Oh. My. God.
Jan. 3rd, 2005 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windelinaLong-Term Plan Sought For Terror Suspects
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 2, 2005; Page A01
Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.
"We've been operating in the moment because that's what has been required," said a senior administration official involved in the discussions, who said the current detention system has strained relations between the United States and other countries. "Now we can take a breath. We have the ability and need to look at long-term solutions."
One proposal under review is the transfer of large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center into new U.S.-built prisons in their home countries. The prisons would be operated by those countries, but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognized human rights standards and would monitor compliance, the senior administration official said.
As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, according to defense officials.
The new prison, dubbed Camp 6, would allow inmates more comfort and freedom than they have now, and would be designed for prisoners the government believes have no more intelligence to share, the officials said. It would be modeled on a U.S. prison and would allow socializing among inmates.
"Since global war on terror is a long-term effort, it makes sense for us to be looking at solutions for long-term problems," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. "This has been evolutionary, but we are at a point in time where we have to say, 'How do you deal with them in the long term?' "
The administration considers its toughest detention problem to involve the prisoners held by the CIA. The CIA has been scurrying since Sept. 11, 2001, to find secure locations abroad where it could detain and interrogate captives without risk of discovery, and without having to give them access to legal proceedings.
Little is known about the CIA's captives, the conditions under which they are kept -- or the procedures used to decide how long they are held or when they may be freed. That has prompted criticism from human rights groups, and from some in Congress and the administration, who say the lack of scrutiny or oversight creates an unacceptable risk of abuse.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), vice chairman of the House intelligence committee who has received classified briefings on the CIA's detainees and interrogation methods, said that given the long-term nature of the detention situation, "I think there should be a public debate about whether the entire system should be secret.
"The details about the system may need to remain secret," Harman said. At the least, she said, detainees should be registered so that their treatment can be tracked and monitored within the government. "This is complicated. We don't want to set up a bureaucracy that ends up making it impossible to protect sources and informants who operate within the groups we want to penetrate."
The CIA is believed to be holding fewer than three dozen al Qaeda leaders in prison. The agency holds most, if not all, of the top captured al Qaeda leaders, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Zubaida and the lead Southeast Asia terrorist, Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali.
CIA detention facilities have been located on an off-limits corner of the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, on ships at sea and on Britain's Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean. The Washington Post reported last month that the CIA has also maintained a facility within the Pentagon's Guantanamo Bay complex, though it is unclear whether it is still in use.
In contrast to the CIA, the military produced and declassified hundreds of pages of documents about its detention and interrogation procedures after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. And the military detainees are guaranteed access to the International Committee of the Red Cross and, as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, have the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court.
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 2, 2005; Page A01
Administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely imprisoning suspected terrorists whom they do not want to set free or turn over to courts in the United States or other countries, according to intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials.
The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts. The outcome of the review, which also involves the State Department, would also affect those expected to be captured in the course of future counterterrorism operations.
"We've been operating in the moment because that's what has been required," said a senior administration official involved in the discussions, who said the current detention system has strained relations between the United States and other countries. "Now we can take a breath. We have the ability and need to look at long-term solutions."
One proposal under review is the transfer of large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center into new U.S.-built prisons in their home countries. The prisons would be operated by those countries, but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognized human rights standards and would monitor compliance, the senior administration official said.
As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, according to defense officials.
The new prison, dubbed Camp 6, would allow inmates more comfort and freedom than they have now, and would be designed for prisoners the government believes have no more intelligence to share, the officials said. It would be modeled on a U.S. prison and would allow socializing among inmates.
"Since global war on terror is a long-term effort, it makes sense for us to be looking at solutions for long-term problems," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. "This has been evolutionary, but we are at a point in time where we have to say, 'How do you deal with them in the long term?' "
The administration considers its toughest detention problem to involve the prisoners held by the CIA. The CIA has been scurrying since Sept. 11, 2001, to find secure locations abroad where it could detain and interrogate captives without risk of discovery, and without having to give them access to legal proceedings.
Little is known about the CIA's captives, the conditions under which they are kept -- or the procedures used to decide how long they are held or when they may be freed. That has prompted criticism from human rights groups, and from some in Congress and the administration, who say the lack of scrutiny or oversight creates an unacceptable risk of abuse.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), vice chairman of the House intelligence committee who has received classified briefings on the CIA's detainees and interrogation methods, said that given the long-term nature of the detention situation, "I think there should be a public debate about whether the entire system should be secret.
"The details about the system may need to remain secret," Harman said. At the least, she said, detainees should be registered so that their treatment can be tracked and monitored within the government. "This is complicated. We don't want to set up a bureaucracy that ends up making it impossible to protect sources and informants who operate within the groups we want to penetrate."
The CIA is believed to be holding fewer than three dozen al Qaeda leaders in prison. The agency holds most, if not all, of the top captured al Qaeda leaders, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Zubaida and the lead Southeast Asia terrorist, Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali.
CIA detention facilities have been located on an off-limits corner of the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, on ships at sea and on Britain's Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean. The Washington Post reported last month that the CIA has also maintained a facility within the Pentagon's Guantanamo Bay complex, though it is unclear whether it is still in use.
