Gitmo's Indefensible Lawyers Legal counsel to some of the detainees went far beyond vigorous representation of their clients. Doesn't the public have a right to know? By Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn
On the evening of Jan. 26, 2006, military guards at Guantanamo Bay made an alarming discovery during a routine cell check. Lying on the bed of a Saudi detainee was an 18-page color brochure. The cover consisted of the now famous photograph of newly-arrived detainees dressed in orange jumpsuits—masked, bound and kneeling on the ground at Camp X-Ray—just four months after 9/11. Written entirely in Arabic, it also included pictures of what appeared to be detainee operations in Iraq. Major General Jay W. Hood, then the commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, concurred with the guards that this represented a serious breach of security.
Maj. Gen. Hood asked his Islamic cultural adviser to translate. The cover read: "Cruel. Inhuman. Degrades Us All: Stop Torture and Ill-Treatment in the 'War on Terror.'" It was published by Amnesty International in the United Kingdom and portrayed America and its allies as waging a campaign of torture against Muslims around the globe.
"One thread that runs through many of the testimonies from prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, and from Guantanamo," the brochure read, "is that of anti-Arab, anti-Islamic, and other racist abuse."
How did the detainee get it? More importantly, who gave it to him?
Majeed Abdullah Al Joudi, the detainee in whose cell the brochure was first found, told guards he received the brochure from his lawyer. An investigation by JTF-GTMO personnel revealed that Julia Tarver Mason, a partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, had sent it to Al Joudi and eight of the firm's other detainee clients through "legal mail"—a designation for privileged lawyer-client communications that are exempt from screening by security personnel. Worse, the investigation showed that Ms. Mason's clients passed it to other detainees not represented by Paul, Weiss lawyers. In all, more than a dozen detainees received a copy.
At Guantanamo, "legal mail" is strictly limited to correspondence between counsel and a detainee that is related to representation of the detainee, privileged documents and publicly filed legal documents. But even "legal mail," according to the rules mandated by Judge Joyce Hens Green in a 2004 protective order, prohibits lawyers from giving detainees information relating to military operations, intelligence, arrests, political news and current events, and the names of U.S. government personnel. Lawyers are forbidden from discussing other detainee cases not directly related to the representation of their own client.
The Amnesty International brochure, handed out at a human rights conference in London, was a political advocacy screed in clear violation of that order, which was formulated to protect force security. Maj. Gen. Hood made a command decision. He banned the Paul, Weiss lawyers from access to Guantanamo. The DOJ notified the firm.
Paul, Weiss immediately went on the offensive, backed by what one former Defense Department official, who requested anonymity, called "an armada of habeas attorneys." They sued the government, demanding that it defend the decision to eject lawyers from Gitmo, making the straight-faced claim that the Amnesty International brochure was a legitimate "report" that was "directly related" to their clients' defense. But their bottom line argument amounted to this: A military commander at a secure overseas military facility in a time of war couldn't remove disruptive lawyers who were inciting captured enemy detainees and endangering the safety and security of military personnel unless he first got permission from a federal judge.
In a sworn affidavit submitted to the D.C. District Court and obtained by the writers of this article in a Freedom of Information Act request, Maj. Gen. Hood did not equivocate when it came to the Amnesty International pamphlet. "The very nature of this document gives tremendous moral support to those who would strike out against our country," he stated. "It is not a factual report. Instead it is filled with second and third hand accounts, photos of protests that were staged, inflammatory photos from Iraq and provocative story captions."
Maj. Gen. Hood noted that many of the captured al Qaeda terrorists held at the camp had been "specifically trained on the Manchester Manual [an al Qaeda training manual discovered at a safe house in Britain]," which "encourages detainees to claim torture and abuse." He warned that "[e]xamples and vignettes of alleged abuse of other detainees" could be used "to fabricate their own claims of abuse and torture."
In fact, from al Qaeda's perspective, the Amnesty International brochure was better than the Manchester Manual. It cued detainees that the abuses at Abu Ghraib "were not an aberration." The brochure told them that images from the Iraqi prison were consistent with "numerous allegations of torture and ill-treatment reported from detention centres in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay."
The message to the detainees was clear: If you want to claim you are being tortured, here is a vast menu of examples from which to choose.
But Maj. Gen. Hood's immediate concern about the magazine's "propaganda and misinformation" was the strong potential that it would incite detainees to act out against U.S. personnel in his facility. The Islamic cultural adviser agreed, telling Maj. Gen. Hood that "the tone of the magazine was highly inflammatory" and "would cause a negative reaction, especially amongst the more hard-core terrorist factions within the camp."
That was an understatement. Four months earlier, a core group of detainee leaders recruited as many as 131 detainees to engage in a coordinated hunger strike. The self-starvation was intended to make the detainees look like victims, win sympathy for their cause, and force the U.S. government to choose between letting them die or letting them go. The tactic worked to perfection. Human rights activists created a media firestorm with completely fabricated reports about Guantanamo medical staff using "forced feedings" to "torture" detainees.
Ms. Mason herself inflamed tensions with the hunger strikers during a visit to Guantanamo in October 2005. She told one of the detainees, Yousef Al Shehri, that the U.S. government had no court authority to feed him using a nasal tube, according to Justice Department documents. As a result, Al Shehri pulled out his feeding tube, persuaded detainees in his cell block to do the same and exhorted them to physically resist efforts to reinsert the tube. DOJ lawyers would later argue that Ms. Mason's advocacy "resulted in a disruption of camp security and a potential threat to the health of eight hunger-striking detainees."
Despite this history, Paul, Weiss attorneys were apparently so confident that the DOJ could be cowed into submission that they provided the court with exhibits—letters, emails and court filings—documenting gross violations of the protective order by other habeas attorneys whose access was not cut off, ostensibly to show that Paul, Weiss was being treated unfairly.
We obtained Justice Department accounts of some of those incidents under a Freedom of Information Act request. Examples included an incident in which a lawyer sent his detainee client the transcript of a virulently anti-American speech that compared military physicians to Joseph Mengele, the Nazi doctor of Auschwitz, called DOJ lawyers "desk torturers" and suggested that the "abuses carried out by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib . . . could involve the President in the commission of war crimes."
Other incidents listed in the FOIA material included: a lawyer who was caught in the act of making a hand-drawn map of a detention camp's layout, including guard towers; a lawyer who sent a letter to his detainee client telling him that "we cannot depend on the military to do the right thing" and conveying his message of support to other detainees who were not his clients; lawyers who posted photos of Guantanamo security badges on the Internet; lawyers who provided news outlets with "interviews" of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organization; and a lawyer who gave his client a list of all the detainees.
If the stated intent was to show that the government had singled out Paul, Weiss attorneys, the unstated purpose was to demonstrate something even more significant to the government's lawyers. They were outnumbered and outgunned. The Gitmo bar had grown to include some 400 lawyers from as many as 50 law firms that were subsidized by the millions of dollars earned from their paying corporate clients. They had the legal talent, the support of the international press and the judicial wind at their backs. They could bury the DOJ in paper. If one lawyer was taken out, she could be replaced by another.
"They were beaten down by the litigation," said the former Defense Department official who asked to remain anonymous. "If I'd gotten caught passing war news to detainees, my security clearance would have been pulled."
But why would American lawyers, after 9/11 and the brutal slaughter of 3,000 fellow citizens, hand members of al Qaeda information about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? The records indicate that attorneys were printing news off the Internet and passing it to detainees at the same time that U.S. forces in Iraq were sustaining devastating casualties from IED attacks.
"They would bring contraband in their briefcases, in manila envelopes," an active-duty officer familiar with Defense Department records on attorney access violations told us. "They did it because they knew the detainees were hungry for news and they wanted to establish trust."
The desire to establish trust is evident in Ms. Mason's own affidavit to the D.C. court concerning the status of her firm's representation of Saudi detainees in habeas cases. The attorneys couldn't remain as attorney of record and go forward with a habeas case if the detainees wouldn't cooperate with them. "While we have made substantial progress in developing rapport and trust with our clients," she stated, "we have not yet been able to secure from all of them written acknowledgment of our representation." She attributes this to "torture and abuse . . . at the hands of the American military" as opposed to the Islamist mindset that sees no distinction between American attorneys in suits and American personnel in uniform. Indeed, court records reveal that Yousef Al Shehri wrote to the court, "expressing in no uncertain terms that he desires neither representation, nor a lawsuit on his behalf."
Ultimately, the government would reach a settlement with the Paul, Weiss lawyers. Ms. Mason and her team were allowed to resume their trips to Guantanamo in May 2006. But the DOJ's surrender emboldened the Gitmo bar even further. Last August, the Washington Post reported that three lawyers defending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his 9/11 co-conspirators showed their clients photographs of covert CIA officers in an attempt to identify the individuals who interrogated them after they were captured overseas. Lawyers working for the John Adams Project, formed to support the legal team representing KSM and his cohorts, provided the defense attorneys with the photographs, according to the Post. None of the attorneys under investigation were identified in the Post report.
In the last several days, the debate has taken a detour about what some have called a "shameful attack" on the "noble attorneys" who have chosen to defend "unpopular people." A national security organization, Keep America Safe (of which Ms. Burlingame is a board member), used the phrase "Al Qaeda 7" in an Internet ad to describe seven unnamed Department of Justice political appointees who previously represented or advocated on behalf of terrorists.
The purpose of the ad was to prod Attorney General Eric Holder to disclose to the public which detainee attorneys he has hired to work on behalf of the American people, and whether they are involved in the policy-making decisions that will affect the nation's safety and security while we are at war. He was asked for this information by several members of the U.S. Senate, and he was stonewalling.
The attorney general has the right to select whomever he chooses to work in his department, and to set policy as he sees fit. He does not, however, have the right to do it in the dark. The policies he advances must face the scrutiny of the American people, his No. 1 client.
The public has a right to know, for instance, that one of Mr. Holder's early political hires in the department's national security division was Jennifer Daskal, a former attorney for Human Rights Watch. Her work there centered on efforts to close Guantanamo Bay, shut down military commissions—which she calls "kangaroo courts"—and set detainees who cannot be tried in civilian courts free. She has written that freeing dangerous terrorists is an "assumption of risk" that we must take in order to cleanse the nation of Guantanamo's moral stain. This suggests that Ms. Daskal, who serves on the Justice Department's Detainee Policy Task Force, is entirely in sync with Mr. Holder and a White House whose chief counterterrorism official (John Brennan) considers a 20% detainee recidivism rate "not that bad."
It is entirely legitimate to ask who else among Mr. Holder's hires from the Gitmo bar is shaping or influencing national security policy decisions. Meanwhile, the public can decide whether the lawyers at Paul, Weiss who are volunteering at Guantanamo are an example of the legal profession's noblest traditions.
We spoke to Ms. Mason's executive assistant on Friday seeking her comments. Multiple calls and emails had not been returned as this paper went to press last night.
On Feb. 20, 2007, a post on the Paul, Weiss Web site proudly announced "Paul, Weiss achieves more victories for Guantanamo detainees." Two detainees were released from Gitmo to their home in Saudi Arabia. One was Majeed Abdullah Al Joudi, a recipient of the Amnesty International "report." The Web site needs an update. The Pentagon has identified Al Joudi as a "confirmed" recidivist who is "directly involved" with the facilitation of "terrorist activities."
Yousef Al Shehri, the detainee who led his cell block in the feeding tube rebellion, was also released in November 2007. In early 2009 he was listed on the Saudi Kingdom's list of 85 "most wanted" extremists. Yousef was killed last October during a shootout with Saudi security forces on his way to a martyrdom operation. He and another jihadist, disguised as women and wearing suicide vests, killed a security officer in the clash. Yousef's brother-in-law, Said Al Shehri, also released from Gitmo, is currently the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the branch that launched the Christmas Day airline attack last year.
Ms. Burlingame, a former attorney, is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. She is a co-founder of Keep America Safe. Mr. Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Sen. Nelson: ‘I Don’t Support Closing Guantanamo Bay’ At This Point Wednesday, March 10, 2010 By Nicholas Ballasy, Video Reporter
(CNSNews.com) -- Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) told CNSNews.com that he does not support closing Guantanamo Bay at this time after visiting the prison and looking at the issue.
During an interview on Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Nelson, “Do you support closing Guantanamo Bay?”
Senator Nelson said, “Not at this point. We haven’t had the hearing so I don’t know what they’re going to bring up, but I don’t support closing Guantanamo Bay.”
“I’ve been there,” said Nelson. “I’ve viewed it and I’ve looked at the issue. But I’m anxious to hear what the hearing has to say and promote one way or another because I think it will be a fairly – it will be a strong hearing in terms of what the impact is of keeping, what the costs are in closing, and what you would do as an alternative. And that’s what I’m anxious to find out.”
On May 24, 2009, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Senator Nelson if he thought the Guantanamo Bay prison would be open or closed by the following January 2010.
“Well, the president said it should be closed,” Nelson told Wallace. “John McCain said it should be closed. President Bush before he left said it should be closed. Secretary Gates said it should be closed. And former secretary Colin Powell, I believe, has also said it should be closed.”
“And whether it's closed or not, we have to have a plan in place that outlines how we deal with the, the people who are incarcerated there, the combatants,” said Nelson. “We have to find a way to do that. That's why I think we're -- people are jumping on the president right now. I think what they ought to do is wait until a plan comes out. Then there's plenty of time. I'm sure they'll find another reason to jump on him at that point.”
The Pennsylvania woman who dubbed herself Jihad Jane is an American who lived literally on Main Street in an apartment where she spent much time online, posting messages saying she was "desperate to do something" to help Muslims.
Colleen LaRose, a 46-year-old who converted to Islam, has been indicted, accused of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and kill a person in a foreign country, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
She was not well known in her neighborhood in Pennsburg, an hour north of Philadelphia. One of her neighbors reacted to the news by saying, "It scares the hell out of me."
LaRose was arrested October 15, officials say, but that was kept under wraps to protect another ongoing investigation. She's in custody in Philadelphia and faces arraignment in a week.
The Justice Department has said LaRose and five co-conspirators recruited men on the Internet "to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad."
LaRose, who is reportedly divorced, was very active online, authorities say.
In one posting on a social networking site, she wrote about marrying a Muslim man overseas.
In February 2008, she wrote: "Asalamalakum [peace be unto you]. You make me so happy, I cannot put into words. Inshallah [God willing] one day I will be at your side as your wife and never leave your side."
Four months later, she called herself Jihad Jane in a message saying she was "desperate to do something somehow to help" Muslims.
From December 2008 to October 2009, LaRose engaged in electronic communication with the five co-conspirators about their shared desires to wage jihad and become martyrs, according to the indictment.
LaRose is also linked to the online organization Revolutionmuslim.com -- where she was a subscriber, again using the name Jihad Jane. The site is run by an American Muslim who has called the Army psychiatrist accused of a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, a hero.
A posting on the site Wednesday said: "Sisters -- please consider sending her [LaRose] a message of support and hope and let's remind her she isn't alone. It's likely she's the only Muslimah there. As always, use discretion when writing, don't ask pointed questions, and of course don't say anything that could create problems for her or yourselves."
LaRose had a boyfriend whom she lived with until August of last year. The man's initials are in her indictment.
Records show she was arrested twice in 1997: once for DWI and once for passing a bad check in the San Antonio, Texas, area. She moved from Texas to Pennsylvania in 2004.
In 2005, LaRose attempted to commit suicide, according to a police report filed at the time. She was depressed about the death of her father, the report from Pennsburg Police Officer Michael Devlin says.
She told Devlin she swallowed as many as 10 pills of cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxant. The pills were mixed with alcohol.
"Colleen was highly intoxicated and having difficulty maintaining her balance," Devlin wrote. I "questioned LaRose about harming herself, at which point she stated she does not want to die."
Devlin was dispatched to check on LaRose in response to a 911 call made by LaRose's sister in Texas, who was worried LaRose might try to kill herself.
Graham to Obama: scrap New York terror trial, I'll stand with you
On Sunday, two moderate senators defended President Obama’s apparent willingness to reconsider his administration’s decision to use a civilian New York terror trial for the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The first, Senator Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina, is seen as the architect behind the Obama administration’s potential change in plans. He has promised to help Obama close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility if Obama gives up his plans of trying Mohammed and other sensitive terror suspects in a civilian court.
“We need a legal system that gives due process to detainees while recognizing” that there are sensitivities to national security in such a case, said Senator Graham, a former military lawyer, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
He wants the trials to be held as military tribunals.
The second, retiring Sen. Evan Bayh (D) of Indiana, backed Graham's plan. “Everybody has got to check their ideology at the door in order to get to practical solutions,” said Senator Bayh, also appearing on “Face the Nation.”
An about face?
At issue is the treatment of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay.
Civil libertarians have alleged that the Bush-era policy of detaining some terror suspects indefinitely without trial was a violation of American values. They held that closing Guantánamo and trying Mohammed and others in a civilian court would be the strongest demonstration possible of the strength of America’s rule of law.
The Obama administration appeared to validate this viewpoint when Attorney General Eric Holder announced last year his plans to put Mohammed on trial in a New York federal court.
But critics of the plan have gained traction in recent weeks. The sheer logistics of holding such a trial in a civilian court, in particular, have suggested that the plan might not be practically feasible.
