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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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September 10th,
2009 - DOD Lawyer Hedges on Closing Gitmo by January |
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DOD Lawyer Hedges on Closing
Gitmo by January By Lara Jakes Associated Press September 10, 2009 Washington - The Pentagon's
top lawyer on Thursday said the Obama administration remains committed to
closing the Guantanamo Bay prison by early next year but stopped short of
assuring it will happen. Pentagon general counsel Jeh
Johnson's comments came as Congress weighs how to revamp a military court
system - a key part of President Barack Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo by
Jan. 22. A number of legal questions
remain on how to prosecute and detain the 226 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and
foreign fighters currently held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba. That has
cast doubt on whether the Obama administration can resolve the questions in
just over four months, and prompted top Republicans in Congress to demand
that the prison stay open for now. Johnson told a national
security panel of American Bar Association lawyers that there are many issues
involved in closing Guantanamo Bay and transferring detainees elsewhere. "But we all remain
committed to doing this, and we remain committed to doing this on the
deadline that the president set," Johnson said. "But there are many
challenges." Underscoring those
challenges, Johnson also said he hoped that legislation to overhaul the
Bush-era military commissions court system would be completed by the end of
this month. In brief remarks to The
Associated Press, Johnson cautioned that administration lawyers are still at
odds with a Senate plan that defines providing material support to terrorists
as a war crime. Material support is a
federal crime, but the charge was elevated to a laws of war violation in the
2006 Military Commissions Act pushed by then-President George W. Bush. The
issue is important because it will determine what kind of court some of the
Guantanamo detainees will be tried in. The government wants to resolve it
before deciding to which U.S. prisons the detainees can be moved. "We don't believe that
material support is a law of war offense," Johnson said. "That's
still our position. Material support is still in the bill. Don't know how
that's going to end up." Meanwhile, the government
faces a deadline next Thursday to continue with several key military
commissions cases that have been on hold while the administration continues
to work on revising the commissions law and closing the detention center.
Pentagon lawyers could simply ask for another extension and keep the cases on
hold. Speaking on the eve of the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Johnson described the administration's struggle to
follow legal and moral guidelines when dealing with terror detainees while
protecting America from al-Qaida. Ultimately, he said, the
government must ensure that U.S. laws follow what he called American values
that do not allow cruel or degrading treatment of detainees - and that
military troops and interrogators alike clearly understand those rules. "There are no easy
answers to the questions that we face," Johnson said. "But I'd like
you all to be patient with us. We are doing our best." Associated Press Writer
Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report. Copyright © 2009 The
Associated Press. External link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4xYyvWDfL4tuqx_gqzGLQCH0i9gD9AKIP700 |