White House Dodging Questions on Bagram Prison and Detainees Without Rights

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

As a citizen and political reporter, there's almost too much to sort out, too many threads to follow, in trying to stay on top of the stories of Bush Administration egregiousness. At least when Bush was still president, the facts came out in dribs and drabs, making it possible to deal with one revelation at a time.

Barack Obama is president now, and accountability is back on the table, kind of. Torture and detainee issues are being fought out in various courts, both domestic and international. They're under discussion in Congress, where Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, is calling for investigations, a judicial impeachment, and the naming of a special prosecutor. ("It was not an honest legal memo. It was an instruction manual on how to break the law. -- Rep. Nadler, speaking of Bybee's memo.) Clearly, the pressure is mounting on President Obama to fully discover and come to grips with what's been done by his predecessors, either illegally or immorally, and to set a new path. How far will he go?

Right after his inauguration, President Obama signed a series of executive orders which created a special task force to review detainee policies, with a July target date for completing the review. His administration has condemned torture and pledged not to continue torturing, and they're progressing towards closing the "extra-judicial" detainment site, Gitmo. Last week, President Obama released four CIA memos relating to torture and indicated, again, that he wants to move forward, not look backward. All significant changes, and yet ... he and his spokesmen keep trying to "turn the page" and not look backward, but just move forward. Is that even possible?

In the mean time, world events and new discoveries have a way of cascading onward, leading to new questions and complications faster than government can seem to move. In the space of about a week, we've had news reports on Spanish Judge Garzon considering prosecuting high Bush officials, then the Spanish attorney general advising him not to do so, then the judge choosing to go ahead with the case anyway. Did the Obama Administration perhaps intervene there, but to no avail? That one could get dicey, as William Fisher writes at the Public Record, because:

Spanish law gives its courts jurisdiction beyond national borders in cases of torture or war crimes, based on a doctrine known as universal justice, though the government has recently said it hopes to limit the scope of the legal process. ...

But this case, if it ultimately goes forward, will have implications far beyond Spain, because arrest warrants issued in Spain will be binding on all twenty-seven European Union member states.

With the four new torture memos released by the Administration, after reportedly heated internal debates, detail-oriented bloggers discovered that previous disclosures of waterboarding had kept hidden a much larger use of the technique. Two detainees underwent 266 waterboardings, of greater intensity than previously disclosed. So, will there be prosecutions of interrogators who exceeded the limits of even the Bush/Bybee/Yoo-authorized "enhanced" techniques? Is anyone ultimately liable?

Today President Obama was scheduled to address staff members at CIA headquarters in Langley. Will he clarify guidelines so higher ups and lower downs are on the same page? Will he absolve past wrongs? Will he draw a distinction between wrong-doing by policy setters and career-path order followers? Will he keep his remarks private or make them public?

Meanwhile, as human rights attorney Joanne Mariner wrote persuasively at findlaw (and others have argued), our using torture didn't work anyway:

We should not forget the most infamous use of information obtained abusively by the CIA, as it speaks volumes about such information's unreliability. Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, a detainee who was rendered by the CIA to Egypt, claimed under torture that he knew of links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell even used this information in his speech to the United Nations justifying the invasion of Iraq.

As we all know, the claim turned out to be false. Al-Libi himself later repudiated it, explaining that his interrogators forced the statements out of him.

Information obtained via torture is deeply tainted, and should not be used in legal or administrative proceedings of any kind. Not only should the U.S. government bar reliance on such evidence in the future, it should take steps to remedy past uses of it.

Also, about a week ago, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs laughed off questions about habeas corpus rights at Bagram Air Force Base (Helen Thomas's question) and the Spanish war crimes case (David Corn's query). What's so funny about those issues, Robert Gibbs? Were you just trying to stall as things played out in Spain? Will your boss and his attorney general keep maintaining that Bagram is different because it's in an "active theater of war"? What about Judge John Bates' recent ruling that Bagram actually is governed by the same criteria as Gitmo, where the US Supreme Court ruled that detainees do have habeas corpus rights and the right to legal representation? Can Obama be ready to respect the rights of Gitmo detainees, but not those of the folks in Bagram?

President Obama's first 100 days in office have not yet passed. His detainee task force continues its work. Does his don't-look-back philosophy mean he sees no need for prosecutions? Or is he merely intent on letting the Congress or the court of international opinion lead the way on war crimes, torture, and rights like habeas corpus?

The answer may lie in his first major act as President. Those words he signed say: 

Finally, the Order creates a Special Task Force with two missions. The Task Force will conduct a review of the Army Field Manual interrogation guidelines to determine whether different or additional guidance is necessary for the CIA. It will also look at rendition and other policies for transferring individuals to third countries to be sure that our policies and practices comply with all obligations and are sufficient to ensure that individuals do not face torture and cruel treatment if transferred. This Task Force will be led by the Attorney General with the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence as co-Vice Chairs.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office

And as Congressman Nadler has said:

These memos make it abundantly clear that the Bush administration engaged in torture. Because torture is illegal under American law – as the U.S. is a signatory to the Convention Against Torture – we are legally required to investigate and, when appropriate, to prosecute those responsible for these crimes.

... All history teaches us that simply shining a light on criminal acts without holding the responsible people accountable will not prevent repetition of those acts.

“We must have a criminal investigation if the U.S. is to reclaim its moral authority and prevent repetition of these crimes. 

... All history teaches us that simply shining a light on criminal acts without holding the responsible people accountable will not preven retition of those acts.

Tuesday, Nadler will pay a visit to Attorney General Eric Holder, at which point the ball will evidently be in his court.

Update: The transcripts from President Obama's CIA visit.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Technorati Tags: Analysis Habeas Corpus Bagram Detainees Rights Helen Thomas David Corn Robert Gibbs Jerrold Nadler