The two senators suggested Sunday morning that Obama is merely searching for a compromise, dropping one goal – a civilian trial – in order to advance his more deeply held wish – closing Guantánamo.
Graham's promise
If this happens, Graham pledges to stand beside Obama in the president’s quest to shutter Guantánamo. “We will never win this war unless we understand the effect that Guantánamo Bay has had on our war effort,” said Graham Sunday, suggesting that the facility has become synonymous with torture – a key selling point of anti-American rhetoric in Islamic countries.
Charles Stimson, a former Pentagon detention official, told The Los Angeles Times that such a deal could work: "You are going to see national security hawks like me get out in front and support the administration and try to convince skeptics, members of the conservative caucus, that they need to get behind this."
Graham’s past as a military lawyer puts him in a unique position to persuade Obama that military tribunals would offer sufficient rights to defendants and not merely be a kangaroo court.
“We need to win the war within our values system, but realize that this is a war,” said Graham, who has held hearings with Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona to uncover and curtail the torture of detainees. “Detainee policy is hard, but we have to get it right.”
Graham to Obama: scrap New York terror trial, I'll stand with you
Former Gitmo detainee said running Afghan battles By KATHY GANNON (AP) – 15 hours ago
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — A man freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials say.
Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, said the officials, interviewed last week by The Associated Press.
The story of Abdul Qayyum could add to the complications President Barack Obama is facing in fulfilling his pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo by sending some prisoners back to their home countries or to other willing nations, while putting others on trial.
U.S. intelligence asserts that 20 percent of suspects released from the Guantanamo Bay prison have returned to the fight and the number has been steadily increasing.
Qayyum's key aide in plotting attacks on Afghan and international forces is another former Guantanamo prisoner, said the Afghan intelligence officials as well as a former Helmand governor, Sher Mohammed Akundzada. Abdul Rauf, who told his U.S. interrogators he had only loose connections to the Taliban, spent time in an Afghan jail before being freed last year.
He rejoined the Taliban, they said. Akundzada said he warned authorities against releasing both him and Qayyum.
Like Qayyum, Rauf is from Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. During the Taliban's rule, which ended in late 2001, Rauf was a corps commander in the western province of Herat and in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said Akhundzada.
The intelligence officials were interviewed in Helmand, where the Taliban control several districts, and spoke on condition of anonymity lest they attract the militia's attention.
They said Qayyum was given charge of the military campaign in the south about 14 months ago, soon after his release from the Afghan jail to which he had been transferred from Guantanamo. That includes managing the battle for the town of Marjah, where NATO troops are flushing out remaining militants.
Qayyum, whose Taliban nom de guerre is Qayyum Zakir, is thought to be running operations from the Pakistani border city of Quetta. A Pakistani newspaper report that he was recently arrested was denied by Abdul Razik, a former governor of Kajaki, Qayyum's home district, which is under extensive Taliban control.
One of the intelligence officials also questioned the report. He said a house Qayyum was in was raided about two weeks ago and three assistants were arrested but he escaped. A week ago he was seen in Pishin, a Pakistani border town about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Quetta, the official said.
"He's smart and he is brutal," said Abdul Razik. "He will withdraw his soldiers to fight another day," he said, referring to the Marjah campaign.
Qayyum, who is about 36 years old, is close to the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. He has been tipped as a candidate to replace the militia's second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was among several Taliban leaders arrested recently in Pakistan.
A Taliban commander in the 1990s who was notorious for brutality and summary executions, Qayyum was captured in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and taken to Guantanamo. According to interrogation transcripts, he identified himself to his American captors by his father's name, Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, and said he had been conscripted by the Taliban but left at the first opportunity.
According to a military transcript of his subsequent hearing, he said, "I want to go back home and join my family and work in my land and help my family." In December 2007 he was among 13 Afghan prisoners released to the Afghan government and held in Pul-e-Charkhi jail, on the eastern edge of the Kabul.
A year later he was set free, despite warnings he would return to the Taliban, said Akundzada.
Afghanistan's deputy attorney general said Qayyum went before an Afghan court, which ruled he had served his time. The U.S.-backed Afghan government generally gets a promise from former Guantanamo prisoners that they won't join the armed opposition. Qayyum made no such promise.
"The court decided time served was enough," said Faqir Ahmed Faqiryar. "When the court is involved there is no need to promise anything."
Abdul Razik, who knows the family well, said he wrote to Qayyum's father warning him to keep his son under control. "He told me, 'I have no control over him.' "
Through interviews from Kabul to Helmand province, the AP traced Qayyum's steps from the Afghan prison, across the border into Pakistan, through Peshawar to Quetta, back into Afghanistan to his village of Soply, and then to Quetta again.
A loner who trusts few people, his only company was a driver known to the Taliban and who has since been arrested, Razik said.
In Soply, his native village in Helmand, Qayyum stayed for two days with his sister, according to a neighbor who saw him outside the house and was quickly warned to "say nothing." He returned to Quetta, from where he oversees four southern provinces: Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul, said Sharifuddin, a former Taliban official who lives near Soply, Qayyum's village. His information was confirmed by Razik and the intelligence officials interviewed by the AP.
"From his houses in Quetta he appoints the (Taliban) governors, the district governors," Sharifuddin said. "Nothing happens in these provinces without his approval."
Associated Press Writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report from Washington.
Conservatives raise ruckus over Justice appointees' prior work with detainees By Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 4, 2010; A02
Conservatives who are unhappy with the decision to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have trained their fire on an unusual target: political appointees in the Obama Justice Department who represented detainees earlier in their careers.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has been demanding for months the names of nine appointees who previously advocated for or represented detainees in their private law practices. Grassley has argued that the lawyers' backgrounds could pose "conflicts of interest" and complained that the department had been "nonresponsive" to his requests.
The rhetoric reached new levels this week when Keep America Safe, a group affiliated with Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Richard B. Cheney, released a YouTube video that featured the headline "DOJ: Department of Jihad?" and asked, "Who are these government officials? . . . Whose values do they share?"
The video triggered fierce complaints from political progressives and even some veterans of the George W. Bush years. Critics say the argument fails to consider that government lawyers' portfolios often overlap with their prior practice and that all lawyers are obligated to do free legal work for the poor and others.
In a blog post on the Volokh Conspiracy legal Web site, George Washington University professor Orin S. Kerr, who has worked for GOP lawmakers, likened the video to something that "former Senator Joseph McCarthy would have used . . . if he were alive today."
"Members of Congress made a reasonable request for information about senior DOJ lawyers' past work and possible conflicts, but the video is truly offensive," said former Bush White House lawyer Reginald Brown. "It's beyond a cheap shot to suggest that a lawyer is an al-Qaeda sympathizer because he advocates a detainee's position in the Supreme Court."
None of the nine Justice attorneys are involved in individual prosecution decisions about terrorism suspects, a department official said, and each of them "understands that their client is the United States," Assistant Attorney General Ronald H. Weich wrote in a letter to Grassley last month.
Fox News identified the attorneys on its Web site Tuesday. Justice Department officials confirmed that some of the lawyers represented individual terrorism suspects on a pro bono basis; others signed friend-of-the-court briefs on policy issues, sometimes for conservative legal organizations. They include appointees who work in the offices of the three highest-ranking officials in the department, as well as the Office of Legal Counsel, the Office of the Solicitor General and the civil division.
"Politics has overtaken facts and reality," Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. "We will not participate in an attempt to drag people's names through the mud for political purposes. . . . Department of Justice attorneys work around the clock to keep this country safe and it is offensive that their patriotism is being questioned."
Democratic political analysts pointed out that high-level Bush administration officials who worked in the Justice Department, the State Department and the White House last year joined law firms that represent terrorism suspects who are challenging their prolonged detention at Guantanamo.
Nonetheless, Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) sent a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday asserting that "the decision to allow attorneys who advocated for terrorists held at Guantanamo to craft detainee policy during the war on terror would be akin to allowing attorneys for the Mafia to draft organized crime policy during the 1960s."
Kenneth L. Wainstein, a former U.S. attorney and homeland security adviser in the Bush administration, drew a finer line.
"While it's legitimate for the public to inquire about the past work of DOJ political appointees, we need to recognize that our judicial system cannot function without pro bono counsel, and it doesn't make a lawyer less patriotic just because he or she has represented a criminal or terrorist suspect," Wainstein said.
U.S. sends 4 Guantanamo prisoners to Albania, Spain Wed, Feb 24 2010
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four detainees held at the controversial U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have been transferred to Albania and Spain, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
Three detainees originally from North Africa were sent to Albania, the department said. They were identified as Saleh Bin Hadi Asasi, originally from Tunisia; Sharif Fati Ali al Mishad, a native of Egypt; and Abdul Rauf Omar Mohammad Abu al Qusin from Libya.
The fourth man, transferred to Spain, was not identified beyond that he was from the Palestinian Territories. Spain has said it is willing to take up to five prisoners from the Guantanamo prison.
The Justice Department said it worked with the governments of Albania and Spain to "ensure the transfers took place under appropriate security measures and consultations" regarding these individuals would continue.
There are still 188 prisoners at the facility that President Barack Obama has pledged to close. He has argued that anti-American militants have used it as a recruiting tool for their causes.
But the effort by his administration to shut it has been stymied by legal and political hurdles, including reluctance by other countries to take detainees when none are expected to be released in the United States.
Since the Obama administration took office in 2009, 48 detainees have been transferred overseas while one has been sent to New York to face criminal charges for the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa.
Separately, a U.S. judge in Washington rejected petitions by two Yemeni detainees -- Suleiman Awadh Bin Agil Al-Nahdi and Fahmi Salem Al-Assani -- to be released from the Guantanamo prison. The opinions by Judge Gladys Kessler were classified.
About 32 detainees have won release from the Guantanamo prison through habeas corpus petitions in U.S. court while 11 have had their requests for release rejected.
(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
CNN poll: 52% say Obama doesn't deserve reelection in 2012 By Michael O'Brien - 02/16/10 01:35 PM ET FULL STORY
52 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama doesn't deserve reelection in 2012, according to a new poll.
44 percent of all Americans said they would vote to reelect the president in two and a half years, less than the slight majority who said they would prefer to elect someone else.
Obama faces a 44-52 deficit among both all Americans and registered voters, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday. Four percent had no opinion.
The reelection numbers are slightly more sour than Obama's approval ratings, which are basically tied. 49 percent of people told CNN that they approve of the way Obama is handling his job, while 50 percent disapprove.
Still, the 2012 election is still a long way's away, with this fall's midterm elections looming large. Republicans are hoping to make inroads into Congress, while Democrats are hoping to hold onto gains won in the 2006 and 2008 cycles.
Respondents to CNN were split at 46 percent as to whether they preferred a generic Republican or Democratic candidate in this fall's elections.
At least one retiring lawmaker is confident Obama will sail to reelection, with Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) predicting Monday the president would win "overwhelmingly" in 2012.
The CNN poll, conducted Feb. 12-15, has a three percent margin of error.
Trouble is brewing over United States ice hockey goalie Jonathan Quick and the “Support Our Troops” slogan on his helmet. Slogans of this sort are banned under Olympic rules and Quick will be told to remove it, the International Ice Hockey Federation has told Reuters.
Ryan Miller has also been told to remove the slogan “Miller Time” from his helmet while the third American netminder Tim Thomas had already placed a sticker over a slogan on his mask for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
IOC rules forbid political propoganda or advertisements being placed on equipment. “If the players don’t agree with the interpretation they can ask the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) to petition the IOC.”
Miller said he had agreed to remove “Miller Time”, which is also a popular beer company slogan, but might fight to keep “Matt Man”, a tribute to a dead friend from being taken off his helmet.
ABC News' Luis Martinez reports: Gen. Stanley McChrystal believes that the security situation in Afghanistan remains serious, but is no longer deteriorating, which is how he’d characterized it last summer. He also says that even though there’s been significant progress, he’s “not prepared to say we’ve turned a corner.”
McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan is in Istanbul for a meeting of NATO Defense Ministers, including Defense Secretary Gates. He made his comments to print and radio reporters traveling with Gates.
McChrystal says he has no official metrics to back up his assessment, but is basing it on intuitive metrics. “I’m not prepared to give you numbers,” he said. “But I’m prepared to tell you that what I see and what I feel gives me that sense. ”
He also says he’s not prepared to say that NATO is now winning in Afghanistan, though he’s confident “that we are going to see serious progress this year.”
Asked by ABC’s Diane Sawyer in Afghanistan last month if momentum had shifted, McChrystal said, “ I believe were doing that now. I believe that we have changed the way we operate in Afghanistan we changed some of our structures and I believe that we are on the way to convincing the Afghan people that we are here to protect them.”
Recent statements from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, have pointed to the Taliban’s expanding influence in Afghanistan. McChrystal said he hadn’t seen Adm. Mullen’s statement, but he agreed that the Taliban are making a significant effort to expand their influence, though he noted the Afghan government, with US help, was mounting a similar effort as well.”
According to McChrystal the surge of 30,000 forces into Afghanistan this year is continuing because the military services “are working miracles” and “absolutely moving as fast as physically possible” to get the troops into the country.
McChrystal described the war in Afghanistan as “a war of perceptions” where influencing the Afghan population and insurgents was more important than Taliban body counts or how much land you capture. The important thing is to influence Afghan perceptions because it could lead to a shift in momentum.
“This is all in the minds of the participants and I mean, the Afghan people are the most important, but the insurgents are another one,” he said.
McChrystal indicated that was one reason why military officials in Afghanistan have not been shy in telegraphing that NATO forces are planning to take on the Taliban holdout of Marjah, in central Helmand Province. He admitted it might be an unconventional approach, but that it was an attempt to signal to the Afghan population that “we are expanding security where they live.”
McChrystal added that word of a coming offensive was also a signal to the Taliban and druglords in the Marjah area, “that it’s about to change. If they want to fight, then obviously that will have to be an outcome, but if they don’t want to fight, that’s fine too.”
He said he’d prefer the Taliban see “the inevitability that things are changing” and that there’s an opportunity for them to make a choice about what they’re going to do, “before suddenly in the dark of night they’re hit with an offensive.”
FRONT-PAGE ‘Al Qaeda attack on US in three to six months’ By Anwar Iqbal Thursday, 04 Feb, 2010 | 04:04 AM PST
WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda is poised to attempt an attack on the United States within three to six months, America’s top intelligence officials have warned Congress.
The intelligence chiefs also warned that militant groups in Pakistan were coordinating their attacks with Al Qaeda, which had led to an increase in terrorist attacks inside Pakistan as well as rising concerns the groups might expand their ambitions to attack outside Pakistan.
Director of US National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Al Qaeda and its affiliates had made it a high priority to attempt a large-scale attack on American soil.
Mr Blair said that Al Qaeda would remain intent on attacking in the US at least until Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al Zawahiri, were killed or captured.
Mr Blair, flanked by the directors of the CIA and FBI and the chief intelligence officers of the State and Defence departments, put Al Qaeda at the top of a threat list that included the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes, criminal cartels and the potential for economic collapse in developing countries hard-hit by recession.
CIA Director Leon Panetta told the congressional panel that the terrorist organisation was deploying operatives to the US, including so-called clean recruits with minimal terrorist ties and training, to carry out attacks.
Mr Panetta said Al Qaeda was also working to inspire home-grown extremists to trigger violence on their own.
The annual terror assessment highlights the growing concern that Al Qaeda is increasingly relying on these harder-to-detect militants who can use simple devices to carry out hastily planned attacks.
The intelligence officials and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said US counter-terrorism agencies had absorbed the lessons of the Dec 25 attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit, but all said future attempts were inevitable and could happen soon.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Mr Blair to assess the possibility of an attempted attack in the United States in the next three to six months.
“The priority is certain, I would say,” he replied. Each of the four other officials, asked the same question, agreed with Mr Blair.
US intelligence chiefs also warned that Al Qaeda’s many affiliates were a great concern to the spy agencies. The Yemeni affiliate, which is believed to have directed the attempted Christmas Day attack on an American airliner, would continue to attempt additional attacks on the US, they said.The assessment was much starker than Mr Blair’s views last year, when he claimed a considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda.
White House Considers Changing Venue of Terror Trial By DIONNE SEARCEY And PETER WALLSTEN
The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the plan to try the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City.
The White House's revised stance comes amid calls from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others that the trial should be moved out of Manhattan due to security costs, traffic delays and fears of new attacks.
The White House is considering moving the 9/11 hijacker trial from Manhattan, after loud opposition from Mayor Bloomberg and New Yorkers, Doug Luzader reports. Courtesy Fox News.
In November, Attorney General Eric Holder said Khalid Shaikh Mohammed would be tried in the Southern District of Manhattan, just blocks from the World Trade Center site.
On Thursday, the White House reaffirmed that it wanted Mr. Mohammed tried in the U.S. "The president is committed to seeing that he's brought to justice. He agrees with the attorney general's opinion in November that he and others can be litigated successfully and securely in the United States of America, just like others have—like [alleged shoe bomber] Richard Reid," said White House spokesman Bill Burton.
But Mr. Burton seemed to leave the door open to moving the trial away from downtown Manhattan.
On Friday, an administration official said the White House and the Justice Department have discussed alternative locations should Congress or local courts make it impossible to hold the trial in lower Manhattan.
