History > 2006 > USA > CIA / NI / NSA / NGA (III)

Negroponte Says U.S. Not at Higher Risk

September 26, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:10 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said Monday the jihad in Iraq is shaping a new generation of terrorist operatives, but rejected assertions, stemming from a leaked intelligence estimate, that the United States is at a greater risk of attack than it was in 2001.

''We are certainly more vigilant. We are better prepared,'' Negroponte said. ''We are safer.''

Negroponte's words came at a dinner at Washington's Woodrow Wilson Center after the weekend disclosure of a high-level National Intelligence Estimate. The document gave new fervor to an election-year debate about how the Iraq war has affected national security threats.

The report, Negroponte said, broadly addressed the global terrorist threat, not just the impact of Iraq.

He told the audience that radicalism is being fueled by entrenched grievances in the Arab world, the slow pace of social and political reforms there and anti-U.S. sentiment.

In addition, he said, ''The Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.''

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee urged the Bush administration Monday to declassify the intelligence assessment.

Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the American people should be able to see a public version of the report and draw their own conclusions about its contents. So far, he said, the public discussion has given the ''false impression'' that the National Intelligence Estimate focuses exclusively on Iraq and terrorism.

''That is not true,'' Roberts said, noting that the committee has had the report since April. ''This NIE examines global terrorism in its totality.''

In a letter to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the committee's top Democrat, said declassifying the report's conclusions would provide a complete picture of the report and ''contribute greatly to the public debate'' on counterterrorism policies.

Negroponte said he would consider the proposal in the next several days, given the interest in the document.

The report distills the thinking of senior U.S. intelligence analysts working throughout the nation's 16 spy agencies. Its conclusions are considered to be the voice of the U.S. intelligence community.

The New York Times first reported Saturday that the highly classified assessment finds that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has helped fuel a new generation of extremists and that the overall terror threat has grown since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- a conclusion at odds with President Bush's assertions that the nation is safer.

But Bush administration officials including Negroponte are contesting the media accounts, saying they describe only a portion of the conclusions and therefore distort the analysts' findings on trends in global terrorism.

As the November election approaches, the report has touched off an intense political debate about the impact of Iraq on U.S. security and the Bush administration's ability to go after terrorists.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Osama bin Laden and other Sept. 11 planners have not yet been brought to justice and Bush should read the intelligence carefully ''before giving another misleading speech about progress in the war on terrorism.'' She and 10 other Democratic leaders asked House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to hold hearings on the document's findings.

At a speech in April, believed to draw from the intelligence assessment, Negroponte's deputy at the time, Gen. Michael Hayden, said the centrality of the fight in Iraq and the diffusion of radical Islamic groups reinforce each other.

''We must understand the deep underlying realities there, and more importantly how it is routinely portrayed in Islamic media, continues to cultivate supporters for the global jihadist movement,'' he said.

Hayden said the threat from ''self-radicalized'' cells that are not necessarily tied to al-Qaida or some other central organization will also grow in importance. ''The homeland will not be immune to such cells, but the threat will be especially acute abroad,'' he said.

    Negroponte Says U.S. Not at Higher Risk, NYT, 26.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Terrorism-Intelligence.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat

September 24, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.

Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

Analysts began working on the estimate in 2004, but it was not finalized until this year. Part of the reason was that some government officials were unhappy with the structure and focus of earlier versions of the document, according to officials involved in the discussion.

Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States, but intelligence officials involved in preparing the document said its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes.

Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said the White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.

Documents released by the White House timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks emphasized the successes that the United States had made in dismantling the top tier of Al Qaeda.

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.”

That document makes only passing mention of the impact the Iraq war has had on the global jihad movement. “The ongoing fight for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as a rallying cry,” it states.

The report mentions the possibility that Islamic militants who fought in Iraq could return to their home countries, “exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies.”

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a more ominous report about the terrorist threat. That assessment, based entirely on unclassified documents, details a growing jihad movement and says, “Al Qaeda leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.”

The new National Intelligence Estimate was overseen by David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, who commissioned it in 2004 after he took up his post at the National Intelligence Council. Mr. Low declined to be interviewed for this article.

The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating” cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.

It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan.

In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda’s current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership.

But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism.

In recent months, some senior American intelligence officials have offered glimpses into the estimate’s conclusions in public speeches.

“New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge,” said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. “If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide,” said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte’s top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and American spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field.

Spy agencies usually produce several national intelligence estimates each year on a variety of subjects. The most controversial of these in recent years was an October 2002 document assessing Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. Several government investigations have discredited that report, and the intelligence community is overhauling how it analyzes data, largely as a result of those investigations.

The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.

The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain’s domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, “emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat.”

More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of “D+” to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that “there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking.”

    Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat, NYT, 24.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html?hp&ex=1159156800&en=22b7a0941b08007f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Applying the Law

The Question of Liability Stirs Concern at the C.I.A.

September 16, 2006
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — Behind the debate between Congress and the White House over the proper treatment of terror suspects is an old fear at the Central Intelligence Agency: that officers could be vulnerable to lawsuits, or even criminal prosecution, for actions they believed at the time complied with administration policy.

Legislation proposed by the White House would address that concern head-on by offering retroactive protection for some actions taken since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Specifically, it would amend the War Crimes Act to prohibit only certain “serious violations” of a provision of the Geneva Conventions, including torture, murder and other clearly unsanctioned acts.

The distinction is a crucial one, because the War Crimes Act prohibits any violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which outlaws “outrages upon personal dignity” and “humiliating and degrading treatment.” In view of the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that Common Article 3 applies to all interrogations of terror suspects, some harsh techniques used by C.I.A. or military officers since 2001 could be viewed as illegal under the existing law.

The plan favored by the White House bans what it defines as “serious violations of Common Article 3,” including murder, torture and the use of biological experiments. The alternative favored by a group of Republican senators led by Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, does not introduce any such distinction.