In contrast to the CIA, the military produced and declassified hundreds of pages of documents about its detention and interrogation procedures after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. And the military detainees are guaranteed access to the International Committee of the Red Cross and, as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, have the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court.
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Diego Garcia, BIOT...(British Indian Ocean Territory)
Date: 2005-01-03 08:36 pm (UTC)I bet they're using my old barracks as a prison. That's the island where swimming meant feeding Oceanic Blue Tips, walking meant heat exhaustion, coral abraisions, or...well, much, much worse. The island is a pimple on the ass of the planet. Tours of duty there paid hazard, separation and ES; triple play money that you had *nothing* to spend on, except in the E Club, NCO Club, or O Club. And really, there's only so much drinking you can do. Sounds like a *fine* place to put a max security prison for people you want to disappear.
Oh, my people.
What are the thinking!?!?
Date: 2005-01-03 10:36 pm (UTC)I find it sickening that our government (you know, the one that says we're innocent until proven guilty)holds people without access to legal recourse. Further, how can they even consider spending $25 million on a facility to permanently imprison people they cannot prove guilty and believe have no more information to share, when they could be educating our kids, helping people without health insurance, or doing any number of things that would actually be productive?!?!
Ok..happy thoughts...happy thoughts...
no subject
Date: 2005-01-04 04:45 am (UTC)I like the idea
Date: 2005-01-04 02:43 pm (UTC)Wait a minute! I forgot how benevolent the foreign governments are to Americans they are arrested aboard. NOT.
Perhaps all these prisoners are super nice and love America? Nope.
Is $25M all it costs to create a place where suspected terrorists can be stored until it is all sorted out? It's a deal at twice the price.
Re: I like the idea
Date: 2005-01-04 04:02 pm (UTC)There's an international court that the US has ignored because it might hold us accountable for the way we treat our prisoners. We want prisons on foreign soil so we can treat these prisoners in a way that would be ILLEGAL here in the U.S.
They are people. People that we could not convict in a court of law.
Wrong is wrong, Vackovich.
Re: I like the idea
Date: 2005-01-04 04:47 pm (UTC)American courts could not convict OJ Simpson or Bill Clinton in a court of law, and there was more than enough evidence to convict them, so why should I believe in the court system? They got a fair trial and that is all that matters because they are AMERICAN CITIZENS. Let me make something clear to you may not be aware of, the constitution and the bill of rights does not extend to foreigners for any reason, it is a citizens only club there. "We the people" does not stand for "We the people (and possible guests)".
Here is what important on the James wrong scale in the world in the "they are people" category in no particular order:
-- Rwanda (UN does nothing)
-- Somilia (UN does nothing)
-- Tibor East Africa (UN does nothing)
-- Palestine (UN does nothing)
-- Chechnia (UN does nothing)
And at the very bottom of all the injustice in the world, suspected terrorists who would only like to do harm to the US and its citizens. So if a few eggs have to be broken to make an omlette, who am I to judge? Why should I care? Thank you big government!
So before this mythical world approval rating system lowers for the the rating for the USA, let's just assume the US was at the bottom anyways, because everybody hates the US because who do not live here as far as I can tell.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-04 08:06 pm (UTC)You might just laugh this off, but how about really considering the following scenario? What if you were in another country and, for whatever reason, were suspected of being a threat to their safety. Say they mistook you for a terrorist. So, while they investigate, they throw you in jail without any access to legal counsel. The investigation doesn't turn up any damning evidence against you, at least not enough to bring you to trial, yet, there's still that tip or whatever it was that made them suspect you in the first place. Unable to try you, they just leave you in jail to rot because they've made up their minds that you *might* be dangerous. But you'd be ok with staying in prison with no hope of release, right? You wouldn't expect them to risk harm to their own citizens, would you? Never mind that they never convicted you of a crime.
By the way, I do understand and agree that Constitutional rights do not extend to foreigners. However, that doesn't mean that we, as a nation, shouldn't strive to be just. My opinion has nothing to do with pleasing UN governments, either. It's not about politics, it's about people's lives.
Thank you. By the way, I'm posting anonymously b/c I'm not a registered user.
Dear Anonymous
Date: 2005-01-04 09:54 pm (UTC)1. I am sure everyone they would like to keep incarcerated in this new building is of fine moral character and it is an injustice to put people so close to sainthood in jail. What kind of individuals do you think the government would build this facility for? Do you really believe that the US government is incarcerates people because they got nothing better to do?
2. Your scenerio of incarceration in a foreign country could happen if I was in many other second and third world countries and some first world countries. If anything, most of the prisoners are treated better than they would be by their own governments. Certainly better treatment than I would if I was in one of their prisons. Don't forget they have the media on their side because if it bleeds, it leads. Too bad the media does not delve what happens to prisoners and hostages of the terrorists in the detail they do the "torture" at the hands of the American captors. Why is it so hard to show the deaths and decapitation of Amercian and foreign citizens on TV during the nightly news? It's not like I have not seen two million murders on telvision by this point deemed as entertainment on primetime so what is a few rolling heads of real people to the total?
3. The US has set the bar of being just far higher than any other country on the planet. It is time of the others countries of the world to play catch up and stop pretending they are on the moral high ground.
So if you reading Anonymous, you can reply to me at jamesgreaves@hotmail.com instead of Windelina's very nice, cool, happy journal.