In recent days, a not-in-my-backyard spirit has been gaining momentum across lower Manhattan. Residents, businesses, real-estate groups and elected officials have aired new objections to the idea of hosting what could be a multiyear trial that they say could snarl traffic and invite more attacks. City officials have estimated police costs to secure the trial at more than $200 million.
Mr. Bloomberg, who initially supported holding the trial in the city, now says he hopes Mr. Holder and the president will change their minds and move the trial elsewhere. Thursday, he suggested holding it at a military installation "away from central cities" and said he had placed a call to the attorney general, apparently to discuss his sentiment.
Police officers outside the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in November. The court is just blocks from the World Trade Center.
"Would I prefer that they did it elsewhere? Yes, but if we are called on, we will do what we're supposed to do," Mr. Bloomberg told reporters, noting that he hadn't heard back from Mr. Holder.
A Justice Department spokesman said in a statement only that the agency is confident it can safely prosecute this case in the Southern District "while minimizing disruptions to the community to the greatest extent possible, consistent with security needs."
Meanwhile, Republicans are using opposition to the venue to build an argument for the 2010 congressional elections that Mr. Obama and his party are weak on national-security issues and terrorism.
The GOP, whose leaders believe that national security can be a top issue for many voters, has charged that the Obama administration's initial reaction to the attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day—including a comment by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that the "system worked"—shows the administration doesn't recognize the terrorist threat facing the U.S. Ms. Napolitano said her comment was misunderstood, and Mr. Obama has stressed that he sees the U.S. as being at war with al Qaeda.
The New York trial was an issue in this month's special Senate election in Massachusetts, with Republican Scott Brown declaring in his victory speech that "in dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them."
Republicans have recently been joined by others across the aisle in siding with Mr. Bloomberg. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) also took up the mayor's cause.
"I think he has a good point. I think the administration should listen to that point," she said recently on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports." "If there is any evidence that this is going to either make New York City a target or present unusual expenses, and the mayor—and I've been a mayor—should be listened to."
On Wednesday, six senators—three Republicans, two Democrats and independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman—sent a letter calling on the administration not to hold the trial in lower Manhattan. One of the Democrats, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.), is facing a difficult re-election campaign.
Locally, opposition from politicians, businesses and residents was becoming increasingly vocal. Democratic New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said in a statement Thursday that he was urging Mr. Holder "to assess the feasibility of alternative sites and choose one that will not further burden the residents and businesses of lower Manhattan."
The Real Estate Board of New York, set up a Web site, movethetrial.com, to rally support for pushing it out of lower Manhattan.
"The last thing we need is for small businesses and retail and restaurants that have opened downtown [since the 2001 attacks] to find they no longer have a clientele," said Steven Spinola, the board's president.
Also, a neighborhood committee of lower Manhattan residents passed a unanimous resolution to urge that the attorney general consider military installations in New York that could be more easily secured and less disruptive.
GOP Slams State of the Union Address for Little Attention to National Security
Republicans are slamming President Obama for glossing over national security in his State of the Union speech, and omitting any reference to how his administration is handling terror detainees.
Republicans are slamming President Obama for glossing over national security in his State of the Union speech, and omitting any reference to how his administration is handling terror detainees.
Obama spent about nine minutes on national security issues in a 70-minute speech dominated by talk on jobs and a recovering economy. He made little mention of the of failed Christmas Day bomb attack aboard a U.S. airliner or the administration's decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York civilian court -- much to the dismay of Republicans.
"The president last night in his State of the Union speech ignored national security," former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in an interview with Fox News. "He spent something like a page and a half on what was a 14-, 15-page speech on national security, as if it's an afterthought."
"It was a footnote to the speech," he said.
But the White House on Thursday pushed back against such criticism, saying Obama has made national security a top priority during his first year in office.
"It should be obvious to those that watch the president that national security is critical to him," White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters. "He wakes up every morning thinking how to keep America safe. He laid out several things last night in the speech."
Obama made no reference in his address to the administration's decision to try Mohammed -- as well as four other Guantanamo Bay detainees with ties to 9/11 -- in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The controversial move will allow Mohammed and his alleged cohorts to be tried like American civilians, and the trial itself will make public classified information on U.S. intelligence gathering.
"I think it's one of the worst decisions he's made as president," Giuliani said.
Republican lawmakers on Thursday also blasted Obama for making only a brief reference to the failed Dec. 25 bomb attempt aboard American Airlines flight 253 -- which was carrying 300 people.
"We've made substantial investments in our homeland security and disrupted plots that threatened to take American lives," Obama said of the plot.
"We are filling unacceptable gaps revealed by the failed Christmas attack, with better airline security and swifter action on our intelligence," he said. "We've prohibited torture and strengthened partnerships from the Pacific to South Asia to the Arabian Peninsula."
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions criticized Obama for the brevity of his remarks, saying in a statement Thursday, "One of the biggest headlines from last night's speech is what the president did not say: a single word about the botched interrogation of the Christmas bomber and (Obama's) quest to provide foreign terrorists with the same legal rights as the Americans they target."
The US has missed a deadline that had been set to close the prison camp
Three inmates from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have arrived in Slovakia, US officials say.
The detainees - who have not been identified - are the latest transfers as US President Barack Obama seeks to close the controversial facility.
Mr Obama set himself the 22 January 2010 closure deadline shortly after being sworn in a year ago.
He has subsequently said he wants the camp closed in 2010, without identifying a specific deadline.
More than 40 terror suspects have been transferred out of the prison during Mr Obama's first year in office, but nearly 200 remain at Guantanamo.
Diplomatic hurdles and domestic opposition to the government's plan to house detainees on US soil have hampered Mr Obama's plans to close down the facility completely.
Human rights groups say merely relocating suspects continues to violate the legal principle that people cannot be held without charge or trial.
Berry: Obama said "big difference" between '10 and '94 is "me"
Rep. Marion Berry's parting shot, published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette [no link, subscription only] offers a warning to moderate Democrats and border state moderates — warning of a midterm bloodbath comparable to the 54-seat D-to-R swing in 1994.
But the jaw-dropper is Berry's claim that President Obama personally dismissed any comparison between Democrats now and under Bill Clinton 16 years ago — by saying his personal popularity would bail everybody out.
The retiring Berry, who doesn't say when the remarks were made, now scoffs at Obama's 50-or-below approval rating:
Writes ADG reporter Jane Fullerton:
Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.
“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” [snip]
“I began to preach last January that we had already seen this movie and we didn’t want to see it again because we know how it comes out,” said Arkansas’ 1st District congressman, who worked in the Clinton administration before being elected to the House in 1996... "I just began to have flashbacks to 1993 and ’94. No one that was here in ’94, or at the day after the election felt like. It certainly wasn’t a good feeling.”
Details of arrest of bombing suspect disclosed By Devlin Barrett
Sunday, January 24, 2010; A03
Badly burned and bleeding, the suspect in the attempted bombing of the Christmas Day flight to Detroit tried one last gambit as he was led away: He said there was another bomb hidden on board, officials said.
It wasn't true, federal agents learned after a tense search. But the Nigerian suspect's threat began hours of conversations that are now the subject of fierce political debate over the right way to handle terrorism suspects.
In interviews, U.S. officials described for the first time the details of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's arrest Dec. 25 at Detroit Metro Airport and the decisions that were made about how to interrogate him.
Captured after a bomb hidden in his underwear ignited but did not explode, Abdulmutallab initially spoke freely and provided valuable intelligence, officials said. Federal agents repeatedly interviewed him or heard him speak to others. When they read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent.
Since the attempted bombing, several prominent lawmakers have argued he should have been placed immediately in military custody. The nation's top intelligence official said he should have been questioned by a special group of terrorism investigators, rather than by the FBI agents who responded to the scene.
The Justice Department has said those who argue the case should have been handled differently were silent when the Bush administration successfully prosecuted dozens of terrorists in federal court.
The officials who described the events said on-scene investigators never discussed turning Abdulmutallab over to military authorities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the investigation.
According to the officials, after being restrained and stripped bare by fellow passengers and by crew members, Abdulmutallab was handed over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and local police. The officers decided that Abdulmutallab needed immediate medical attention, and an ambulance crew took him to the burn unit at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
Along the way, the officials said, Abdulmutallab repeatedly made incriminating statements to the Customs officers guarding him. He told them he had acted alone on the plane and had been trying to take down the aircraft, they said.
Abdulmutallab arrived at the hospital just before 2 p.m. Still under guard, he told a doctor treating him that he had tried to trigger the explosive, the sources said.
FBI agents from the Detroit bureau arrived at the hospital around 2:15 p.m., and were briefed by the Customs agents and officers as Abdulmutallab received medical treatment. Shortly after 3:30 p.m., FBI agents began interviewing the suspect in his hospital room, joined by a Customs officer and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The suspect spoke openly, said one official, talking in detail about what he'd done and the planning that went into the attack. Other counterterrorism officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was during this questioning that he admitted he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen.
The interview lasted about 50 minutes. Before they began questioning Abdulmutallab, the FBI agents decided not to give him his Miranda warning providing his right to remain silent.
Although the Miranda warning, based on a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, is a bedrock principle of the U.S. justice system, there is a major exception that could apply in Abdulmutallab's case. Investigators are allowed to question a suspect without providing a Miranda warning if they are trying to end a threat to public safety.
In a future trial in a federal court, prosecutors would probably seek to justify Abdulmutallab's questioning without a Miranda warning by arguing that the FBI agents needed to know quickly if there were other planes with bombs headed for the United States. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other plots have shown al-Qaeda's penchant for synchronized attacks in multiple locations.
Abdulmutallab's interview ended when he was given medication and investigators decided it would be better to let the effects of the drugs wear off before pressing him further. He would not be questioned again for more than five hours. By that point, officials said, FBI bosses in Washington had decided a new interrogation team was needed. They made that move in case the lack of a Miranda warning or the suspect's medical condition at the time of the earlier conversations posed legal problems later on for prosecutors.
Based on the instructions from Washington, the second interview was conducted by different FBI agents and others with the local joint terrorism task force. Such a move is not unusual in cases in which investigators or prosecutors want to protect themselves from challenges to evidence or statements.
By bringing in a "clean team" of investigators to talk to the suspect, federal officials aimed to ensure that Abdulmutallab's statements would still be admissible if not giving him his Miranda warning led a judge to rule out the use of his first admissions.
Even if Abdulmutallab's statements are ruled out as evidence, they still provided valuable intelligence for U.S. counterterrorism officials to pursue, officials said.
In the end, though, the "clean team" of interrogators did not prod more revelations from the suspect. Having rested and received more extensive medical treatment, Abdulmutallab was told of his right to remain silent and his right to have an attorney.
Rampage at Fort Hood was 'act of terrorism': US official Jan 15 07:05 PM US/Eastern
The shooting rampage at Fort Hood was "an act of terrorism," a senior US official said on Friday, employing a phrase that the Obama administration has previously avoided to describe the attack.
The administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the November 5 shooting spree that left 13 dead at the army base in Texas, was a "terrorist tactic" but the suspected gunman's links to extremist groups remained under investigation.
"It certainly in my mind was an act of terrorism," the official told reporters.
He said it was unclear if the suspected gunman, army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan, was directed to act by outside extremists.
"This is an ongoing investigation," said the official. "Motivation is always a difficult thing to determine."
The official made the comment as he presented the findings of a White House review into the assault.
Some lawmakers in Congress have been quick to call the Fort Hood rampage an act of terrorism, citing reports Hasan had contacts with a radical Islamic cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaqi.
The same US-Yemeni cleric also has been tied to the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a US airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day.
But officials in President Barack Obama's administration have tended to be careful not to portray the incident as an act of terrorism.
Although the alleged shooter's possible ties to outside extremists were still being examined, the official told reporters that extremist propaganda and activity coming from Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen was cause for serious concern.
"Any interaction with these extremist elements and terrorist elements in Yemen cause me great concern," he said.
The White House review of the circumstances around the Fort Hood shooting showed that "more rigorous actions" should have been taken prior to the attack and procedures strengthened to ensure better coordination among intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the official said.
Asked if the government could have averted the assault at Fort Hood if key clues had been pieced together in time, the official said: "It's difficult to say."
But he said: "Certain things went uncovered, both in terms of information, as well as how information was handled and how information was acted upon."
White House budget director blames old computers for ineffective government
By Ian Swanson - 01/14/10 02:56 PM ET
A big reason why the government is inefficient and ineffective is because Washington has outdated technology, with federal workers having better computers at home than in the office.
This startling admission came Thursday from Peter Orszag, who manages the federal bureaucracy for President Barack Obama.
The public is getting a bad return on its tax dollars because government workers are operating with outdated technologies, Orszag said in a statement that kicked off a summit between Obama and dozens of corporate CEOs.
“Twenty years ago, people who came to work in the federal government had better technology at work than at home,” said Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. “Now that’s no longer the case.
“The American people deserve better service from their government, and better return for their tax dollars.”
The White House release that included Orszag’s comments said one “specific source” of ineffective and inefficient government is the huge technology gap between the public and private sectors that results in billions of dollars in waste, slow and inadequate customer service and a lack of transparency about how dollars are spent.
Obama is meeting with CEOs to solicit their views on how to improve the federal government with new information technology.
“Improving the technology our government uses isn’t about having the fanciest bells and whistles on our websites — it’s about how we use the American people’s hard-earned tax dollars to make government work better for them,” Obama said in a statement.
Obama had proposed the meeting in April. CEOs from Craigslist, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe Technology and Monster.com are among those taking part.
“It’s time to bring government into the 21st century,” Orszag said. “Information technology has the power to transform how government works and revolutionize the ease, convenience and effectiveness by which it serves the American people."
Those attending the summit are to break into smaller groups to discuss streamlining government operations, improving customer service and maximizing return on IT investments.
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A suicide bomber blew himself up in a central Afghanistan market Thursday, killing at least 16 civilians and wounding more than a dozen.
Police say the attack occurred in the town of Dihrawud, in Uruzgan province. The area was crowded as shoppers and vendors gathered for a bazaar.
Police say three of those killed in the blast were children.
The attack comes a day after the United Nations said the number of civilians killed in war-related violence in Afghanistan reached its highest level last year since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.
In the report, the chief human rights officer at the U.N. mission in Kabul, Norah Niland, said 2,412 Afghan civilians were killed in 2009, two-thirds of them by anti-government militants.
The official said 25 percent of civilian deaths were caused by pro-government forces, including NATO and U.S. troops, a drop from the previous year.
Most of the civilian victims of insurgents died from a combination of homemade bombs and suicide bombings. Airstrikes accounted for 60 percent of the deaths caused by coalition troops.
Last year also saw the highest number of deaths among international forces, particularly for the United States and Britain.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
Terror Suspect’s Lawyer Asks for Dismissal of Case By BENJAMIN WEISER
A federal judge in Manhattan was asked on Monday to dismiss an indictment against a terror suspect whose lawyer argued that his nearly five-year detention in secret C.I.A. prisons and later at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was “perhaps the most egregious violation in the history of speedy-trial jurisprudence.”
The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court, listened as a lawyer for the suspect, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, indicated that he was not challenging the government’s authority to decide to detain his client or the wisdom of that decision. The government held Mr. Ghailani to try to obtain intelligence about Al Qaeda.
But the government “cannot have it both ways,” said the lawyer, Peter E. Quijano.
Once these decisions are made, he added, “they can’t just simply change their mind, their political mind, 57 months later, and say, ‘You know, that indictment before Judge Kaplan? Let’s try it now.’ ”
The judge did not say when he would rule. The debate over the significance of the delays in bringing Mr. Ghailani to trial arises in a case that is seen as crucial because it could foreshadow a key issue in the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the professed organizer of the 9/11 attack, and four other Guantánamo detainees accused in the plot who were recently ordered to New York for trial.
Last spring, Mr. Ghailani became the first Guantánamo detainee moved into the civilian court system. A Tanzanian, he faces charges of conspiring in the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa, which killed more than 200 people. He later worked for Osama bin Laden as a bodyguard and a cook, military authorities have said.
A federal prosecutor, Michael Farbiarz, sharply challenged the defense’s contention that the delays warranted dismissal of the charges. The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan has said in court papers that upon his capture in 2004, Mr. Ghailani was seen as “a rare find,” and his “recent interactions with top-level Al Qaeda terrorists made him a potentially rich source of information that was both urgent and crucial to our nation’s war efforts.”
Mr. Farbiarz suggested in court that Mr. Ghailani had been a fount of valuable information for the authorities — and that the interrogation program did not constitute a violation of the constitutional right to a speedy trial. “Nobody from the government side means to suggest in the slightest that extraordinary times mean that the Constitution gets put on a shelf, not looked at, suspended in some way,” Mr. Farbiarz said. “That’s not what this case is about in the slightest.”
Judge Kaplan will ultimately have to weigh several factors set out by the Supreme Court in assessing the claim, like the length of and the reason for the delay, and the prejudice caused to Mr. Ghailani and his case.
Much in the case is classified, and Mr. Farbiarz, Mr. Quijano and a second defense lawyer, Michael K. Bachrach, all tiptoed delicately around certain details during nearly two hours of spirited debate.
But at one point, Mr. Quijano, who has said that his client was tortured, said Mr. Ghailani had been subjected to “what is euphemistically referred to as enhanced interrogation techniques for 14 hours over a five-day period.” Mr. Farbiarz quickly rose for a consultation with Mr. Quijano; the information was apparently not supposed to have been revealed in open court. “I withdraw that statement,” Mr. Quijano said.