The two plans also differ in their treatment of past abuses. The White House plan would be retroactive to Sept. 11, 2001, while senators working with Mr. Warner say their approach avoids dealing with past events because of legal and constitutional concerns. The senators say they believe that past abuses should be reviewed case by case.

A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the C.I.A. from 2002 to 2004, said he thought the legal exposure for officers involved in capturing and interrogating suspects since 2001 was not as great as some feared. But Mr. Radsan said he understood their concern.

“Their perspective is that they got authorization, they got legal advice and they did the difficult, dirty work of the war on terror,” said Mr. Radsan, now at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul. “They think they should not suffer because someone changed the rules.”

Mr. Radsan and other legal experts said Friday that it was highly unlikely that intelligence officers could be prosecuted in American courts for their actions in interrogating terror suspects. Similarly, they said, lawsuits filed by former prisoners would probably face insurmountable hurdles in American courts.

But some said future investigations by Congress or a C.I.A. inspector general were quite possible and could bring the daunting prospect of high legal fees or devastating news coverage.

Nearly 100 terror suspects have spent time in C.I.A. custody since the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush acknowledged publicly last week, when he announced the transfer of the last 14 of them to military custody in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Mr. Bush has defended the interrogation program and has said it should not be disbanded, but he has said his legislation is necessary to provide clear legal guidelines to interrogators. Within the C.I.A. and the military, concern about possible repercussions against interrogators has increased since 2004, when disclosure of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere prompted a tightening of the guidelines on interrogation.

The first such step came in December 2004, when the Justice Department formally withdrew a controversial 2002 legal memorandum, intended primarily as a guideline for the C.I.A. interrogation program, that had defined torture as treatment leading to organ failure.

Last December, over White House objections, Congress passed an amendment proposed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that explicitly outlawed “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners. Finally, in June, the Supreme Court ruled that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, contrary to what the administration had argued for nearly five years, did apply to all prisoners captured in the campaign against terrorism.

With the possibility that the Democrats could win control of one or both houses of Congress in the November elections, the prospect of aggressive, public investigations of detainee treatment also looms.

Jack L. Goldsmith, a law professor at Harvard who served in the Defense Department and the Justice Department under Mr. Bush, said the shifting legal atmosphere made fear of criminal or civil liability on the part of C.I.A. and military personnel “a completely genuine concern, even if it seems far-fetched.”

Suzanne Spaulding, a former assistant general counsel at the C.I.A., said agency officers could face legal liability abroad. Ms. Spaulding said some countries had asserted jurisdiction over war crimes committed anywhere in the world. And C.I.A. officers involved in the seizing of a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 faced an arrest order in Italy.

A C.I.A. spokesman, Mark Mansfield, acknowledged officers’ concerns about possible legal troubles, but he said those concerns should not be exaggerated.

Mr. Mansfield said, for example, that while many C.I.A. officers, including polygraph examiners, members of promotion boards and interrogators, had long had professional liability insurance, he had seen no evidence of a recent increase in purchases of such insurance, the cost of which is reimbursed by the agency.

“It is fair to say that C.I.A. officers are mindful of these situations and developments,’’ Mr. Mansfield said, “but it’s unwise to make generalizations or sweeping statements about levels of concern. That said, we have a very important mission to carry out — helping to protect the country — and that has been and continues to be the paramount concern.”

Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting.

    The Question of Liability Stirs Concern at the C.I.A., NYT, 16.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/washington/16legal.html

Bush: CIA terrorism detention program "invaluable"

Sat Sep 9, 2006 11:35 AM ET
Reuters
By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As he prepared to commemorate the fifth anniversary of September 11, President George W. Bush said on Saturday a CIA detention program to interrogate terrorism suspects had been "invaluable" in efforts to prevent another attack on the United States.

Bush this week publicly acknowledged the CIA had held high-level terrorism suspects, including alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in secret overseas locations.

He announced Mohammed and 13 others were transferred recently to the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center run by the Pentagon to be prosecuted in the future.

The CIA program disclosed by The Washington Post last year prompted an international outcry and criticism from human rights groups.

Bush was unbowed by the criticism and steadfastly supported the program that since the September 11 attacks has held fewer than 100 terrorism suspects. While there was none in CIA custody after the 14 were transferred recently, the program will continue, administration officials said.

"This program has been invaluable to the security of America and its allies, and helped us identify and capture men who our intelligence community believes were key architects of the September the 11th attacks," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Information from the suspects held by the CIA had helped uncover al Qaeda plots and capture senior members of the network, he said.

"Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," Bush said.

Democrats, seeking to win control of at least one house of Congress in the November election, are highlighting an increasingly unpopular Iraq war with voters.

Five years after the September 11 attacks, "America is not nearly as safe as we can be and we must be," said Rep. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate.

"This anniversary of 9/11, we must refocus our efforts on the war on terror by ending our open-ended commitment in Iraq and by redirecting our efforts to destroy al Qaeda," Brown said in the Democratic response to the president's radio address.

"Democrats will fight for this goal even as the president and as congressional Republicans stubbornly insist on staying a failed course," he said.

U.S. forces continue to hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, who since the September 11 attacks have sporadically issued video and audiotapes to show they have not been captured or killed.

"America still faces determined enemies," Bush said. "And in the long run, defeating these enemies requires more than improved security at home and military action abroad. We must also offer a hopeful alternative to the terrorists' hateful ideology," he said.

"By advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternative to repression and radicalism, and by supporting young democracies like Iraq, we are helping to bring a brighter future to this region -- and that will make America and the world more secure," Bush said.

He plans to commemorate the September 11 anniversary with visits on Sunday and Monday to all three sites struck by the hijacked planes -- Ground Zero where the World Trade Center's twin towers collapsed in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington and a field in Pennsylvania.

