals who run things set the terrorists free. Lawyers have provided pictures of covert officers to detainees charged with organizing the all-but-forgotten 9/11 attacks.

Security: The ACLU sneakily photographing CIA officers near their homes, then showing the shots to the imprisoned planners of the 9/11 attacks. A fruitcake fantasy? The government is looking into exactly this.When the Washington Post three and a half years ago uncovered the CIA's "black prisons" program, in which enhanced interrogation was used against terrorist detainees to foil future atrocities, we forcefully argued that such secret wartime operations ought never be outed. The Post may have won a Pulitzer for its revelation, but we feel more strongly than ever today. And a new story in that same newspaper gives new...

The Justice Department has questioned attorneys who represent Gitmo detainees about the practice of showing photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, to detainees charged with organizing the 9/11 attacks. The investigation reportedly pertains to three lawyers who are said to have shown their clients the photos in an effort to identify CIA officers and contractors who interrogated these terrorists. The photos were taken by researchers hired by a joint project of the ACLU and the National Assocation of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In some cases, the photographers are said to have taken the pictures sureptitiously outside the homes of CIA...

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation. The investigation, headed by the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, is trying to determine if military lawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information or compromised covert CIA officers, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity. It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel, and it is a...

So we’re hearing that ACLU attorneys allegedly showed photos of CIA agents to Guantanamo Prison terrorist detainees (Ed Morrissey, “ACLU, Gitmo Lawyers, exposed CIA agent identities to terrorists,” August 21, 2009, http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/21/aclu-gitmo-lawyers-exposed-cia-agent-identities-to-terrorists/). If they did, it’s one of the most blatant examples of protecting the criminal instead of the innocent. It’s also an act of treason. Morrissey reports that some photographs of CIA agents were shown in front of their homes. It’s hard enough to fathom a hostile world, but to know that Americans who possess a warped version of liberalism are threatening our country’s safety is especially disheartening –...

Developing: ACLU and others gathered the names and photographs of CIA operatives and showed them to some detainees at Gitmo. No link yet. Will update when it's published.