Both sides acknowledged the weighty issues presented by the case, and the unusual circumstances that had brought the defendant into court. “What would indeed be unprecedented here would be dismissing this indictment on speedy-trial grounds,” Mr. Farbiarz argued at one point.
“I think everybody can agree that whatever I do here will be unprecedented,” Judge Kaplan responded.
FBI Arrests Two in New York Terror Investigation By SUZANNE SATALINE and GARY FIELDS
NEW YORK -- Federal officials arrested two associates of an Afghan immigrant who was charged last fall with conspiring to carry out bombings in the U.S., part of what authorities have called an al Qaeda cell.
Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay, both of New York City, are being held, pending charges, as part of "an ongoing investigation" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York City.
Two men who traveled to Pakistan with Najibullah Zazi were arrested early Friday morning in New York. Video courtesy of Fox News.
The men were expected to appear before a federal judge in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn later Friday, a spokesman said. The two men have ties to Najibullah Zazi, an airport-shuttle driver from Aurora, Colo., who was arrested and indicted in September on charges of planning to make explosives from hair products and household cleaners for use in bombs in the U.S.
The two New York men were taken into custody Thursday, on the same day that President Barack Obama outlined a series of failures by the intelligence community to put together information that would have likely helped identify Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man accused of attempting to bomb a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day. Mr. Abdulmutallab was due to appear in court on Friday in Detroit.
Both Mr. Medunjanin and Mr. Ahmedzay were believed to have accompanied Mr. Zazi, 24 years old, on a 2008 trip to what the FBI called an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, according to a law enforcement official. Mr. Zazi has denied his involvement.
The men had been under surveillance since Mr. Zazi's arrest as part of the ongoing investigation, the official said.
Rick Nelson, director of the Homeland Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the case is "probably the most serious threat that we've had to the United States in a long time, since September 11."
Mr. Nelson added that although the Christmas Day plot was serious and garnered much attention, homegrown terror cells are still a major concern. "A U.S. resident or someone with a passport to get into the U.S. is the crown jewel for these terrorist organizations," he said. "This is a very real problem, something Europe has been dealing with a longer period of time than we have, the radicalization."
Initially authorities went to Mr. Medunjanin's Queens apartment with a search warrant for his passport, the official said. "It was a question of them documenting where he had been," the official said. Mr. Medunjanin cooperated and surrendered the passport without incident. "It was uneventful."
However, Mr. Medunjanin left his apartment and began driving erratically on the Whitestone expressway in Queens, N.Y., crashing into another car and fleeing the scene on foot, the official said. New York City police took him into custody for leaving the scene of an accident. He was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital. Mr. Ahmedzay was picked up late Thursday evening by law enforcement while he was driving a cab in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan.
Mr. Medunjanin, 25 years old is a part time superintendent for some buildings, said his lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb of New York. Mr. Gottlieb said he did not know where his client was being held, nor why. "The events are despicable…to deny him access to his lawyer," Mr. Gottlieb said.
Mr. Medunjanin's apartment was one of several that agents had searched in September around the time of Mr. Zazi's arrest, the lawyer said. At that time, they took some computers and unspecified literature, all of which were later returned, Mr. Gottlieb said.
"There was nothing involving bombs or terror plots on the computer," the lawyer said. Mr. Medunjanin agreed at that time to be interviewed by the agents for several hours over two days, the attorney said. Mr. Gottlieb would not reveal what his client was asked.
Mr. Medunjanin, whose parents are from Bosnia, is a Muslim who attends a mosque, Mr. Gottlieb said. His client knows Mr. Zazi from the neighborhood, he added. He believed that both had attended the same local high school, although Mr. Gottlieb would not comment as to how else his client may know Mr. Zazi, whether they attended mosque together or traveled together. Mr. Medunjanin received a bachelor of arts in economics in 2009 from Queens College, part of The City University of New York.
Federal law enforcement authorities have called the investigation the most serious alleged home grown al Qaeda plot in the U.S. since 2001.
The administration has been under severe criticism since Christmas Day for a variety of miscues that allowed Mr. Abdulmutallab to board a Detroit-bound flight in Amsterdam and trying to ignite a bomb as the aircraft approached the Detroit airport. He has been charged with detonating a bomb and attempting to murder 279 passengers and 11 crew members on board a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day.
Mr. Abdulmutallab was able to get on board the flight, despite concerns that his father, a retired Nigerian bank official, had expressed to U.S. authorities about his son's radicalization. Other intelligence failed to pick up his alleged training in Yemen and contact with al Qaeda there.
THOMSON, Illinois - On Wednesday, Illinois lawmakers voted to close Thomson Correctional Center in order to sell it to the Federal Government. The Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability voted seven to four in Chicago to accept a recommendation to close the prison.
Supporters say closing the maximum security facility to house terror suspects currently held at Guantanamo Bay could create a needed economic boost for the area. A separate wing will be set off to hold Gitmo detainees supervised by the Department of Defense.
According to Senator Durbin, those from Yemen will not be going back to their homeland. When it comes to having them transferred to Thomson, he said he doesn't "know the number of prisoners who went to Yemen or other places but we are looking at various places where these prisoners can be sent."
First, federal prisoners will be housed at the facility before bringing in those from Guantanamo Bay. They hope to have this done by the end of this year.
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- As many as one in five former Guantanamo Bay detainees are suspected of or confirmed to have engaged in terrorist activity after their release, U.S. officials said, citing the latest government statistics.
The 20 percent rate is an increase over the 14 percent of former inmates that an April Pentagon report said were thought to have joined terrorist efforts, said the officials, who requested anonymity. The officials didn’t provide the numbers on which the 20 percent is based.
The increase adds a complication to President Barack Obama’s efforts to close the detention facility for terrorist suspects at the naval base in Cuba, a national security analyst said.
“No one wants to be responsible for releasing someone who goes on to kill Americans,” said Dan Byman, director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University in Washington. “This makes it more difficult to close Guantanamo.”
The new figure drew fire from one group that questioned the statistics in the April report.
‘Inaccurate’ Numbers
“We have never been able to confirm the DOD’s numbers,” said Stacy Sullivan, a counterterrorism adviser at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group critical of the Guantanamo facility. “The Pentagon’s numbers appear to be both wildly inaccurate and inflated.”
Still, Sullivan said the instances of former prisoners engaging in terrorist acts haven’t helped the effort to close Guantanamo.
“It’s pretty difficult to lobby for the release of Yemenis, even though they have never been accused of any wrongdoing and have been cleared for release, when some former detainees are in Yemen fighting with al-Qaeda,” she said.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell declined to confirm the 20 percent figure. Pentagon reports have shown that the number of former detainees engaging in terrorist activity increased to 14 percent from 11 percent between January and April of 2009.
“I do not believe that trend has reversed itself,” he said.
Halt of Some Transfers
Yesterday, Obama said he would halt for now transfers of Guantanamo inmates to Yemen as more details emerged of how a suspect accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Dec. 25 received training and support in the country.
“There is an ongoing security situation which we have been confronting for some time” in Yemen, Obama said yesterday after meeting with intelligence officials to discuss how the U.S. failed to bar bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from the flight.
Al-Qaeda apparently trained and equipped Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, with explosives during the bombing suspect’s stay in Yemen, Obama said on Jan. 2.
“We will not be transferring additional detainees back to Yemen at this time,” the president said yesterday.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters today that the administration stopped the transfers because of the “swift change in the security environment” in Yemen “over the last few weeks.” Gibbs said he was unaware of the 20 percent figure and how, if at all, it factored into the decision.
In his comments yesterday, Obama repeated his pledge to shutter the detention center.
“Make no mistake,” he said. “We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.”
Illinois Facility
The administration announced Dec. 15 that it intends to acquire the Thomson Correctional Center, a largely vacant state prison in northwestern Illinois, to house about 100 detainees.
The Guantanamo facility is holding 198 detainees, 91 of whom are from Yemen, said Major Tanya Bradsher, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Republicans who oppose the Guantanamo facility’s closure said the figures on former detainees show the need to change the administration’s transfer policy.
“The information I’ve seen is very troubling,” Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. “I can’t understand why anyone would release additional people to the Arabian Peninsula.”
Classified Figure
Hoekstra declined to confirm the increase in the rate of released prisoners who join the terrorist effort because the figure is classified.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters Dec. 29 the April report remains the most current unclassified tally of detainee recidivism.
Morrell today said Pentagon officials are “working to get an unclassified version” of the latest figures and corroborating evidence “as soon as possible.” He did not know whether the White House had been provided with the new figure.
Defense Department statistics about former detainees joining terrorist efforts have been challenged.
A detainee lawyer questioned a Jan. 13, 2009, Defense Department statement about released terror suspects returning to the battlefield
‘Inconsistent’ Numbers
“The raw numbers that are cited are unsupported, inconsistent with all other statements and appear to be presented to support the internal Department of Defense purposes,” according to a report by Mark Denbeaux, a lawyer for two detainees, and members of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Research in Newark, New Jersey.
Two Guantanamo detainees who were sent back to Saudi Arabia -- Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shihri and Mazin Salih Musaid al- Alawial-Awfi -- are leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to the April Pentagon report.
The president said yesterday the group worked with Abdulmutallab and “sought to strike not only American targets in Yemen but the United States itself.”
Since Obama took office, 42 detainees have been repatriated, seven of them to Yemen.
Among those held in Guantanamo Bay are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and other al-Qaeda operatives.
WASHINGTON // Stricter security measures for US-bound travellers, including random searches, full body pat-downs and additional screening, have infuriated some Muslim leaders and civil liberties groups here who say they amount to profiling of Muslims and Arabs.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) described the new guidelines, which subject passengers travelling from 13 Muslim-majority countries to rigorous screening, as “faith-based security checks”. The group said the new screening methods will disproportionately affect US Muslim citizens visiting their families abroad.
“Almost every American Muslim who travels to see family or friends or goes on pilgrimage to Mecca will automatically be singled out for special security checks: that’s profiling,” Nihad Awad, Cair’s national executive director, said in a statement, arguing that individual screening should be based on suspicious behaviour, not nationality. “While singling out travellers based on religion and national origin may make some people feel safer, it only serves to alienate and stigmatise Muslims and does nothing to improve airline security.”
The guidelines “deliver a propaganda victory to al Qa’eda and other violent extremist groups, since they rob targeted groups of people of their civil liberties based on their ethnicity and country of origin”, said Alejandro Beutel, government liaison for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. “Call it whatever you want, but this is religious and ethnic profiling at its worst.”
A spokeswoman for the US Transportation and Security Administration, Lauren Gaches, said the TSA does not engage in profiling. “As is always the case, TSA security measures are based on threat, not ethnic or religious background.”
The security measures, which went into effect on Monday, are a response to the failed attempt to blow up a US-bound passenger jet on Christmas Day. The Nigerian man suspected in the attack, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, was trained and equipped with an explosive device by an al Qa’eda cell in Yemen, according to US authorities.
Under the new guidelines, all US-bound passengers will face stepped-up security and are subject to random searches, the TSA said. Those travelling from or through countries that the US recognises as a “state sponsor of terrorism” or as a “countries of interest” will be singled out for “enhanced screening”. The US state department lists Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria as “state sponsors of terrorism”; Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen are listed as “countries of interest” by the TSA.
“Enhanced screening” could include pat-downs by inspectors, searches of carry-on bags, explosive detection technology and imaging technology, the TSA said. Airports around the world are ordering full body scanners that can detect objects beneath clothes, which experts say would have detected the explosives suspected to have been hidden in Mr Abdulmutallab’s underwear. The technology, however, also has raised new privacy concerns.
Some security experts say such measures, if invasive, are nevertheless a fact of life in a post-September 11 world. John Strauchs, a Virginia-based security engineer who helped design the three major airports in New York City and Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel, said such profiling was “unavoidable”.
“Any beat cop that walks the streets knows what to look for on his or her beat, who the troublemakers are, what they look like, and so forth,” he said.
He noted that the current screening procedures resembled those aimed at Hispanic Americans in the early 1970s, when skyjackers targeted flights between the United States and Cuba. “If you had a goatee or a beard and looked like Che Guevara, you were scrutinised closely because those were the kinds of people who were doing the skyjacking at that time,” he said. “It’s no different.”
Still, he said, profiling based on nationality and similar criteria is not going to make the United States or any country safer. If inspectors step up profiling of passengers from countries known to have harboured terrorists, he said, al Qa’eda and other groups will “simply recruit people from countries that are not terror prone”.
“We need to use the correct technology and screen all passengers regardless of their origin,” added Douglas Laird, who served as security director for Northwest Airlines for 15 years.
Critics say that the alleged “shoe bomber”, Richard Reid, is a British citizen, as were four of the attackers who detonated backpack bombs on London subways in 2005. Jose Padilla, suspected of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the United States, is Hispanic American.
The American Civil Liberties Union called the enhanced screening of citizens from certain countries “bad policy” that “violates American values”.
“We should be focusing on evidence-based, targeted and narrowly tailored investigations based on individualised suspicion,” said Michael German, the national security policy counsel with the union’s Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent. Barack Obama, the US president, was scheduled to meet yesterday his top advisers to discuss ongoing reviews of screening procedures and the US watch list system, which the government uses to identify known and suspected terrorists and prevent their entry into the United States.
Bill Burton, the deputy White House press secretary, said on Monday that dozens of names were added to the TSA’s no-fly list since the Christmas Day bombing attempt.
At the meeting, the president was expected to receive an update on the investigation into that incident and briefings on the security status of various government agencies, from energy to homeland security.
Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, Eric Holder, the attorney general, Robert Gates, the defence secretary, Leon Panetta, the CIA director, and Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, were among the 20 officials expected to attend.
Officials: Only A Failed Detonator Saved Northwest Flight Screening Machines May Need to Be Replaced; Al Qaeda Aware of 'Achilles heel' By RICHARD ESPOSITO and BRIAN ROSS
Dec. 26, 2009 —
Officials now say tragedy was only averted on Northwest flight 253 because a makeshift detonator failed to work properly.
Bomb experts say there was more than enough explosive to bring down the Northwest jet, which had nearly 300 people aboard, had the detonator not failed, and the nation's outdated airport screening machines may need to be upgraded.
"We've known for a long time that this is possible," said Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar and ABC News consultant, "and that we really have to replace our scanning devices with more modern systems."
Clarke said full body scans were needed, "but they're expensive and they're intrusive. They invade people's privacy."
Al Qaeda, said Clarke, is aware of this vulnerability in the U.S. airport security system. "They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles' heel in our airport security system and this is the second time they've tried it."
In 2001, would-be "shoe bomber" Richard Reid failed in his attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight with a highly explosive chemical known as PETN. He attempted to light a fuse to his shoe on a December 22 American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami but was subdued by other passengers.
According to investigators, the bomb on Northwest flight 253, which was en route from Amsterdam to Detroit when suspect Umar farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly detonated it, contained more than 80 grams of PETN. The material was allegedly sewn into Abdulmutallab's underwear, and was not detected by airport security.
The bomb was built and the plot organized, say U.S. officials, by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, just north of the capital city of Sanaa. Suspect Was On Terrorism Watch List
Authorities say the 23-year-old suspect spent months in Yemen being trained for the Christmas Day suicide mission.
Investigators believe Abdulmutallab was connected to al Qaeda by the same radical imam, American-born Anwar Awlaki, who is linked to the American Army major accused of opening fire at Fort Hood in November.
According to investigators, the bomb used yesterday was built in Yemen by a top al Qaeda bomb maker.
Northwest Airlines flight 253 -- operated on a Delta airplane - was getting ready to land in Detroit just before noon Friday when "a passenger caused a disturbance," said Delta spokeswoman Susan Chana Elliott. The man, later identified as Abdulmutallab, was trying to ignite when was initially reported as firecrackers.
According to the criminal complaint filed against Abudlmutallab, he boarded KLM Flight 588 from Lagos, Nigeria and transferred to Northwest Flight 253 at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
Prior to the incident, Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for about 20 minutes. Upon returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab said he had an upset stomach, and pulled a blanket over himself.
Passengers then heard popping noises similar to firecrackers and smelled an odor. Some saw Abdulmutallab's pants leg and the wall of the airplane on fire. Passengers and crew then subdued Abdulmutallab and used blankets and fire extinguishers to put out the flames.
A passenger apparently saw the suspect holding what a partially melted and smoking syringe. The passenger took the syringe, shook it to stop it from smoking and threw it to the floor. Dutch filmmaker Jasper Schuringa has been identified in the media as a passenger who subdued Mutallab.
Abdulmutallab, who flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then Detroit, was taken into custody at the Detroit airport and was interviewed by authorities there. He was then taken to an area hospital to be treated for burns.
Abdulmutallab was on a terrorism watch list, but not on a no-fly list. Said Clarke, "So once again, we have the U.S. government, as in the case of the Fort Hood attacks, knowing about someone, knowing that they were suspicious, but that information didn't get to the right people in time."
Matthew Cole, Joseph Rhee and Rhonda Schwartz contributed to this story
Obama's Monday Terrorism Speech Disappointing, say Critics by Jim Kouri
In his speech to the nation on Monday, President Barack Obama stated that in addition to strengthening defenses, the United States will seek out those who wish Americans harm "anywhere they are plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland."