    Bush: CIA terrorism detention program "invaluable", R, 9.9.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-09-09T153447Z_01_N08426916_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief

September 9, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — The Central Intelligence Agency last fall repudiated the claim that there were prewar ties between Saddam Hussein’s government and an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a report issued Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The disclosure undercuts continuing assertions by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee, in a second report, also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the prelude to the war in Iraq.

The findings are part of a continuing inquiry by the committee into prewar intelligence about Iraq. The conclusions went beyond its earlier findings, issued in the summer of 2004, by including criticism not just of American intelligence agencies but also of the administration.

Several Republicans strongly dissented on the report with conclusions about the Iraqi National Congress, saying they overstated the role that the exile group had played in the prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq. But the committee overwhelmingly approved the other report, with only one Republican senator voting against it.

The reports did not address the politically divisive question of whether the Bush administration had exaggerated or misused intelligence as part of its effort to win support for the war. But one report did contradict the administration’s assertions, made before the war and since, that ties between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Hussein’s government provided evidence of a close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.

The C.I.A. report also contradicted claims made in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who mentioned Mr. Zarqawi no fewer than 20 times during a speech to the United Nations Security Council that made the administration’s case for going to war. In that speech, Mr. Powell said that Iraq “today harbors a deadly terrorist network’’ headed by Mr. Zarqawi, and dismissed as “not credible’’ assertions by the Iraqi government that it had no knowledge of Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts.

The panel concluded that Mr. Hussein regarded Al Qaeda as a threat rather than a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service “actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success.’’

One of the reports by the committee criticized a decision by the National Security Council in 2002 to maintain a close relationship with the Iraqi National Congress, headed by the exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, even after the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency had warned that “the I.N.C was penetrated by hostile intelligence services,” notably Iran.

The report concluded that the organization had provided a large volume of flawed intelligence to the United States about Iraq, and concluded that the group “attempted to influence United States policy on Iraq by providing false information through defectors directed at convincing the United States that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists.”

The findings were released at an inopportune time for the Bush administration, which has spent the week trying to turn voters’ attention away from the missteps on Iraq and toward the more comfortable political territory of the continued terrorist threat. On Friday, the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, played down the reports, saying that they contained “nothing new” and were “re-litigating things that happened three years ago.”

“The important thing to do is to figure out what you’re doing tomorrow, and the day after, and the month after, and the year after to make sure that this war on terror is won,” Mr. Snow said.

The two reports released Friday were expected to be the least controversial aspects of what remains of the Senate committee’s investigation, which will eventually address whether the Bush administration’s assertions about Iraq accurately reflected the available intelligence. But unanticipated delays caused them to be released in the heat of the fall political campaign.

The reports were approved by the committee in August, but went through a monthlong declassification process. It was Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the committee’s Republican chairman, who set early September as the release date.

The committee’s report in 2004, which lambasted intelligence agencies for vastly overestimating the state of Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, was issued with unanimous approval. But the reports released Friday provided evidence of how much the relationship between Republicans and Democrats on the committee had degenerated over the past two years.

A set of conclusions that included criticism of the administration’s ties with the Iraqi National Congress was opposed by several Republicans on the panel, including Mr. Roberts, but was approved with the support of two Republicans, Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska, and Olympia Snowe, of Maine, along with all seven Democrats. Senator Roberts even took the unusual step of disavowing the conclusions about the role played by the Iraqi National Congress, saying that they were “misleading and are not supported by the facts.”

The report about the group’s role concluded that faulty intelligence from the group made its way into several prewar intelligence reports, including the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that directly preceded the Senate vote on the Iraq war. It says that sources introduced to American intelligence by the group directly influenced two key judgments of that document: that Mr. Hussein possessed mobile biological weapons laboratories and that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program.

The report said there was insufficient evidence to determine whether one of the most notorious of the intelligence sources used by the United States before the Iraq war was tied to the Iraqi National Congress. The source, an Iraqi who was code-named Curveball, was a crucial source for the American view that Mr. Hussein had a mobile biological weapons program, but the information that he provided was later entirely discredited.

The report said other mistaken information about Iraq’s biological program had been provided by a source linked to the Iraqi National Congress, and it said the intelligence agencies’ use of the information had “constituted a serious error.’’

The dissenting opinion, signed by Mr. Roberts and four other Republican members of the committee, minimized the role played by Mr. Chalabi’s group. “Information from the I.N.C. and I.N.C.-affiliated defectors was not widely used in intelligence community products and played little role in the intelligence community’s judgments about Iraq’s W.M.D. programs,” the Republicans said.

Francis Brooke, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, called the report “tendentious, partisan and misleading,” and said that the group had not played a central role as the Bush administration built the case for war.

At the same time, Mr. Brooke said his organization was surprised at how little the American government knew about Mr. Hussein’s government before the war, which may have forced the American officials to rely more heavily on the organization. “We did not realize the paucity of human intelligence that the administration had on Iraq,” he said.

    C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief, NYT, 9.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/world/middleeast/09intel.html?hp&ex=1157860800&en=6b11a9b2ce4125ad&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Source in C.I.A. Leak Case Voices Remorse

September 8, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Expressing regret for his actions and apologies to his administration colleagues, Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, confirmed Thursday that he was the primary source who first told a columnist about the intelligence officer at the center of the C.I.A. leak case.

“It was a terrible error on my part,” Mr. Armitage said in an interview, discussing his conversations with reporters. He added: “There wasn’t a day when I didn’t feel like I had let down the president, the secretary of state, my colleagues, my family and the Wilsons. I value my ability to keep state secrets. This was bad, and I really felt badly about this.”

Mr. Armitage also confirmed what had long been speculated — that he was the anonymous government official who talked to Bob Woodward, the Washington Post editor and reporter, about the Central Intelligence Agency officer, Valerie Wilson, in June 2003. It is the first known conversation between an administration official and a journalist about her.