In a televised briefing while he vacationed in Hawaii, the president talked about the steps the government will take in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound U.S. commercial aircraft on Christmas Day. Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253.
"The American people should be assured that we will do everything in our power to keep you and your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season," Obama said. "This incident, like several that have preceded it demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist."
While the president attempted to push the theory of this incident being another "lone wolf" terrorist act, certain facts tend to contradict that theory.
Move America Forward, the nation's largest grassroots pro-troop organization, claims they've received reports that two of the four co-conspirators who helped the would-be terrorist bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had actually been detained by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay and released in 2007 to Saudi Arabia where they underwent a Saudi "rehabilitation" program designed to cure them of their radical ideology.
"We have warned about these supposed rehabilitation programs before, it is well documented that other former graduates of the Saudi program promptly returned to their terrorist ways after being released," said Danny Gonzalez, Director of Communications for the pro-troop group.
"With this latest news we now have further evidence that these programs do not work and as soon as the supposedly cured terrorists gain their freedom they go back to Al Qaeda and plot attacks or return to the battlefield. Our troops should not be having to deal with the same terrorist twice. These people were released in 2007 but we know that the Obama administration has been sending more detainees to Saudi Arabia to go through this program and plan to continue using it in future, so we are calling on Obama to immediately stop sending these terrorists back overseas where they aren't properly monitored and start taking his job of keeping America safe seriously."
The president directed the national security team to keep up the pressure on those who would attack our country, according to Jim Garamone of the American Forces Press Service.
While information is still coming out about the incident, President Obama stated, "Those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know that the United States will do more than simply strengthen our defenses: We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us."
The president claimed that as soon as he heard about the attempt he ordered enhanced screening of all flights. He also ordered more US Air Marshals on flights entering and leaving the United States.
The White House stated that President Obama ordered a thorough reviews of the Detroit incident. One on the so-called watch list and the other on all screening policies, technologies and procedures related to air travel.
"We need to find out how the suspect was able to bring dangerous explosives aboard an aircraft and what additional steps we can take to deter future attacks," Obama said.
The president called for the American people to remain vigilant. A passenger stopped the suspect from blowing up the plane. "This incident, like several that have preceded it -- demonstrate that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist," he said.
The nation will do all it can to defeat these threats, according to Obama. "As Americans, we will never give in to fear or division," the president said. "We will be guided by our hopes, our unity and our deeply held values."
Many law enforcement officers are convinced the Obama Administration is not capable of defeating terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.
"I'm glad the president finally came out and discussed the incident, but he continues to make it seem as if these terrorist acts are perpetrated by lone and unconnected attackers. He doesn't even use the term 'terrorists' to describe these attackers. The man -- and members of his administration -- just doesn't get it," said former NYPD detective and military intelligence officer Mike Snopes.
Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S. Former Guantanamo Prisoners Believed Behind Northwest Airlines Bomb Plot; Sent to Saudi Arabia in 2007 By BRIAN ROSS, ANNA SCHECTER and JOSEPH RHEE
Dec. 28, 2009 — Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.
Both Saudi nationals have since emerged in leadership roles in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and the men's own statements on al Qaeda propaganda tapes.
Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.
In its Monday statement claiming responsibility for the Northwest bombing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a "hero" and a "martyr" and lauded him for beating U.S. intelligence.
The two-page written claim included a photo of Abdulmutallab and boasted of Al Qaeda's success in designing "advanced explosive packages" that can pass through airport screening undetected.
The statement also asks for attacks upon Americans in the Arabian peninsula, and promises further attacks on the American people.
Abdulmutallab: Northwest Airlines Bomb Suspect
The suspected bomber, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told FBI agents he was trained for his Christmas Day mission in Yemen by top leaders of al Qaeda who provided him with the explosive materials.
"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.
Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life.
One program gives the former detainees paints and crayons as part of the rehabilitation regimen.
A similar rehabilitation program in Yemen was stopped because so many of the detainees quickly joined with al Qaeda or its affiliates, the official said.
The increased role of al Qaeda in Yemen, which joined with the Saudi al Qaeda unit, has underscored the problem of how to best handle the repatriation of detainees at Guantanamo.
Thomson federal prison plan: Town has been down this road before
Past shows prison is no guarantee of boom for the area
By Oscar Avila and Katherine Skiba
Tribune reporters
December 20, 2009
THOMSON, Ill.
– Far from sleepy Illinois Highway 84 and the mostly empty prison, the Pentagon and Justice Department are drawing up plans to build a new security perimeter and send in federal marshals if President Barack Obama's administration succeeds in moving detainees here from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Many residents say they can deal with expected traffic jams and helicopters overhead if the dust comes off other plans: those for new housing subdivisions, hotels and shops that were shelved when the state prison was scaled back years ago.
Republicans warn that the Thomson area would be on lockdown; Democrats promise a golden age of jobs and commerce. Amid all the speculation, this hardscrabble region is slowly getting a look at how its future could take shape.
Federal officials say they hope to reveal more about the proposal to house up to 100 terrorism suspects in Thomson when the state hosts a potentially contentious hearing Tuesday in nearby Sterling. The plan's most vocal critics are expected, as are supporters bused in from miles away, reflecting the proposal's impact.
"There were people who had a hard time adapting to our first stoplight," said Larry Stebbins, the mayor of Savanna, about five minutes up the road from Thomson. "It's impossible for me to tell you what this is going to look like, but I do know that we need some kind of change."
Thomson, about two hours west of Chicago along the Mississippi River, had a maximum-security 146-acre facility in place for state inmates.
Authorities are planning another perimeter fence to make Thomson the "most secure facility in the nation," in the words of a White House official.
For all the infamy of Guantanamo, federal officials envision a sprawling self-contained campus much like that base. Officials want to upgrade Thomson's health center, now featuring a 16-bed infirmary and two crisis-care rooms, to avoid ever having to take detainees to civilian hospitals.
Although detainees can't receive family or friends, Thomson will have its share of visitors. Guantanamo Bay has hosted almost 2,900 journalists since 2002, said spokesman Navy Cmdr. Brook DeWalt. In addition, Thomson would also expect an steady stream of lawyers and members of the International Red Cross.
DeWalt said detainees have access to satellite TV and newspapers so they know about the prospect of moving to Illinois, more than 1,500 miles away.
"I know there are discussions about their future, and that includes the possibility of going to Thomson," he said.
While the detainees will remain far from public sight, the men and women who will secure them stand to be the main forces of change.
The Pentagon expects to deploy a staff of 1,000 to 1,500 people, about two-thirds military and one-third civilian. Service members would not bring their families during the first year, to give school districts time to prepare. Enlisted soldiers might end up living at a nearby military installation, one official said.
Because Thomson would host military tribunals, the government also will ask some staff to remain undercover to avoid becoming targets. More security muscle will come from the U.S. Marshals Service, which will protect judges, jurors and prosecutors and their relatives, if necessary.
The hassles will be worth it if the facility revives the local economy, many residents said.
But the experience of other prisons shows that is far from a guarantee.
Even after Florence, Colo., landed the "supermax" prison 15 years ago, a ballyhooed building boom was confined to a Super 8 motel, credit unions and antiques shops.
Because the town didn't have much available housing, most workers moved elsewhere, up to an hour away in Colorado Springs, said Dori Williams, city clerk.
Federal prison officials say half their hires in Thomson will be local but count a seven-county expanse as local, including large populations in Iowa more than an hour away. Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin have tried to sell the plan by focusing on the potential windfall for Illinois.
An analysis by Obama's Council of Economic Advisers estimated up to $1.1 billion in additional spending in the area during the first four years of operation and up to 3,800 ongoing jobs. But the true economic boom hinges on steering new residents close to Thomson, said Stebbins, the Savanna mayor.
Some speculators, including a Naperville developer, are sniffing around for land bargains in the Thomson area, where nice homes are available for $60,000.
Real estate broker Jeannine Mills said subdivisions with names such as Hidden Valley remain on the drawing board from years ago. In many projects, only one or two homes have been built.
Local economic development officials say the Thomson area needs to widen two-lane Illinois 84, add cellular telephone towers and bring broadband Internet to new housing developments. They hope those upgrades will lure residents, who then will attract amenities from supermarkets to video stores.
But it is doubtful that the landscape near Thomson would see major industry sprout to keep the prison humming, said Iowa State University sociologist Terry Besser, an expert on prison economics. Federal and state prison systems generally purchase only with suppliers under contract, most based outside the area.
Michele Miller of the Tri-County Economic Development Alliance, said she doesn't expect an immediate building spree in Thomson, given past disappointments.
"Whatever happens, whatever the details are, this is our time," she said. "We are ready."
Tribune reporter Kristen Schorsch contributed to this report. oavila@tribune.com
After difficult goodbye, US Marines head off to Afghanistan By Dan De Luce (AFP) – 12 hours ago
CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina — Before they headed off to war in Afghanistan, the young Marines mingled with their families one last time, trying to lighten the mood with jokes and nervous laughter.
But the anxious faces of their parents and wives betrayed the gravity of the moment.
"We're justifiably proud but obviously nervous," said a somber James McDermott, 56, whose son, Luke, was about to leave for his second deployment in the Afghan war.
Standing outside on Tuesday night in a windy parking lot at the Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina, the families spent precious minutes together before the Marines set off for Afghanistan.
Members of the 1st Battalion, 6th Regiment represent the first wave of President Barack Obama's surge of 30,000 troops designed to shift the balance against Taliban insurgents.
About 200 Marines departed early on Wednesday morning, part of a 1,500-strong battalion that will be on the ground before the Christmas holiday. The number of Marines in Afghanistan was due to rise from about 13,000 to some 20,000 over the next several months.
As lights cast shadows across the barracks, younger Marines loaded up a truck with the troops' gear while a sergeant barked orders.
McDermott's 22-year-old son said he felt more at ease having deployed to Afghanistan in 2008.
"I already know what to expect. I know how it works," he told AFP.
Both the Marines and their families know that casualties are on the rise among NATO-led troops.
At least 491 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far this year, including 304 Americans -- almost double the 155 US troops killed last year.
Much is riding on the Marines' mission in southern Helmand province, where commanders hope to weaken the grip of the Taliban.
As the US military relies on an all-volunteer force -- having discarded conscription after the Vietnam conflict -- military families have carried a particularly heavy burden with protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Anticipating a loved ones' departure was in some ways the worst part for families, said Nicole Carpenter, 21, whose husband, Matt, was embarking on his second combat tour.
"I can't wait to get it over with. Start the countdown. The sooner they leave, the sooner they'll be home," she said.
Carpenter said she is due to give birth to a baby boy on May 7, long before her husband is scheduled to return.
"The baby will be three or four months old when he gets home," she said.
Carpenter said she is "proud" of her husband, acknowledged that he signed up to be in harm's way but had "mixed feelings" about the US military presence in Afghanistan, which has divided the American public.
For the Marines, the deployment orders this month came as a relief after months of uncertainty.
"I think these Marines have been ready to go for a long time," said Gunnery Sergeant Brandon Dickinson.
In August, the battalion had geared up for a mission to Iraq before those plans were scrapped and then they faced uncertainty as Obama carried out a three-month-long strategy review.
Dickinson, 32, who earned a Purple Heart from a wound in an Iraq car bombing, said he has tried to instill caution among the younger Marines facing their first combat duty.
"I try to calm them down," said Dickinson, a rifle slung over his shoulder. "We put them in different scenarios."
In "tactical decision games," he asks his comrades, "what if you were in a marketplace and you took fire and you were behind civilians -- what do you do?"
Dickinson's eight-year-old daughter, Madison, pulled on her father's arm.
"Why do the Marines have to go?" she asked.
As officers called out the Marines' names to board buses, the brave facade for many families gave way to tears.
The Marines began a final round of goodbyes, one more photo with their toddler, one last embrace with their mother and father, one last kiss with their wife.
Then the troops climbed into five buses that would take them to the airfield. Some of their comrades in civilian clothes offered up a drunken cheer while wives and mothers openly wept.
Just before midnight, the buses pulled away and drove off into the dark.
Young Iraq, Afghanistan veterans become face of VFW
By Tomas Dinges/The Star-Ledger
December 15, 2009, 8:00AM
NUTLEY -- Nearing 9 o’clock on a recent Thursday night, three veterans drank $1.50 draft beers at a neighborhood bar in Nutley.
Amid real war stories, Kenny Hall called to the bartender.
Jennifer Brown/The Star-LedgerAt the Randolph VFW post 7333, the veterans have a welcome home ceremony for an Army soldier, Brian Reynolds, who is on leave from a tour in Afghanistan. "Hey Jack," he asked, "do you have my VFW card yet?"
Hall — who served nine months in southern Iraq with the New Jersey National Guard — may represent the future of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the 110-year-old advocacy organization whose membership has been dwindling steadily as World War II veterans die off.
Veterans of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan like Hall, 21, slowly are beginning to fill the ranks of many VFW posts throughout the state.
"It’s not like you are going to run into another veteran at another bar," explained David Gisonno, 28, president of the Montclair State University student veterans organization and an Iraq veteran.
Scott Montanio, 28, who served with the Marines, joined Post 7333 in Randolph four months after returning home in 2004 — the first veteran of the Afghanistan war to join the post. Welcomed by Vietnam veterans old enough to be his father, Montanio is now two years away from leading the organization and has been joined by at least three or four other recent veterans.
He said he is there because it is an incredible networking opportunity. It is also a way to talk with former soldiers who, despite their age, know exactly what he went through and how he feels now.
"Though there is a very large age difference, time seems to stand still when it comes to going off to war," he said.
The generational difference didn’t matter one recent Thursday night when Brian Reynolds, 25, who was on a two-week leave from Afghanistan, was welcomed home at a party at the Randolph VFW.
The party, held in the wood-paneled and slightly musty basement, was attended by Montanio and a dozen other veterans.
Reynolds said he was happy to come home to a place where he could share his battlefield experiences openly. Post members gave him a dark blue VFW hat, which Reynolds said he planned to take back to Afghanistan to persuade other soldiers to join their local chapters.
Veterans of all ages share a common bond: "The military is the military," he said.
The VFW has its roots in a group of soldiers who advocated for medical care and pensions upon their return from fighting in the Spanish-American War of 1899. Now, the organization has officers who help veterans access government entitlements and guide them to medical treatment with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Memorial Day celebrations and ceremonies remain core activities. But the VFW, which at its peak in 1993 had more than 2 million members, also played an active role in the passage of an improved education bill for veterans and lobbied heavily for a recently passed bill to provide rights and government support to the family members and caregivers of wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Nationally, the VFW says it is trying to recruit new members. It has brought into its ranks nearly 15 percent of the 1.8 million soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001, said Jerry Newberry, the group’s communications director. He said the VFW signed up 11.4 percent of the 11 million soldiers who served in World War II.
Despite the optimism, there is concern as membership continues to drop, not only because World War II veterans are dying, but also because Iraq and Afghanistan veterans enroll and then don’t always become active.
"We are looking to the Iraq and Afghanistan vets and they’re coming aboard for a short while and then they drop out," said Robert Pinto, the adjutant for the New Jersey VFW.
He said some posts are resistant to change.
"With the World War II veterans, they are set in their ways and they don’t want to give up what they have," Pinto said. "The younger guys say, ‘You don’t want to change? I’ll just go somewhere else.
The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, founded in 2004, offers virtual connections, with a social-networking site accessible to veterans only and a dynamic website encouraging veteran political activism.
Officials say the VFW posts that have seen increases in enrollment are generally led by Vietnam War veterans.
Still, Gisonno, who recently purchased a home in Hoboken with his wife, is confident the VFW will thrive once veterans settle back into their lives at home, get some mental distance from the intensity of their war experiences and decide to seek out others who understand.
He reflected as Jack Kane, 61, who served in Korea from 1968 to 1969 and serves as a VFW recruiter, tended a bar where an Iraqi flag taken as a souvenir hung on a wall.
"Give the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans another 10 years," Gisonno said, "and this place will be packed."
Recruits Pour In After Afghan Army Offers a Raise By ELISABETH BUMILLER
KABUL, Afghanistan — The American commander in charge of training the Afghan security forces said Wednesday that there had been a recent wave of recruits for the Afghan Army, most likely because of a pay increase that he said put salaries close to those of Taliban fighters.
The commander, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said that an Afghan soldier in a high-combat area like Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan would now make a starting salary of $240 a month, up from $180. General Caldwell said that the Taliban often paid insurgents $250 to $300 a month.
The Afghan Army pay increase was announced 10 days ago, General Caldwell said. In the first seven days of December, more than 2,600 Afghans signed up — a striking change, he said, from September, when there were 831 Afghans recruits for the entire month, or November, when there were 4,303 recruits.
General Caldwell was at Camp Eggers in Kabul, the headquarters of the American effort to train the Afghans. He was speaking to reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was on his second day of a trip to Afghanistan focusing in part on Afghan training.
General Caldwell acknowledged the serious difficulties ahead in training the Afghan security forces, which the United States hopes to increase in size — from nearly 192,000 to as high as 282,000 — as well as in efficiency before President Obama’s goal of beginning to withdraw American troops in July 2011. The obstacles were outlined in a recent series of internal administration reviews that describe the Afghan Army and police as largely illiterate, often corrupt and poorly led.
However, other responsibilities will linger: on Tuesday, President Hamid Karzai said Afghanistan would not be able to pay for its own security until at least 2024.