Mr. Armitage, who has been criticized for keeping his silence for nearly three years, said he had wanted to disclose his role as soon as he realized that he was the main source for Robert D. Novak’s column on July 14, 2003, which identified Ms. Wilson. But he held back at the request of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. “He requested that I remain silent,” Mr. Armitage said.

He expressed irritation over assertions in some editorials and blogs that, by his silence, he had been disloyal to the Bush administration, saying he had followed President Bush’s repeated instruction that administration officials cooperate with the Fitzgerald inquiry. “I felt like I was doing exactly what he wanted,” he said.

Mr. Armitage testified three times before the grand jury, the last time in December 2005. “I was never subpoenaed,” he said. “I was a cooperating witness from the beginning.”

He never hired a lawyer and did not believe he needed one. “I had made an inadvertent mistake, but a mistake in any event,” he said. “I deserved whatever was coming to me. And I didn’t need an attorney to tell the truth.”

This week, after news reports clearly identified him as the source, Mr. Armitage said Mr. Fitzgerald had consented to his public disclosure of his role. Mr. Fitzgerald sent Mr. Armitage a letter in February, notifying him that the inquiry into his activities had been closed.

It was Mr. Novak’s column that led to a formal request for a leak inquiry by the Central Intelligence Agency, resulting in the appointment of Mr. Fitzgerald. After nearly two years, that investigation led to an indictment of I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Mr. Armitage said he first told the authorities about his conversation with Mr. Novak in October 2003, when he read in a follow-up column by Mr. Novak what he believed was a reference to him. That meant Mr. Armitage’s role was known to the Justice Department almost from the outset of the inquiry, two months before Mr. Fitzgerald was named special counsel in the case.

The confirmation of Mr. Armitage’s role, long the subject of news media speculation, showed that the initial leak of Ms. Wilson’s identity did not originate from the White House as part of a concerted political attack against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had criticized the administration over the Iraq war. Rather it was divulged by a senior State Department official who was not regarded as a close political ally of Mr. Cheney or other presidential aides involved in the underlying issues in the case.

Mr. Armitage said he did not tell prosecutors about his conversation with Mr. Woodward until the fall of 2005 because he had forgotten about it. Mr. Armitage said he did not recall the June 2003 conversation until Mr. Woodward called to remind him about it after Mr. Fitzgerald’s news conference at the time of Mr. Libby’s indictment.

    Source in C.I.A. Leak Case Voices Remorse, NYT, 8.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/washington/08armitage.html?hp&ex=1157774400&en=de10cbf1bc0f2be3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The Legal Debate

Interrogation Methods Rejected by Military Win Bush’s Support

September 8, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM LIPTAK

Many of the harsh interrogation techniques repudiated by the Pentagon on Wednesday would be made lawful by legislation put forward the same day by the Bush administration. And the courts would be forbidden from intervening.

The proposal is in the last 10 pages of an 86-page bill devoted mostly to military commissions, and it is a tangled mix of cross-references and pregnant omissions.

But legal experts say it adds up to an apparently unique interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, one that could allow C.I.A. operatives and others to use many of the very techniques disavowed by the Pentagon, including stress positions, sleep deprivation and extreme temperatures.

“It’s a Jekyll and Hyde routine,” Martin S. Lederman, who teaches constitutional law at Georgetown University, said of the administration’s dual approaches.

In effect, the administration is proposing to write into law a two-track system that has existed as a practical matter for some time.

So-called high-value detainees held by the C.I.A. have been subjected to tough interrogation in secret prisons around the world.

More run-of-the-mill prisoners held by the Defense Department have, for the most part, faced milder questioning, although human rights groups say there have been widespread abuses.

The new bill would continue to give the C.I.A. the substantial freedom it has long enjoyed, while the revisions to the Army Field Manual announced Wednesday would further restrict military interrogators.

The legislation would leave open the possibility that the military could revise its own standards to allow the harsher techniques.

John C. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former Justice Department official who helped develop the administration’s early legal response to the terrorist threat, said the bill would provide people on the front lines with important tools.

“When you’re fighting a new kind of war against an enemy we haven’t faced before,” Professor Yoo said, “our system needs to give flexibility to people to respond to those challenges.”

In June, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruled that a provision of the Geneva Conventions concerning the humane treatment of prisoners applied to all aspects of the conflict with Al Qaeda. The new bill would keep the courts from that kind of meddling, Professor Yoo said.

“There is a rejection of what the court did in Hamdan,” he said, “which is to try to judicially enforce the Geneva Conventions, which no court had ever tried to do before.”

Indeed, the proposed legislation takes pains to try to ensure that the Supreme Court will not have a second bite at the apple. “The act makes clear,” it says in its introductory findings, “that the Geneva Conventions are not a source of judicially enforceable individual rights.”

Though lawsuits will almost certainly be filed challenging the bill should it become law, most legal experts said Congress probably had the power to restrict the courts’ jurisdiction in this way.

The proposed legislation would provide retroactive immunity from prosecution to government agents who used harsh methods after the Sept. 11 attacks. And, as President Bush suggested on Wednesday, it would ensure that those techniques remain lawful.

“As more high-ranking terrorists are captured, the need to obtain intelligence from them will remain critical,” Mr. Bush said. “And having a C.I.A. program for questioning terrorists will continue to be crucial to getting life-saving information.”

Mr. Bush said he had never authorized torture but indicated that aggressive interrogation techniques short of torture remained important tools in the administration’s efforts to combat terrorism.

“I cannot describe the specific methods used — I think you understand why,” he said. “If I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning, and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country. But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe and lawful and necessary.”

A senior intelligence official said that the new legislation, if enacted, would make it clear that the techniques used by the C.I.A. on senior Qaeda members who had been held abroad in secret sites would not be prohibited and that interrogators who engaged in those practices both in the past and in the future would not face prosecution.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would not discuss the techniques the agency had used or was prepared to use.

Other senior administration officials, all of whom declined to speak on the record, said there was no intention to undercut the interrogation rules in the new Army Field Manual, which does not include some of the most extreme techniques used on some suspected terrorists in American custody.

The intent of the legislation, they said, is to prevent the prosecution of interrogators under amendments to the War Crimes Act that were passed in the 1990’s.

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions bars, among other things, “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” The administration says that language is too vague.

That is nonsense, said Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of Yale Law School and a State Department official in the Clinton administration. “Outrages upon personal dignity is something like Abu Ghraib or parading our soldiers in Vietnam before the television cameras,” he said. “Unconstitutionally vague means you don’t know it when you see it.”

But the new legislation would interpret “outrages upon personal dignity” relatively narrowly, adopting a standard enacted last year in an amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act proposed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. The amendment prohibits “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” and refers indirectly to an American constitutional standard that prohibits conduct which “shocks the conscience.”

There is substantial room for interpretation, legal experts said, between Common Article 3’s strict prohibition of, for instance, humiliating treatment and the McCain amendment’s ban only on conduct that “shocks the conscience.”

The proposed legislation, said Peter S. Margulies, a law professor at Roger Williams University, “seems to be trying to surgically remove from our compliance with Geneva the section of Common Article 3 that deals with humiliating and degrading treatment.”

The net effect of the new legislation in the interrogation context, Professor Yoo said, is to allow the C.I.A. flexibility of the sort that the revisions to the Army Field Manual have denied to the Pentagon. The bill lets the C.I.A. “operate with a freer hand” than the Defense Department “in that space between the Army Field Manual and the McCain amendment,” he said.

Dean Koh said the administration’s new interpretation of the Geneva Conventions would further isolate the United States from the rest of the world.

“Making U.S. ratification of Common Article 3 narrower and more conditional than everyone else’s,” he said, “by its very nature suggests that we are not prepared to make the same commitment that every other nation has made.”

The bill proposed by the White House would also amend the War Crimes Act, which makes violations of Common Article 3 a felony. Those amendments are needed, the administration said, to provide guidance to American personnel.

The new legislation makes a list of nine “serious violations” of Common Article 3 federal crimes. The prohibited conduct includes torture, murder, rape, and the infliction of severe physical or mental pain. By implication, some legal experts said, the bill endorses the use of those interrogation techniques that are not mentioned.

The proposed legislation in any event represents a further retreat from international legal standards by an administration already hostile to them, some scholars said. “It’s strong evidence that this administration doesn’t accept international legal processes,’’ said Peter J. Spiro, a law professor at Temple University.

Neil A. Lewis contributed reporting from Washington.

    Interrogation Methods Rejected by Military Win Bush’s Support, NYT, 8.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/washington/08legal.html?hp&ex=1157774400&en=c5d9dc0b49f27295&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The Overview

President Moves 14 Held in Secret to Guantánamo

September 7, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — President Bush said Wednesday that 14 high-profile terror suspects held secretly until now by the Central Intelligence Agency — including the man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks — had been transferred to the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to face military tribunals if Congress approves.

The suspects include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, thought to be the Sept. 11 mastermind, and other close associates of Osama bin Laden. Mr. Bush said he had decided to “bring them into the open” after years in which the C.I.A. held them without charges in undisclosed sites abroad, in a program the White House had not previously acknowledged.

The announcement, in the East Room of the White House, was the first time the president had discussed the secret C.I.A. program, and he made clear that he had fully authorized it. Mr. Bush defended the treatment the suspects had received but would not say where the so-called “high-value terrorist detainees” had been held or what techniques had been used to extract information from them.

The transfer of the high-level suspects to Guantánamo Bay effectively suspended the extraordinary program, in which the intelligence agency became the jailer and interrogator of suspects counterterrorism officials considered the world’s most wanted Islamic extremists.

The government says the 14 terror suspects include some of the most senior members of Al Qaeda captured by the United States since 2001, including those responsible for the bombing of the destroyer Cole in 2000 in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Most of the detainees have been interviewed extensively and are believed to have little remaining intelligence value.

With the transfer of the suspects to Guantánamo, which is run by the Defense Department, the International Committee of the Red Cross will monitor their treatment, Mr. Bush said. He used the East Room appearance to urge Congress to authorize new military commissions to put terror suspects on trial, replacing rules established by the administration but struck down in June by the Supreme Court. [Page A27.]

“As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, can face justice,” Mr. Bush said, to an audience that included family members of the victims. He added, “To start the process for bringing them to trial, we must bring them out into the open.”

To that end, the president sent Congress legislation proposing new rules for the commissions and detailing specific standards for the humane treatment of detainees. Yet the proposal hews closely to the old commission model, and it retains several provisions the court found troublesome, including language that permits defendants to be excluded from their own trials.

At the same time, the Pentagon released a new Army Field Manual that lays out permissible interrogation techniques and specifically bans eight methods that have come up in abuse cases. Among the techniques banned is water-boarding, in which a wet rag is forced down a bound prisoner’s throat to cause gagging; intelligence officials have said Mr. Mohammed was subjected to that treatment while in C.I.A. custody.

Although the C.I.A. has faced criticism over the use of harsh techniques, one senior intelligence official said detainees had not been mistreated. They were given dental and vision care as well as the Koran, prayer rugs and clocks to schedule prayers, the official said. They were also given reading material, DVD’s and access to exercise equipment.

Administration officials said the timing of Mr. Bush’s decision to bring the terror suspects to trial was driven not by politics but by the need to respond to the Supreme Court’s decision and the fact that the suspects were no longer regarded as sources of valuable intelligence.

On Capitol Hill, some Republicans reacted warily. But even those who criticized the proposal said it was imperative for Congress to pass legislation setting up tribunals soon.

“I do not believe it is necessary to have a trial where the accused cannot see the evidence against them,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a former military prosecutor who has played a central role in the debate. But Mr. Graham said he believed his differences with the White House “can be overcome.”