General Caldwell expressed cautious optimism over the new recruiting.
“Seven days doesn’t prove anything yet, but it’s a positive step,” he said, adding, “I would never make the leap to say, ‘Therefore we’re going to fix this.’ ” Later, he said that success in Afghanistan would require far more than military might, and that “we’ll never kill our way to victory.”
Also speaking at Camp Eggers on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the deputy commander of NATO and American forces in the country, acknowledged that there might have been some civilian casualties during an allied raid on Tuesday in Laghman Province.
“There could possibly have been some civilians killed in a confusing situation,” General Rodriguez told reporters. Although Afghan officials from Laghman said Tuesday that no Afghan soldiers had been involved in the raid, which killed as many as a dozen people, General Rodriguez said on Wednesday that Afghan security forces had participated.
“There’s confusion, like always,” he said. “They did get some bad people, which all the Afghans in the local area agreed that they did. But in the confusion there was obviously a firefight and we’re investigating.”
Mr. Gates spent far more time at Camp Eggers on this trip than he had expected. Rain and low visibility prevented him from taking a helicopter on Wednesday to a training base outside Kabul and from flying to Forward Operating Base Frontenac in Kandahar Province, where 29 soldiers have been killed in the last four months. It is one of the deadliest areas of the war because of the Taliban fighters’ use of improvised explosive devices. Mr. Gates had planned to visit an Army Stryker group there.
Instead he made a last-minute appearance at the American Embassy in Kabul, where he spoke to a crowd in the atrium and clambered aboard a parked Russian-made helicopter belonging to the Afghan National Air Corps at the Kabul airport.
He had also spent some time on the tarmac at the airport, just steps away from a Black Hawk helicopter that was to take him on his travels for the day, waiting in the sodden gloom for the official word on whether the weather was safe enough for flying.
“I hope they know what they’re doing,” he told reporters as he waited. He said he would not interfere in whatever decision was made.
“A man’s got to know his limitations,” he said. “I’m no weatherman.”
Moments later, the word came that Mr. Gates was grounded.
CHICAGO -- Gov. Pat Quinn says news is expected this month on a proposal to house Guantanamo Bay detainees at a northwestern Illinois prison.
Quinn says President Barack Obama will make the official decision on Thomson Correctional Center, which is about 150 miles from Chicago.
Quinn believes Thomson is the leading contender among several U.S. facilities federal officials are considering. But the Chicago Democrat on Monday declined to offer a timeline, despite a report published in the Washington Post that a handover could come late this winter.
Gov. Pat Quinn has had discussions with President Barack Obama about the federal government purchasing Thomson Correctional Center in northwest Illinois.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scuttled the proposed "war tax" to finance the increased troop deployment to Afghanistan, telling reporters Thursday that she would oppose the idea from her closest allies in the Capitol.
Pelosi, in her weekly press briefing, announced she would not support the proposal from House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and others who have suggested a temporary tax on workers earning as little as $30,000 a year to fund the effort.
"I'm not in support of the proposal of Mr. Obey," Pelosi said, adding that "he is speaking for himself" with his war tax.
Democrats such as Obey oppose the new deployment -- which will place more than 100,000 U.S. troops on Afghan soil -- as a mission that is destined to fail and not in the national interest. They have latched onto the financing of the new war effort as the proxy fight for opposition to the war. This is because the only constitutional role for Congress in foreign affairs is its funding power, but also because the soaring federal debt amid a steep recession gives lawmakers political leverage in the debate.
In rejecting Obey's war tax, Pelosi did not offer other ways to finance the stepped-up war effort. President Obama has pegged the cost at $30 billion, but key lawmakers have said it will actually cost $40 billion. "When the president makes a request, we'll make a judgment about what support it has, and some of that will relate to how it affects the deficit," she said.
Pelosi's pronouncement officially ends any chance of a war tax, as she now joins Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in opposing that plan. They have suggested that taxing almost all workers during a recession would have a negative drag on the economy.
Republicans, who have generally supported the troop deployment but criticize the idea of bringing troops home starting in July 2011, have offered a variety of methods for funding the war effort.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested using unspent money from the $787 billion stimulus legislation approved in February. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.), the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, have suggested that almost $35 billion could be pared off the annual spending bills for federal agencies, which must be approved in the next few weeks.
WASHINGTON — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first detainee to be transferred from Guantanamo to New York for trial, says all charges against him should be dismissed because his constitutional rights were violated.
Ghailani, a Tanzanian accused of helping plot the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, argues that he has not been given his constitutional rights to a fair and speedy trial.
He also claims to have suffered "abhorrent" physical and psychological abuse at the hands of interrogators, his lawyers said in a court filing.
The trial of Ghailani, 34, is being closely watched because it is the first involving a suspect transferred from the controversial facility at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
It also comes as President Barack Obama's administration has announced plans to transfer five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks from Guantanamo for trial in New York city.
Ghailani and the five 9/11 co-accused, who include self-professed attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were all held in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons overseas and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques.
The US government is not seeking the death penalty for Ghailani, though it will do for the 9/11 accused.
In a legal filing dated November 16, obtained by AFP after it was reviewed for classified information, Ghailani's lawyers noted that the original indictment against their client dates from 1998.
"Our government made the conscious and deliberate decision to sequester him in solitary confinement in secret prisons for over two years, subjecting him to what are euphemistically referred to as 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' even though he had a pending indictment," the filing said.
His lawyers add that the US government sought to turn Ghailani "into an intelligence asset which our government could rely upon in the defense of our nation."
The government's decision to risk violating Ghailani's right to speedy trial in order to gain intelligence from him must have "consequences," the lawyers added.
"Those consequences must be severe when the means and methods used by the government to reach their goal included the systematic physical and psychological abuse of the defendant, abuse so abhorrent that the government must rely upon a claim of national security as a justification for the interrogation techniques that were employed," the lawsuit said.
Judge Lewis Kaplan has sole discretion to rule on the case and his decision can be appealed before the US Supreme Court.
Ghailani, who faces 308 charges, is accused of helping plot attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, which killed 224 people and injured more than 5,000.
Obama's administration announced its plan to try the five Guantanamo detainees accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks in New York as it works to close the controversial facility.
Obama has acknowledged his administration will likely miss a self-imposed January 2010 deadline to close the prison.
Supreme Court Overturns Decision on Detainee Photos By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday set aside a lower court’s order that called for the release of photographs of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan being abused by American military personnel. The high court told the lower court to re-examine the issue.
The justices sent the case back to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, which ruled in 2008 that the pictures should be released to the public. But at the request of the Obama administration, the Second Circuit later postponed its own order, setting the stage for the administration to take the case to the Supreme Court.
On Monday, the justices told the Second Circuit to give “further consideration” to the issue in light of a Congressional action authorizing the Defense Department to keep the pictures from the public. With the issue on its way back to the Second Circuit, a final decision will probably not be made for months.
“We continue to believe that the photos should be released, and we intend to press that case in the lower court,” Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement after the Supreme Court order. “No democracy has ever been made stronger by suppressing evidence of its own misconduct.”
The A.C.L.U. has been fighting in court for several years to obtain the pictures. But American military commanders have warned that making the images public could set off a deadly backlash against United States troops.
The administration said in April that it would not oppose release of the images. But President Obama changed his mind after seeing the photographs, and after listening to arguments from Pentagon officials that the pictures, taken early in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would indeed inflame anti-American sentiment.
The civil liberties union has differed with that stance.
“We continue to believe that the Defense Department’s suppression of these photos is both unlawful and unwise, and that there is a strong public interest in the photos’ release,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the group’s National Security Project. “And we continue to believe that permitting the government to suppress information about government misconduct on the grounds that someone, somewhere in the world, might react badly — or even violently — sets a very dangerous precedent.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who served on the Second Circuit until August, took no part in the Supreme Court’s consideration of the case, Department of Defense v. A.C.L.U., No. 09-160.
Obama to Speak on Afghanistan From West Point on Tuesday By HELENE COOPER and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Tuesday that he was determined to “finish the job” in Afghanistan, and his aides signaled to allies that he would send as many as 25,000 to 30,000 additional American troops there even as they cautioned that the final number remained in flux.
The White House said Mr. Obama had completed his consultations with his war council on Monday night and would formally announce his decision in a national address in the next week. Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Obama would address the nation at 8 p.m. Tuesday from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
At a news conference in the East Room with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, Mr. Obama suggested that his approach would break from the policies he had inherited from the Bush administration and said that the goals would be to keep Al Qaeda from using the region to launch more attacks against the United States and to bring more stability to Afghanistan.
“After eight years — some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done — it is my intention to finish the job,” he said.
He said that he would outline his Afghanistan strategy after Thanksgiving, adding, “I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive.”
Though he and his advisers have drawn up benchmarks to measure progress and put pressure on the Afghan government to do its part, Mr. Obama offered no details in his public remarks on Tuesday. He was also silent on precisely what would constitute finishing the job in Afghanistan or how soon he envisioned being able to begin extricating the United States from the war there.
While the troop levels he orders will go a long way toward defining his position, the White House has stressed that Mr. Obama’s review has gone far beyond the numbers to better define the military and civilian-aid components of the effort in Afghanistan, how they fit into efforts to combat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and how to ensure that the American commitment in the region is not open-ended.
At the meeting on Monday night, Mr. Obama went around the table in the White House Situation Room asking his senior advisers for summations of their individual assessments and to voice any concerns they still had, said an administration official who was briefed on the two-hour meeting.
“There was a lot of back and forth,” said the official, with Mr. Obama interjecting questions and top aides cutting each other off at times. When the meeting finished shortly after 10 p.m., some of the senior advisers lingered in small groups to continue their discussions, said the official, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the meeting’s confidentiality.
The meeting covered a wide variety of issues, including benchmarks to measure progress by Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as the specific number of additional American troops to send.
Although his aides told some allies that the troop increase would most likely be slightly below 30,000 — there are currently 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan — several officials said Mr. Obama did not appear completely settled on a final number.
“He’s still not happy,” one official said.
One reason for Mr. Obama’s disquiet might be discontent among the members of his own party on Capitol Hill over the prospect of escalating the war and paying for it. Among those present at Monday night’s session was Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director.
Before a meeting with Mr. Obama on Tuesday afternoon, Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said during a conference call of economists and bloggers that there was “serious unrest in our caucus about can we afford this war.”
Ms. Pelosi said she did not want to sacrifice the party’s domestic agenda to the cost of the troop buildup. “The American people believe that if something is in our national security interest, we have to be able to afford it,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that we hold everything else” hostage to that.
Administration officials said that during the Monday meeting, officials discussed a proposal to deploy the American troops in waves, the first of which would go early next year to be in place in southern or eastern Afghanistan by spring. They said the American military should be able to deploy one brigade per quarter.
One administration official involved in Afghanistan policy said the president and his top advisers were thinking in terms of “exit strategies” and not necessarily “exit timetables.” He compared the current thinking to the “conditional engagement” that President George W. Bush used in Iraq.
As Afghan security forces are trained and deployed, the official said, American officials and commanders would watch closely to determine when operational control of a given area could be turned over to them. That is what happened in Iraq, as American forces gradually turned over control of territory to Iraqis once they had proved their ability.
“As you go along, you might have some target dates,” the administration official said, noting as an example the proposal by Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who leads the Armed Services Committee, that by 2012, the Afghan Army should be increased to 240,000 soldiers from 92,000, and police forces to 160,000 officers from 84,000.
Mr. Obama declined to say what day he would make his announcement, but officials said the Congressional leadership had been invited to the White House for a briefing next Tuesday.
Administration officials said that as part of his Afghanistan strategy, Mr. Obama would also announce strict benchmarks, or “performance” targets, which the United States will expect the Afghan government to meet. Mr. Obama will be tying both military and economic aid to Afghanistan to those targets, the officials said.
As the debate over the size of the troop increasehas played out over the last few months, an increase of about 30,000 reinforcements has won the support of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
That number would fall between the 40,000 additional troops requested by the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and the far smaller number favored by some Obama advisers, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Obama will also be making a broader appeal for Afghanistan’s neighbors and regional actors to play a role, the officials said.
“We have to do it as part of a broader international community,” Mr. Obama said at the news conference. “So one of the things I’m going to be discussing is the obligations of our international partners in this process.”
After Mr. Obama announces his Afghanistan strategy, Mrs. Clinton will brief NATO allies at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels on Dec. 3 and 4. There, Mrs. Clinton is expected to solicit specific contributions from them, including as many as 10,000 additional soldiers, bringing the total number of allied troops in line with General McChrystal’s request. Administration officials cautioned that they did not expect contributions to be nailed down until January.
Jeff Zeleny, Peter Baker and Mark Landler contributed reporting.
Video shows Sen. Obama thought a military tribunal was fine for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
As The Ticket reported earlier today in this space, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder was on the Senate Judiciary Committee hot seat defending his decision to bring the alleged 9/11 terrorist masterminds onto U.S. soil for civilian trials instead of keeping them far away in Guantanamo Bay for a military tribunal.
Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, himself a former federal prosecutor, says he's amazed at Holder's simplicity claim and remains unconvinced that such a move, which could make New York City a target for potential new attack, makes any legal sense whatsoever.
Speaking of military tribunals, we went back into the video archives and found this C-SPAN tape below. Holder might want to watch it.
It contains his boss, Barack Obama, a brief member of that same Senate, in 2006 stating that a military tribunal was a perfectly fine way of handling such dangerous individuals as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Obama said the fight against terrorism was "an extraordinarily difficult war" where terrorists could plot undetected from within our own borders.
The freshman Illinois senator was defending a legislative amendment and pointed out that a military tribunal for Mohammed seemed just fine to him.
"The irony of the underlying bill as it's written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He's gonna have counsel. He's gonna be able to present evidence to rebut the government's case.... I think we will convict him. And I think justice will be carried out."
Obama, meanwhile, continued his journeys around Asia and told....
...inquiring reporters that he has never been closer to a strategic decision on what to do next about the deteriorating military situation in Afghanistan.
He also confirmed to Fox News' Major Garrett that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility would not, in fact, be closed by the end of next month as the new president had promised on his first day in office. The latest target is now sometime next year.
In late August the Democratic president received the recommendations of the commanding general in Afghanistan, involving the addition of more U.S. troops to the 68,000 already on the ground from Obama's first troop surge last March.
The general's recommendations reportedly also said that allies had about one year left to save the strategic situation there. Nearly a quarter of that year have passed in deliberations. As The Ticket reported here earlier today, an angry Obama has said that leaks of such contents are firing offenses.
Obama says it might be a few more weeks before he makes his final decision, but that when he did the American people would be clear about it and what his goals were.
As we reported here Tuesday, new polls indicate the American people have moved further along in their decision-making process about the war than the president. And their emerging decision appears to be that the eight-year conflict wasn't and isn't worth the cost.
9/11 suspects to be tried in New York Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:26pm EST By Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks and four other suspects will be sent to New York and prosecuted in a court near where the World Trade Center once stood, the U.S. government said Friday, as it took a step toward closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others had been facing trials in military commissions at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, but U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to move some cases to U.S. criminal courts and close the prison by mid-January.
Obama's decision to close Guantanamo, a symbol for critics abroad of harsh U.S. treatment of prisoners, prompted huge opposition from Republicans and fellow Democrats, who fear moving the suspects to the sites in the United States could make them a magnet for attacks.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, announcing the decision to move the September 11 suspects, expressed confidence that the cases against them were strong. He said he was not worried that their trials would be impaired by the fact that suspects like Mohammed had been harshly interrogated.
While in U.S. custody, Mohammed was subjected 183 times to "waterboarding," which simulates drowning by pouring water over someone's face while they are was restrained. Human rights groups say waterboarding is torture.
"I am confident in the ability of our courts to provide these defendants a fair trial, just as they have for over 200 years," Holder told reporters.
There were mixed reactions in New York City, where some people were angry at having the men put on trial in the city traumatized by the hijacked-plane attacks eight years ago while others voiced relief that justice may soon be done.
JUSTICE FOR HIJACKERS
"I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it. My administration will insist on it," Obama said in Tokyo during a trip through Asia.
Civil rights advocates hailed the decision to move some of the cases to traditional U.S. criminal courts.
But House (of Representatives) Republican Leader John Boehner said Friday's announcement was "irresponsible" and "puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people."
In May, House Republicans introduced legislation they called the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act" aimed at stopping the transfer or release of terrorists held at the Guantanamo into the United States.
Five other Guantanamo prisoners, including the alleged mastermind of a 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen, Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, and a young Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, will be tried in revamped military commissions, the Justice Department said.
Holder Friday repeated earlier statements that it would be difficult to meet the January deadline that Obama had placed on closing Guantanamo.
He said the New York trial would take place at a court a few blocks from where the World Trade Center twin towers stood before they were felled by hijacked planes in 2001. Almost 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon were killed in the attacks that day.
In addition to claiming responsibility for the September 11 attacks, Mohammed has said he was responsible for numerous other attacks and that in 2002 he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.
Holder said that he would authorize prosecutors to seek the death penalty against the five accused of the September 11 attacks and that they would be held at a federal detention facility in New York.
The decisions about the terrorism suspects came as Obama's top lawyer, Gregory Craig, who was charged with leading the White House's troubled effort to close Guantanamo, announced his resignation Friday.