Mr. Bush’s speech was the third in a series he is delivering on the war on terror in the days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and it carried potential political benefits for a White House that is intent on maintaining Republican control of Congress this November.

The address helped put a face on the enemy, reminding Americans that while Osama bin Laden — to whom Mr. Bush referred repeatedly in a speech on Tuesday — is still at large, many terrorists have been captured. Five years after the attacks, Mr. Bush gave the families of Sept. 11 victims something to cheer about, and those in the audience did, as he announced he wanted to put the suspects on trial.

By moving the high-profile suspects to Guantánamo just two months before the midterm elections, the administration is putting intense pressure on lawmakers to act before adjourning to campaign. If Democrats try to thwart legislation to try senior members of Al Qaeda, they will risk being labeled weak on national security, a label they can ill afford in an election that may turn on the question of which party is better suited to keep Americans safe.

“This is certainly a logical and very sound step both substantively and politically,” said David Rivkin, who served in the White House counsel’s office under the first President Bush and is sympathetic to this administration’s approach. “It’s reminding the country and the world of the folks we are fighting against. Nobody can say these are just pitiful foot soldiers; these are pretty senior guys.”

The C.I.A. program, though officially a secret, has been the subject of numerous news reports in recent months. By speaking publicly about it for the first time, Mr. Bush hopes to build support for it on Capitol Hill, and in the public.

The White House released biographies of the 14 suspects and details of the accusations against them. They include such well-known Qaeda operatives as Abu Zubaydah, who the administration said was trying to organize a terrorist attack in Israel at the time of his capture, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who the authorities say helped facilitate the Sept. 11 attacks.

Despite the new information, human rights organizations were critical of Mr. Bush’s announcement.

“It’s wonderful that at last the United States has acknowledged that these detention sites exist,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. But Mr. Cox described the program as “a form of torture,” and said the United States should suspend it.

In his speech, Mr. Bush fiercely resisted that characterization. “I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world,” he said. “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it — and I will not authorize it.”

A senior intelligence official said there had been fewer than 100 detainees in the C.I.A. program since its inception shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Beyond the 14, the remainder have either been turned over to the Defense Department as so-called unlawful enemy combatants, returned to their countries of origin or sent to nations that have legal proceedings against them.

The official described the C.I.A. detainees as the government’s “single largest source of insight into Al Qaeda,” saying they accounted for 50 percent of everything the authorities had learned about the terrorist network. But, he said, “Some of these people have been held for a considerable period of time, and their intelligence value has aged off.”

Mr. Bush said the C.I.A. would not relinquish its capability to detain and question terrorism suspects, and the senior intelligence official said the administration intended that the program would continue. But agency officials — who feared employees might be subject to lawsuits or criminal prosecution — welcomed the hand-off of the detainees and the prospect that the C.I.A.’s role would be limited in future cases.

“I am confident that this will be greeted with relief by agency employees,” said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former general counsel for the C.I.A. “Many of them were uncomfortable with their role as jailers.”

Military justice experts say that if Congress passes the legislation, trials of some terror suspects at Guantánamo could begin relatively quickly, in three to four months. But the trials of the 14 high-value suspects, who are held in a special high-security facility separate from other detainees, might not begin for at least a year, because the government would have to build its case .

One expert who has been critical of the administration’s plan, Eugene R. Fidell, predicted that the proposal would attract a lawsuit.

“Going the way they have done this is in fact quite unfair to the very families of 9/11 victims who President Bush had at his meeting today,” Mr. Fidell said, “because those people need closure and in fact what he’s done is guarantee further protracted delay because of the inevitable litigation.”

On Capitol Hill, Democrats were also critical. Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Bush should have disclosed the program years ago and called his speech “the opening salvo in the fall campaign.”

David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting for this article.

    President Moves 14 Held in Secret to Guantánamo, NYT, 7.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/us/07detain.html?hp&ex=1157688000&en=1b1b17004743af8d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Transcript

President Bush's Speech on Terrorism

September 6, 2006
The New York Times

Following is the transcript of President Bush's speech on terrorism from the White House, as provided by CQ Transcriptions, Inc

Thank you. Thanks for the warm welcome. Welcome to the White House.

Mr. Vice President, Secretary Rice, Attorney General Gonzales, Ambassador Negroponte, General Hayden, members of the United States Congress, families who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks on our nation, my fellow citizens, thanks for coming.

On the morning of September the 11th, 2001, our nation awoke to a nightmare attack. Nineteen men armed with box cutters took control of airplanes and turned them into missiles. They used them to kill nearly 3,000 innocent people.

We watched the twin towers collapse before our eyes, and it became instantly clear that we'd entered a new world and a dangerous new war.

The attacks of September the 11th horrified our nation. And amid the grief came new fears and urgent questions. Who had attacked us? What did they want? And what else were they planning?

Americans saw the destruction the terrorists had caused in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, and they wondered if there were other terrorist cells in our midst poised to strike. They wondered if there was a second wave of attacks still to come.

With the twin towers and the Pentagon still smoldering, our country on edge, and a stream of intelligence coming in about potential new attacks, my administration faced immediate challenges. We had to respond to the attack on our country. We had to wage an unprecedented war against an enemy unlike any we had fought before. We had to find the terrorists hiding in America and across the world before they were able to strike our country again.

So in the early days and weeks after 9/11, I directed our government's senior national security officials to do everything in their power, within our laws, to prevent another attack.

Nearly five years have passed since those initial days of shock and sadness.

And we are thankful that the terrorists have not succeeded in launching another attack on our soil.

This is not for the lack of desire or determination on the part of the enemy. As the recently foiled plot in London shows, the terrorists are still active, and they are still trying to strike America and they are still trying to kill our people.

One reason the terrorists have not succeeded is because of the hard work of thousands of dedicated men and women in our government who have toiled day and night, along with our allies, to stop the enemy from carrying out their plans.

And we are grateful for these hardworking citizens of ours.

nother reason the terrorists have not succeeded is because our government has changed its policies and given our military, intelligence and law enforcement personnel the tools they need to fight this enemy and protect our people and preserve our freedoms.

The terrorists who declared war on America represent no nation. They defend no territory. And they wear no uniform. They do not mass armies on borders or flotillas of warships on the high seas.

They operate in the shadows of society. They send small teams of operatives to infiltrate free nations. They live quietly among their victims. They conspire in secret. And then they strike without warning.

And in this new war, the most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves.

Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terrorist networks operate. They have knowledge of where their operatives are deployed and knowledge about what plots are under way.

This intelligence -- this is intelligence that cannot be found any other place. And our security depends on getting this kind of information.

To win the war on terror, we must be able to detain, question and, when appropriate, prosecute terrorists captured here in America and on the battlefields around the world.

After the 9/11 attacks, our coalition launched operations across the world to remove terrorist safehavens and capture or kill terrorist operatives and leaders.

Working with our allies, we've captured and detained thousands of terrorists and enemy fighters in Afghanistan, in Iraq and other fronts of this war on terror.

These enemy -- these are enemy combatants who are waging war on our nation. We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle.

Most of the enemy combatants we capture are held in Afghanistan or in Iraq where they're questioned by our military personnel. Many are released after questioning or turned over to local authorities if we determine that they do not pose a continuing threat and no longer have significant intelligence value.

Others remain in American custody near the battlefield, to ensure that they don't return to the fight.

In some cases, we determined that individuals we have captured pose a significant threat or may have intelligence that we and our allies need to have to prevent new attacks.

Many are Al Qaeda operatives or Taliban fighters trying to conceal their identities. And they withhold information that could save American lives.

In these cases, it has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly, questioned by experts and, when appropriate, prosecuted for terrorist acts.

Some of these individuals are taken to the United States naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It's important for Americans and others across the world to understand the kind of people held at Guantanamo. These aren't common criminals or bystanders accidentally swept up on the battlefield.

We have in place a rigorous process to ensure those held at Guantanamo Bay belong at Guantanamo. Those held at Guantanamo include suspected bombmakers, terrorist trainers, recruiters and facilitators, and potential suicide bombers. They are in our custody so that they cannot murder our people.

One detainee held at Guantanamo told a questioner questioning -- he said this: I'll never forget your face. I will kill you, your brother, your mother and your sisters.

In addition to the terrorists held at Guantanamo, a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.

This group includes individuals believed to be the key architects of the September the 11th attacks and attacks on the USS Cole; an operative involved in the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and individuals involved in other attacks that have taken the lives of innocent civilians across the world.

These are dangerous men, with unparalleled knowledge about terrorist networks and their plans of new attacks. The security of our nation and the lives of our citizens depend on our ability to learn what these terrorists know.

Many specifics of this program, including where these detainees have been held and the details of their confinement, cannot be divulged. Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country.

I can say that questioning the detainees in this program has given us information that has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks, here in the United States and across the world.

Today I'm going to share with you some of the examples provided by our intelligence community of how this program has saved lives, why it remains vital to the security of the United States and our friends and allies, and why it deserves the support of the United States Congress and the American people.

Within months of September 11, 2001, we captured a man named Abu Zubaydah. We believed that Zubaydah was a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden.

Our intelligence community believes he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained and that he helped smuggle Al Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan after coalition forces arrived to liberate that country.

Zubaydah was severely wounded during the firefight that brought him into custody. And he survived only because of the medical care arranged by the CIA.

After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared his hatred of America.

During questioning, he, at first, disclosed what he thought was nominal information and then stopped all cooperation.

Well, in fact, the nominal information he gave us turned out to be quite important.

For example, Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and used the alias Mukhtar. This was a vital piece of the puzzle that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM.

Zubaydah also provided information that helped stop a terrorist attack being planned for inside the United States, an attack about which we had no previous information.

Zubaydah told us that Al Qaeda operatives were planning to launch an attack in the United States and provided physical descriptions of the operatives and information on their general location.

Based on the information he provided, the operatives were detained; one, while traveling to the United States.

We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives. But he stopped talking.

BUSH: As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures.

These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively, and determined them to be lawful.

I cannot describe the specific methods used. I think you understand why. If I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country.

But I can say the procedures were tough and they were safe and lawful and necessary.

Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th.

For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks, a terrorist named Ramzi Binalshibh. The information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of Binalshibh. And together these two terrorists provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Once in our custody, KSM was questioned by the CIA using these procedures. And he soon provided information that helped us stop another planned attack on the United States. During questioning, KSM told us about another Al Qaeda operative he knew was in CIA custody, a terrorist named Majid Khan (ph). KSM revealed that Khan (ph) had been told to deliver $50,000 to individuals working for a suspected terrorist leader named Hambali, the leader of Al Qaeda's Southeast Asia affiliate known as J.I.

CIA officers confronted Khan with this information. Khan confirmed that the money had been delivered to an operative named Zuber and provided both a physical description and contact number for this operative.

Based on that information, Zuber (sp) was captured in June of 2003, and he soon provided information that helped lead to the capture of Hambali. After Hambali's arrest, KSM was questioned again. He identified Hambali's brother as the leader of a JI cell and Hambali's conduit for communications with al Qaeda.

Hambali's brother was soon captured in Pakistan, and in turn led us to a cell of 17 Southeast Asian JI operatives. When confronted with the news that his terror cell had been broken up, Hambali admitted that the operatives were being groomed at KSM's request for attacks inside the United States, probably using airplanes. During questioning, KSM also provided many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans.

For example, he described the design of planned attacks on buildings inside the United States and how operatives were directed to carry them out. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a point that was high enough to prevent the people trapped above from escaping out the windows. KSM also provided vital information on al Qaeda's efforts to obtain biological weapons. During questioning, KSM admitted that he had met three individuals involved in al Qaeda's efforts to produce anthrax, a deadly biological agent, and he identified one of the individuals as a terrorist named Yazeed. KSM apparently believed we already had this information because Yazeed had been captured and taken into foreign custody before KSM's arrest.