WASHINGTON – Morale has fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan, where troops are seeing record violence in the 8-year-old war, while those in Iraq show much improved mental health amid much lower violence, the Army said Friday.
Soldier suicides in Iraq did not increase for the first time since 2004, according to a new study.
Though findings of two new battlefield surveys are similar in several ways to the last ones taken in 2007, they come at a time of intense scrutiny on Afghanistan as President Barack Obama struggles to come up with a new war strategy and planned troop buildup. There is also perhaps equal new attention focused on the mental health of the force since a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last week in which an Army psychiatrist is charged.
Both surveys showed that soldiers on their third or fourth tours of duty had lower morale and more mental health problems than those with fewer deployments and an ever-increasing number of troops are having problems with their marriages.
The new survey on Afghanistan found instances of depression, anxiety and other psychological problems are about the same as they were in 2007. But it also said there is a shortage of mental health workers to help soldiers who need it, partly because of the buildup Obama already started this year with the dispatch of more than 20,000 extra troops.
Efforts already under way to get more health workers to the Afghan war could be hampered somewhat by last week's shooting. The psychiatrist charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder was slated to go to Afghanistan. Some of the dead and wounded also were to deploy there to bolster psychological services for soldiers.
The new Afghanistan survey found that individual soldier morale was about the same as previous studies, but that "unit morale rates ... were significantly lower than in 2005 or 2007," said an executive summary of the report that was to be explained in a news conference Friday. The units referred to were mostly platoons of roughly a couple dozen people each.
In Iraq, some 2,400 soldiers in randomly selected platoons filled out surveys from December 2008 through March 2009 and a mental health assessment team went to the warfront for a month starting in late February to analyze the results and hold interviews and focus groups.
In Afghanistan, more than 1,500 troops in more than 50 platoons filled out the surveys from April to June, and the assessment team when through the same process from May through June.
Mental health providers also were interviewed in each country.
It's the sixth such survey, a program that was groundbreaking when started in 2003 in that it was the biggest effort ever made to measure the health of troops — and the services they receive — right at the warfront.
The survey was different from previous ones in that it sampled two types of platoons. Some were maneuver units that warfighting groups engaged in combat-related tasks and others were support units such as aviation, engineering and medical elements less likely to have as much direct exposure to violence.
Other findings of the Afghanistan survey included:
_Junior enlisted soldiers reported significantly more marital problems than noncommissioned officers, stating they intended to get a divorce or that they suspected their spouses back home of infidelity.
_Exposure to combat, long recognized as a strong factor in mental health problems, was significantly higher this year than rates in 2005 and similar to rates in 2007 for the combat units.
_Combat units reported significantly lower unit morale in the last six months of their tours of duty, more evidence of the wearing affect of long deployments.
_Troops in their third or fourth deployment reported significantly more acute stress and other psychological problems, and among those married, reported significantly more marital problems compared to soldiers on their first or second deployment.
_Soldiers on their third or fourth deployment reported using medications for psychological or combat stress problems at a significantly higher rate than those on their first deployment.
_It was significantly harder to get behavioral health care this year than in 2005, a finding that may be owing to the fact that troops are spread out at hundreds of posts around the rugged terrain of Afghanistan.
_Troops who spent two to four hours daily playing video games or surfing the Internet as a way to cope helped lower their psychological problems, but spending time beyond that — three to four hours — had the opposite effect. Those who exercised or did other physical training decreased their mental problems, regardless of the time spent.
_Troops reported more and better training in suicide prevention and other mental health programs the Army has been increasing over recent years in an unprecedented effort to focus on the force's mental health.
_The mental health care system in Afghanistan is understaffed based on the Army doctrine of one mental health worker for every 700 troops.
Feds move to seize 4 mosques, tower linked to Iran
By ADAM GOLDMAN (AP) – 1 hour ago
NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors Thursday took steps to seize four U.S. mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government.
In what could prove to be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, prosecutors filed a civil complaint in federal court seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets of the Alavi Foundation and an alleged front company.
The assets include Islamic centers in New York City, Maryland, California and Houston, more than 100 acres in Virginia, and a 36-story office tower in New York.
Seizing the properties would be a sharp blow against Iran, which has been accused by the U.S. government of bankrolling terrorism and seeking a nuclear bomb.
A telephone call and e-mail to Iran's U.N. Mission seeking comment were not immediately answered.
It is extremely rare for U.S. law enforcement authorities to seize a house of worship, a step fraught with questions about the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
The action against the Shiite Muslim mosques is sure to inflame relations between the U.S. government and American Muslims, many of whom are fearful of a backlash after last week's Fort Hood shooting rampage, blamed on a Muslim American soldier.
The mosques and the office tower will remain open while the forfeiture case works its way through court in what could be a long process. What will happen to them if the government ultimately prevails is unclear. But the government typically sells properties it has seized through forfeiture, and the proceeds are sometimes distributed to crime victims.
There were no raids Thursday as part of the forfeiture action. The government is simply required to post notices of the civil complaint on the property.
Prosecutors said the Alavi Foundation, through a front company known as Assa Corp., illegally funneled millions in rental income back to Iran's state-owned Bank Melli. Bank Melli has been accused by a U.S. Treasury official of providing support for Iran's nuclear program, and it is illegal in the United States to do business with the bank.
Government officials have long suspected the foundation was an arm of the Iranian government; a 97-page complaint details involvement of several top officials in foundation business, including the country's deputy prime minister and ambassadors to the United Nations.
"For two decades, the Alavi Foundation's affairs have been directed by various Iranian officials, including Iranian ambassadors to the United Nations, in violation of a series of American laws," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The skyscraper, known as the Piaget building, was erected in the 1970s under the shah of Iran, who was overthrown in 1979. The tenants include law and investment firms and other businesses.
The sleek, modern building, last valued at $570 million to $650 million in 2007, has served as important source of income for the foundation over the past 36 years. The most recent tax records show the foundation earned $4.5 million from rents in 2007.
Rents collected from the building help fund the centers and other ventures, such as sending imprisoned Muslims in the U.S. educational literature. The foundation has also invested in dozens of mosques around the country and supported Iranian academics at prominent universities.
If federal prosecutors seize the skyscraper, the Alavi Foundation would have almost no way to continue supporting the Islamic centers, which house schools and mosques. That could leave a major void in Shiite communities, and hard feelings toward the FBI.
Legal scholars who specialize in religious liberty issues said they know of only a few cases in U.S. history in which law enforcement authorities have seized a house of worship. Marc Stern, a religious-liberty expert with the American Jewish Congress, called such cases "extremely rare."
The Alavi Foundation is the successor organization to the Pahlavi Foundation, a nonprofit group used by the shah to advance Iran's charitable interests in America. But authorities said its agenda changed after the fall of the shah.
In 2007, the United States accused Bank Melli of providing services to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and put the bank on its list of companies whose assets must be frozen.
The United States has imposed sanctions against various other Iranian banks and other businesses.
WASHINGTON – Finger-pointing erupted between federal agencies Tuesday over Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan. Government officials said a Defense Department terrorism investigator looked into Hasan's contacts with a radical imam months ago, but a military official denied prior knowledge of the Army psychiatrist's contacts with any Muslim extremists.
The two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case on the record, said the Washington-based joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI was notified of communications between Hasan and a radical imam overseas, and the information was turned over to a Defense Criminal Investigative Service employee assigned to the task force. The communications were gathered by investigators beginning in December 2008 and continuing into early this year.
That Defense investigator wrote up an assessment of Hasan after reviewing the communications and the Army major's personnel file, according to these officials. The assessment concluded Hasan did not merit further investigation — in large part because his communications with the imam were centered on a research paper about the effects of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and the investigator determined that Hasan was in fact working on such a paper, the officials said.
The disclosure came as questions swirled about whether opportunities were missed to head off the massacre in which 13 died and 29 were wounded last Thursday — a familiar, early stage in the investigation of headline-grabbing crimes when public officials involved in a case often speak anonymously as they try to shift any blame to rivals in other agencies.
The disclosure Tuesday of the defense investigator's role indicated that the U.S. military was aware of worrisome behavior by the massacre suspect long before the attack. Just hours later, a senior defense official, also demanding anonymity, directly contradicted that notion.
The senior defense official said neither the Army nor any other part of the Defense Department knew of Hasan's contacts with any Muslim extremists. But the defense official carefully conceded this view was based upon what the Pentagon knows now.
The FBI has launched its own internal review of how it handled the early information about Hasan. Military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies also are defending themselves against tough questions about what each of them knew about Hasan before he allegedly opened fire in a crowded room at the huge military base in Texas.
Hasan has not been formally charged but officials plan to charge him in military court, not a civilian one, a choice that suggests his alleged actions are not thought to have emanated from a terrorist organization. He could face the death penalty.
Investigators believe Hasan acted alone, despite his communications with Anwar al-Awlaki, an imam released from a Yemeni jail last year who has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims across the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. Because the communications between Hasan and al-Awlaki did not contain threats or advocacy of violence, no formal investigation was opened into Hasan, they said.
Officials said the content of those messages was "consistent with the subject matter of his research," part of which involved post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from U.S. combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A law enforcement official said the communications consisted primarily of Hasan posing questions to the imam as a spiritual leader or adviser, and the imam did respond to at least some of those messages.
Investigative officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case on the record. Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said it was his understanding Hasan and the imam exchanged e-mails that counterterrorism officials picked up.
Born in New Mexico, al-Awlaki is a former imam at a Falls Church, Va., mosque where Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped. In 2001, al-Awlaki had contact with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers. That contact was investigated by the FBI, but no charges were brought against al-Awlaki.
On Monday, al-Awlaki's Web site praised Hasan as a hero.
By Tuesday, his Web site was offline, but it was unclear whether the site was taken down deliberately.
The imam's site was hosted by a Culver City, Calif.,-based company, Media Temple Inc., which also runs Web sites for well-known corporations, according to Internet registration records and the company's own sales literature. Media Temple did not immediately respond to phone calls or e-mails Tuesday from The Associated Press. Internet records indicated Media Temple was itself leasing the site's Internet address from a Brea, Calif.,-based company, New Dream Network LLC, which declined to answer questions about the Web site Tuesday, citing customer privacy.
"We do work routinely with law enforcement on the local, national and international level in an expedient manner," New Dream Network said in a statement.
Hasan's electronic interactions with al-Awlaki have drawn new attention to the imam, who is well known among intelligence circles, a former senior U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press. Al-Awlaki is considered to have deep and close links with al-Qaida but is not understood to be an al-Qaida operative, the official said.
The Senate has already launched its own inquiry into the Hasan case. Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, plan to hold a hearing on the shootings next week.
Fort Hood suspect alert, talking to medical personnel Army Criminal Investgation Command, FBI waiting to question Nidal Hasan
By Philip Rucker and William Branigin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 9, 2009 2:20 PM
FORT HOOD, Tex. -- Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who allegedly gunned down dozens of people at Fort Hood last week before being wounded by police, is conscious and talking to medical personnel at a U.S. Army hospital in San Antonio, hospital officials said Monday.
Hasan, 39, was flown to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston on Friday from a hospital in Temple, Tex., where he was taken following Thursday's shooting rampage at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center. The Army major, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, is accused of opening fire Thursday with two handguns on soldiers preparing to deploy to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing 13 people and injuring 38 others before civilian police shot him four times.
"He is in stable condition, and he is conversing with the medical staff, the doctors and nurses who are assisting with his medical needs," said Maria Gallegos, a spokeswoman at Brooke Army Medical Center about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood.
She said she could not say whether Hasan has spoken to investigators about the Fort Hood shooting. She also declined to discuss Hasan's injuries.
Another hospital spokesman said Hasan has been able to talk since he was taken off a ventilator Saturday.
Investigators from the Army's Criminal Investigation Command and the FBI have been waiting to question Hasan as they try to establish a motive for the shooting and determine whether the suspect had any assistance or instigation from anyone else.
In a news conference Monday in front of III Corps headquarters, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, Fort Hood's commanding general, said, "I believe this was an isolated incident, a very unfortunate isolated incident."
The investigators are looking into possible links between Hasan and Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American-born Muslim prayer leader who preached at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., when Hasan was attending it in 2001. U.S. authorities say Aulaqi, who left the United States in 2002 and settled in Yemen, has become a supporter and leading promoter of al-Qaeda.
In a blog posting Monday, Aulaqi called Hasan "a hero" and a "man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people." He praised "the virtue" of the Fort Hood shooting and said the only way a Muslim could justify serving in the U.S. Army was if he intended to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal."
Cone declined to discuss the investigation Monday. But in response to a question, he told reporters that Hasan, who arrived at Fort Hood in July from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, was primarily involving in writing evaluations of patients.
"He didn't have an extensive role in counseling soldiers," Cone said.
Cone spoke as Fort Hood prepared for a memorial service Tuesday to honor those killed and wounded in the shooting, a service to be attended by President Obama, top military brass, members of the victims' families and about 3,000 spectators.
Cone said 27 soldiers who were injured in Thursday's shooting have been released from hospitals and that most of them are expected to attend the service. Fifteen soldiers remain hospitalized, eight of them in intensive care, Cone said.
He said the service -- featuring remarks by Obama, prayers, a sermon, a roll call of the names of the dead and a 21-gun salute -- is aimed at facilitating "the grieving process" for soldiers, civilians and family members at Fort Hood, especially the estimated 600 people who "somehow were directly touched by this incident."
Cone said the Army is focusing on providing counseling to those who were traumatized by the massacre and is looking for other soldiers who may be under the same sort of stress that possibly could have affected Hasan.
"We're going to take a very hard look . . . at anything that might have been done to prevent this," Cone said. "We have some other soldiers that might have some of the same stress and indicators that he had.
As he spoke, soldiers were stacking large shipping containers around the perimeter of Tuesday's memorial service site in what Cone said was a measure to provide both security and privacy.
Of the intensified security measures that have been implemented at the sprawling post since the shooting, Cone said, "Our intent is not to isolate ourselves from this great local community.
The three-star general added: "This cannot become . . . a battlefield. We Will provide the right kind of security measures on post to make sure that it doesn't."
By APRIL CASTRO and DEVLIN BARRETT – 24 minutes ago
FORT HOOD, Texas — An Army officer opened fire Thursday with two handguns at the Fort Hood military base in an attack that left 12 people dead and 31 wounded. Authorities killed the gunman and apprehended two other soldiers in what appears to be the worst mass shooting at a U.S. military base.
There was no immediate word on a motive. The shooting began around 1:30 p.m., said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone at Fort Hood. He said all the casualties took place at the base's Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening.
"It's a terrible tragedy. It's stunning," Cone said.
A law enforcement official identified the shooting suspect as Army Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan. The official said Hasan, believed to be in his late 30s, was killed after opening fire at the base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
A defense official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hasan was a mental health professional — an Army psychologist or psychiatrist. Officials say it was not clear what Hasan's religion was, but investigators are trying to determine if Hasan was his birth name or if he may have changed his name and converted to Islam at some point.
A graduation ceremony for soldiers who finished college courses while deployed was going on nearby at the time of the shooting, said Sgt. Rebekah Lampam, a Fort Hood spokeswoman.
Greg Schanepp, U.S. Rep. John Carter's regional director in Texas, was representing Carter at the graduation, said John Stone, a spokesman for Carter, whose district includes the Army post.
Schanepp was at the ceremony when a soldier who had been shot in the back came running toward him and alerted him of the shooting, Stone said. The soldier told Schanepp not to go in the direction of the shooter, he said.
The base was locked down after the shootings. The wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas, Cone said. Nine were taken to Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple. A hospital spokeswoman says all had been shot and are adults. A Fort Hood spokesman said he could not immediately confirm any identities of the injured.
Lisa Pfund of Random Lake, Wis., says her daughter, 19-year-old Amber Bahr, was shot in the stomach but was in stable condition. "We know nothing, just that she was shot in the belly," Pfund told The Associated Press. She couldn't provide more details and only spoke with emergency personnel.
"I ask that all of you keep these families and these individuals in your prayers today," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said.
The shootings on the Texas military base stirred memories of other recent mass shootings in the United States, including 13 dead at a New York immigrant center in March, 10 killed during a gunman's rampage across Alabama in March and 32 killed in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history at Virginia Tech in 2007.
Around the country, some bases stepped up security precautions, but no others were locked down.
"The bottom line for us is that we are increasing security at our gates because the threat hasn't yet been defined, and we're reminding our Marines to be vigilant in their areas of responsibility," said Capt. Rob Dolan, public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz.
In Washington, President Barack Obama called the shooting "a horrific outburst of violence." He said it's a tragedy to lose a soldier overseas and even more horrifying when they come under fire at an Army base on American soil.
"We will make sure that we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident," the commander in chief said. "We are going to stay on this."
Covering 339 square miles, Fort Hood is the largest active duty armored post in the United States. Home to about 52,000 troops as of earlier this year, the sprawling base is located halfway between Austin and Waco.
About a mile from Fort Hood's east gate, Cynthia Thomas, director of Under the Hood Cafe, a coffee house and outreach center, was calling soldiers and friends on the post to make sure they're OK.
"It's chaotic," Thomas said, as a SWAT team just drove by. "The phones are jammed. Everybody is calling family members and friends. Soldiers are running around with M-16s."
Fort Hood officially opened on Sept. 18, 1942, and was named in honor of Gen. John Bell Hood. It has been continuously used for armored training and is charged with maintaining readiness for combat missions.
Associated Press Writers Anne Gearan, Lara Jakes, Suzanne Gamboa and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, D.C., Jay Root in Temple, Linda Stewart Ball, Anabelle Garay and Andre Coe in Dallas contributed to this report.
Potential swine flu vaccines for Guantanano detainees
Nov 4, 2009, 19:32 GMT
Washington - Guantanamo Bay detainees could receive swine flu vaccines but are low on the priority list, well behind soldiers deployed overseas and civilian personnel, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
The possibility that detainees, including the alleged plotters of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, could receive the immunizations has fueled controversy in the United States at a time when stockpiles of the vaccine are well short of the public's demand for innoculations.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said it could become necessary to vaccinate some or all of the 215 detainees to ensure US military personnel inside the confined detention centre are not at risk of contracting the disease.
No vaccines have been shipped to Guantanamo and there are no plans for the moment to do so, Morrell said. He added the military remains short of meeting its top priority - immunizing US soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq and health care personnel.
'We are still a long way from making sure that happens,' Morrell said. 'And not until that happens will we even consider taking care of those beneath them on the prioritization list.'
The top Republican in the House of Representatives, criticized the decision on CNN over the weekend, saying there remain too many vulnerable groups in the United States who should be in line ahead of prisoners.
'I just think that's wrong,' Representative John Boehner said.
Morrell pointed out that the Pentagon does not make decision regarding the health care of the US general population, but is responsible for Defence Department employees.
Afghanistan's Abdullah calls Karzai confirmation 'illegal'
Abdullah Abdullah also said Wednesday that President Karzai's government could not effectively tackle corruption or fight Afghanistan's insurgency.
Kabul, Afghanistan
Afghanistan's main opposition leader bowed out of the presidential contest peacefully – and even urged supporters not to protest.
But he's not letting Hamid Karzai retake power that easily.
In a press conference Wednesday, three days since dropping out of the race, Abdullah Abdullah questioned the legitimacy of President Karzai's new government, saying it fell to the people of Afghanistan to decide and declaring the decision to cancel the election runoff "illegal."
Commenting on the death of five British soldiers Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, Dr. Abdullah suggested the controversial elections result would only result in Western countries needing to send more troops.
"Eight years down the road we still need more troops. In the absence of a credible, reliable, and legitimate partner, more soldiers, more resources are the only thing which will be resulted," said Dr. Abdullah.
Election fiasco spurs calls for more US troops
The messy elections have, so far, dampened enthusiasm in Washington over sending more troops, since additional forces are tied to a counterinsurgency strategy that hopes to win back popular support for the government. But with the elections finished, some Afghans are couching the need for more troops in terms of simply stopping the insurgency from spreading, particularly in once-stable northern areas where Abdullah's loss is alienating political leaders.
"The northern area … is the emerging area for insurgency," says Waliullah Rahmani, the executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies. The Americans and the Karzai administration, he says, need to send more forces there and to fix the rift with Abdullah.
"They will not be able to follow a successful strategy in the northern areas of stabilizing the situation there without, for example, the Abdullah bloc."
Abdullah himself said many of the Afghan and international community goals for better governance would be futile given the genesis of this new government.
"A government which in its formation is based on an illegal decision by a body, to hope that the second government would deliver in dealing with the corruption, issues of governance, [improving] security in this country, it sounds like an exaggeration," said Abdullah.
The north has seen a rise in attacks over the past year. Partly, this is from Taliban finding new entry points into the region, and partly from increased activity of Hizb-e-Islami forces aligned with the Taliban.
Rahmani says it's too early to know what, if any, impact unhappiness in the north over the election might have on former mujahideen and Islamist party commanders. These figures – particularly those once aligned with the parties of Hizb-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Islami – form the dry tinder for a northern insurgency to spread.
"The north has the potential for insurgency and, of course, if you do not have supportive elements and correctors in these areas to control the province, then for sure insurgent elements will have a wider ground. So the Obama administration should decide to send more troops to Afghanistan," he says.
Offsetting these concerns, however, is the fact that Abdullah has consistently appealed for nonviolence and come out against popular street demonstrations. He reiterated that message Wednesday, despite word from top supporters yesterday that demonstrations were under consideration.
"I wish for my people to be calm and patient and to live in a peaceful environment. So do not do illegal things," Abdullah said.
Support for a Karzai-Abdullah deal
He went on to deny that there was any sort of deal in the works for some of his supporters to take cabinet positions in the new Karzai government. "We are not going to deal," he said, and as for a position for himself: "I am not interested." The last time he met with Karzai, he said, was over a week ago.
Rahmani says that private conversations around Kabul reveal there are negotiations over handing some key ministries over to Abdullah's supporters. The US should push strongly for this, he argues, by telling Abdullah: "Let's not put Afghanistan in crisis."
Interviews with Karzai supporters around Kabul suggest there is general support for welcoming Abdullah or his people into the new government.
"For the rehabilitation of Afghanistan, we would have nothing against [Abdullah]. If he came to the government, we would be happy," says Kasim Khalil, a retired military general and campaigner for Karzai
Another Karzai voter, Hafiz Tarakhil, said such a union would be good, but so would Abdullah as an opposition figure.
"If we were to continue his opposition that is also good because the government should have an opposite side," says Mr. Tarkahil.
President Obama promised to shutter the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year of assuming office, issuing an executive order mandating the closure of the facility by Jan. 22, 2010.
"The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order," it said.
While it is now clear that goal is unlikely to be met, it's worth examining just how distant it has become.
The Washington Post built a database of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay from 2002 to May 2006. The collection, released in May 2006, was the largest list of names made public at the time, encompassing more than 550 individuals, and the paper has continued to maintain records on detainees there. Since then, the Department of Defense, under a Freedom of Information Act request, has also publicly issued the names of all those held at the facility since its opening -- a total of 779 people.
By late February, a month after Obama took office, 241 detainees remained in custody at Guantanamo, according to Post records.
Over the weekend, six Uighurs held by American forces since 2001 were released to the tiny island nation of Palau.
Remaining at Guantanamo: 215 individuals -- a number that represents a decrease of just 26 people over the past eight months.
Only three months remain until the president's self-imposed deadline for clearing out the facility.
U.S. President Barack Obama made an overnight trip to a military air base in the state of Delaware to meet a plane carrying the bodies of 18 U.S. soldiers and civilian personnel recently killed in Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama took off from the White House lawn aboard the presidential helicopter late Wednesday night for Dover Air Force Base. The trip was revealed only to a small group of reporters on condition of secrecy.
The president held a private meeting with the families of the fallen Americans at a base chapel after his arrival.
An Air Force cargo plane transported the bodies of eight U.S. soldiers killed Tuesday in a series of bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, plus seven other soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed the day before in the crash of a military helicopter.
The deaths made October the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the invasion that toppled Afghanistan's Taliban in late 2001.
Mr. Obama and officials boarded the cargo plane as a military chaplain prayed over the casket of Army Sergeant Dale Griffin. After a few moments, they formed a line on the tarmac and saluted as six soldiers carried Griffin's casket off the plane and into a waiting vehicle.
Griffin's family was the only one to give journalists permission to cover what the Pentagon describes as a "dignified transfer." Earlier this year, the Pentagon lifted an 18-year-old ban on media coverage of the return of fallen U.S. service members, pending the permission of family members.
Dover Air Force Base houses the largest military mortuary in the United States and is the Pentagon's entry for service men and woman killed overseas.
The president is leading a lengthy review of the new strategy on Afghanistan he implemented in March, including the deployment of 21,000 more combat troops and trainers. The additional forces would bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 68,000.
Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has requested an additional 40,000 troops as U.S. casualties there have risen in recent months.
Panel withholds support for move of Gitmo detainees to Standish site
BY KATHLEEN GRAY FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
The Arenac County Board of Commissioners changed its collective mind this morning, sort of.
Two weeks ago, the commission approved a resolution supporting the transfer of Guantánamo Bay detainees to the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility, which is slated to close by Saturday.
But this morning, the commission decided to reserve its support until the federal government answers a handful of questions, including whether land will be taken, roads closed, landscaping at the prison modified by the government and whether local and state law enforcement would be responsible for any work at the prison.
The resolution passed on a 4-1 vote.
The city of Standish voted on a resolution supporting the transfer of inmates from other state or federal prison facilities into the Standish prison. The council removed the word “detainees” from the resolution, but that doesn’t preclude the transfer of the Guantánamo Bay prisoners to the 600-bed prison in northeast Michigan.
14 Americans killed in 2 Afghan helicopter crashes Oct 26 11:38 AM US/Eastern
By HEIDI VOGT Associated Press Writer
KABUL (AP) - Helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans on Monday—11 troops and three drug agents—in the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years. The deaths came as President Barack Obama prepared to meet his national security team for a sixth full-scale conference on the future of the troubled war.
In the deadliest crash, a helicopter went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight, killing 10 Americans—seven troops and three Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Eleven American troops, one U.S. civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured.
In a separate incident, two U.S. Marine helicopters—one UH-1 and an AH-1 Cobra—collided in flight before sunrise over the southern province of Helmand, killing four American troops and wounding two more, Marine spokesman Maj. Bill Pelletier said.
It was the heaviest single-day loss of life since June 28, 2005, when 16 U.S. troops on a special forces helicopter died when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down by insurgents. The casualties also mark the first DEA deaths in Afghanistan since it began operations there in 2005.
U.S. authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taliban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province's Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim and unclear if he was referring to the same incident.
Military spokeswoman Elizabeth Mathias said hostile fire was unlikely because the troops were not receiving fire when the helicopter took off.
NATO said the helicopter was returning from a joint operation that targeted insurgents involved in "narcotics trafficking in western Afghanistan."
"During the operation, insurgent forces engaged the joint force and more than a dozen enemy fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight," a NATO statement said.
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium—the raw ingredient in heroin—and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups.
U.S. forces also reported the death of two other American service members a day earlier: one in a bomb attack in the east, and another who died of wounds sustained in an insurgent attack in the same region. The deaths bring to at least 46 the number of U.S. service members who have been killed in October.
This has been the deadliest year for international and U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban. Fighting spiked around the presidential vote in August, and 51 U.S. soldiers died that month—the deadliest for American forces in the eight-year war.
The Obama administration is debating whether to send tens of thousands more troops to the country, while the Afghan government is rushing to hold a Nov. 7 runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah after it was determined that the August election depended on fraudulent votes.
The Obama administration is hoping the runoff will produce a legitimate government. In Washington, Obama was to meet with his national security team Monday in what was to be the sixth full-scale Afghanistan conference in the White House Situation Room.
Abdullah on Monday called for election commission chairman Azizullah Lodin to be replaced within five days, saying he has "no credibility."
Lodin has denied accusations he is biased in favor of Karzai, and the election commission's spokesman has already said Lodin cannot be replaced by either side.
Abdullah made the demand in a news conference during which he spelled out what he said were "minimum conditions" for holding a fair second round of voting, including the firing of any workers implicated in fraud and the suspension of several ministers he said had campaigned for Karzai in the first round before the official campaigning period began.
Abdullah did not say what would happen if his demands were not met. "I reserve my reaction if we are faced with that unfortunate situation," he said.
Abdullah said he was willing to meet with Karzai to discuss the conditions, but repeated that he would not discuss a coalition government as some have suggested, nor compromise on his recommendations out of concerns that they are difficult to implement.
"These are not impossible things," Abdullah said, stressing that his team had pared them down to what they considered essential to a fair vote and possible to put in place before the runoff.
Another flawed election would cast doubt on the wisdom of sending in more U.S. troops.
With less than two weeks to go until the vote, disagreements have emerged between the U.N. and the Afghans on how to conduct the balloting.
Lodin said the commission hopes to open all 23,960 polling stations from the first round. The U.N. wants to open only 16,000 stations to cut down on the number of "ghost polling stations" that never opened but were used to stuff ballot boxes.
Elsewhere Monday, Nangarhar province Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai survived an assassination attempt after a gunman fired automatic weapons at his convoy in Jalalabad, according to his spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai. Sherzai's bodyguards killed the gunman, as well as another attacker wearing a suicide vest and carrying grenades.
Meanwhile, security forces in Kabul fired automatic rifles into the air for a second day Monday to contain hundreds of stone-throwing university students angered over the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book, the Quran, by U.S. troops during an operation two weeks ago in Wardak province. Fire trucks were also brought in to push back protesters with water cannons. Police said several officers were injured in the mayhem.
U.S. and Afghan authorities have denied any such desecration and insist that the Taliban are spreading the rumor to stir up public anger. The rumor has sparked similar protests in Wardak and Khost provinces.
U.S. tested 2 Afghan scenarios in war game Obama and advisers evaluating exercise that used different troop levels
By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 26, 2009
The Pentagon's top military officer oversaw a secret war game this month to evaluate the two primary military options that have been put forward by the Pentagon and are being weighed by the Obama administration as part of a broad-based review of the faltering Afghanistan war, senior military officials said.
The exercise, led by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, examined the likely outcome of inserting 44,000 more troops into the country to conduct a full-scale counterinsurgency effort aimed at building a stable Afghan government that can control most of the country. It also examined adding 10,000 to 15,000 more soldiers and Marines as part of an approach that the military has dubbed "counterterrorism plus."
Both options were drawn from a detailed analysis prepared by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan, and were forwarded to President Obama in recent weeks by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
The Pentagon war game did not formally endorse either course; rather, it tried to gauge how Taliban fighters, the Afghan and Pakistani governments and NATO allies might react to either of the scenarios. Mullen, a key player in the game, has discussed its conclusions with senior White House officials involved in the discussions over the new strategy.
One of the exercise's key assumptions is that an increase of 10,000 to 15,000 troops would not give U.S. commanders the forces they need to take back havens from the Taliban commanders in southern and western Afghanistan, where shadow insurgent governors collect taxes and run court systems based on Islamic sharia law.
"We were running out the options and trying to understand the implications from many different perspectives, including the enemy and the Afghan people," said a senior military official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the classified game.
The Obama administration initiated a major review of its war strategy in late September after questions emerged about the legitimacy of the Aug. 20 Afghan elections, which were marred by allegations of widespread fraud, and a troubling update on the progress of the war by McChrystal. He warned that unless the United States moved quickly to wrest momentum from the Taliban, defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan might no longer be possible.
What was intended to be two or three weeks of intensive White House meetings has stretched on for almost a month. Obama and his national security advisers have sorted through the military and civilian aspects of the war, building toward a decision that many on the outside have urged be made sooner rather than later.
Last week, the president concluded the five planned review sessions, roughly 15 hours in all, with top advisers in the Situation Room.
McChrystal's analysis has drawn widespread support inside the Pentagon. It suggests that 44,000 troops would be needed to drive Taliban forces from populated areas and to hold them until Afghan troops and government officials can take the place of U.S. and NATO forces. The extra troops would allow U.S. commanders to essentially triple the size of the American forces in the southern part of the country, where the Taliban movement originated and where the insurgents have their strongest base of support.
McChrystal would also use the additional troops to bolster the effort in eastern Afghanistan, which has long been a focus of the U.S. military, and push additional troops into western Afghanistan, where the military has maintained a tiny presence and where the Taliban has made inroads, U.S. officials said. A surge of 44,000 soldiers and Marines would also allow McChrystal to designate a brigade of about 5,000 soldiers to train and advise the Afghan army and police forces, accelerating their growth.
The increase of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers would give McChrystal one U.S. advisory brigade of about 5,000 troops to speed the development of Afghan forces and a large number of support forces to include engineers, route-clearance teams and helicopters. McChrystal's analysis also suggested the option of increasing the number of troops by 80,000, but that isn't drawing serious consideration.
In television interviews Sunday, lawmakers outlined broad partisan differences over how many troops are needed in Afghanistan. Republicans have voiced strong support for granting McChrystal's request for more troops, and urged that it be done quickly.
"I'm afraid that with every passing day, we risk the future success of the mission," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) disagreed, calling the decision-making process "very proper and smart." The administration's lengthy deliberations are "what we need, because we're going to end up living with the results for a good period of time," Webb said on CNN's "State of the Union.
"The administration's internal deliberations have emphasized that unless the Afghan government dramatically improves its performance, the Taliban will continue to find support. Administration officials said Obama's decision will consider a much broader range of options than the number of troops. At nearly every meeting in the White House Situation Room, McChrystal has been joined on the video screens at the end of the table by Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, and Anne W. Patterson, his counterpart in Pakistan.
One question being debated is whether more U.S. troops would improve the performance of the Afghan government by providing an important check on corruption and the drug trade, or would they stunt the growth of the Afghan government as U.S. troops and civilians take on more tasks that Afghans might better perform themselves. Another factor is cost. The Pentagon has budgeted about $65 billion to maintain a force of about 68,0000 troops, meaning that each additional 1,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan would cost about $1 billion a year.
Administration officials say Obama might settle on a plan but delay announcing it until after a runoff in the Afghan national elections, scheduled for Nov. 7. The president is to begin a 10-day trip to Asia on Nov. 11.
Early this month, McChrystal was told to delay a planned Washington trip until Obama had finished gathering facts on the way ahead. "When you see McChrystal in town," along with Eikenberry and Patterson, a senior administration official said, "you'll know that [Obama] is close to a decision."