In fact, we did not know about Yazid's role in al Qaeda's anthrax program. Information from Yazid then helped lead to the capture of his two principal assistants in the anthrax program. Without the information provided by KSM and Yazid, we might not have uncovered this al Qaeda biological weapons program or stopped this al Qaeda cell from developing anthrax for attacks against the United States.

These are some of the plots that have been stopped because of the information of this vital program.

Terrorists held in CIA custody have also provided information that helped stop the planned strike on U.S. Marines at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti. They were going to use an explosive-laden water tanker. They've helped stop a planned attack on U.S. -- on the U.S. consulate in Karachi using car bombs and motorcycle bombs. And they helped stop a plot to hijack passenger planes and fly them into Heathrow or the Canary Wharf in London.

We're getting vital information necessary to do our jobs, and that's protect the American people and our allies.

Information from the terrorists in this program has helped us to identify individuals that al Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations, many of whom we had never heard about before. They include terrorists who were sent to case targets inside the United States, including financial buildings in major cities on the East Coast. Information from terrorists in CIA custody has played a role in the capture or questioning of nearly every senior al Qaeda member or associate detained by the U.S. and its allies since this program began.

By providing everything from initial leads to photo identifications, to precise locations of where terrorists were hiding, this program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill.

This program has also played a critical role in helping us understand the enemy we face in this war. Terrorists in this program have painted a picture of al Qaeda's structure and financing and communications and logistics.

They have identified al Qaeda's travel routes and safe havens, and explained how al Qaeda's senior leadership communications with its operatives in places like Iraq. They provide information that allows us -- that has allowed us to make sense of documents and computer records that we have seized in terrorist raids.

They've identified voices in recordings of intercepted calls and helped us understand the meaning of potentially critical terrorist communications.

The information we get from these detainees is corroborated by intelligence, and we receive -- that we have received from other sources. And together this intelligence has helped us connect the dots and stop attacks before they occur.

Information from the terrorists questioned in this program helped unravel plots in terrorist cells in Europe and in other places. It's helped our allies protect their people from deadly enemies.

This program has been and remains one of the most vital tools in our war against the terrorists. It is invaluable to America and to our allies.

Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. By giving us information about terrorist plans we could not get anywhere else, this program has saved innocent lives.

This program has been subject to multiple legal reviews by the Department of Justice and CIA lawyers. They've determined it complied with our laws. This program has received strict oversight by the CIA's inspector general. A small number of key leaders from both political parties on Capitol Hill were briefed about this program. All those involved in the questioning of the terrorists are carefully chosen, and they're screened from a pool of experienced CIA officers. Those selected to conduct the most sensitive questioning had to complete more than 250 additional hours of specialized training before they are allowed to have contact with a -- captured terrorists. I want to be absolutely clear with our people and the world. The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it, and I will not authorize it.

Last year, my administration worked with Senator John McCain, and I signed into law the Detainee Treatment Act, which established the legal standards for treatment of detainees wherever they are held. I support this act. And as we implement this law, our government will continue to use every lawful method to obtain intelligence that can protect innocent people and stop another attack like the one we experienced on September the 11th, 2001.

The CIA program has detained only a limited number of terrorist at any given time. And once we have determined that the terrorists held by the CIA have little or no additional intelligence value, many of them have been returned to their home countries for prosecution or detention by their governments. Others have been accused of terrible crimes against the American people, and we have a duty to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice. So we intend to prosecute these men, as appropriate, for their crimes.

Soon after the war on terror began, I authorized a system of military commissions to try foreign terrorists accused of war crimes. Military commissions have been used by presidents from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt to prosecute war criminals because the rules for trying enemy combatants in a time of conflict must be different from those for trying common criminals or members of our own military.

One of the first suspected terrorists to be put on trial by military commission was one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards, a man named Hamdan. His lawyers challenged the legality of the military commission system. It took more than two years for this case to make its way through the courts. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the military commissions we had designed, but this past June, the Supreme Court overturned that decision. The Supreme Court determined that military commissions are an appropriate venue for trying terrorists, but ruled that military commissions needed to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress.

So today I'm sending Congress legislation to specifically authorize the creation of military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes. My administration has been working with members of both parties in the House and Senate on this legislation. We've put forward a bill that ensures these commissions are established in a way that protects our national security and ensures a full and fair trial for those accused. The procedures in the bill I am sending to Congress today reflect the reality that we are a nation at war and that it is essential for us to use all reliable evidence to bring these people to justice.

We're now approaching the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and the families of those murdered that day have waited patiently for justice. Some of the families are with us today. They should have to wait no longer.

So I'm announcing today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and 11 other terrorists in CIA custody have been transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.

They are being held in the custody of the Department of Defense.

As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September the 11th, 2001, can face justice. (Cheers, applause.)

We will also seek to prosecute those believed to be responsible for the attack on the USS Cole, and an operative believed to be involved in the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

With these prosecutions, we will send a clear message to those who kill Americans: No longer (sic.25matter) how long it takes, we will find you and we will bring you to justice. (Applause.)

These men will be held in a high-security facility at Guantanamo. The International Committee of the Red Cross is being advised of their detention and will have the opportunity to meet with them. Those charged with crimes will be given access to attorneys who will help them prepare their defense, and they will be presumed innocent. While at Guantanamo, they will have access to the same food, clothing, medical care and opportunities for worship as other detainees. They will be questioned subject to the new U.S. Army Field Manual, which the Department of Defense is issuing today. And they will continue to be treated with the humanity that they denied others. As we move forward with the prosecutions, we will continue to urge nations across the world to take back their nationals at Guantanamo, who will not be prosecuted by our military commissions. America has no interest in being the world's jailer.

But one of the reasons we have not been able to close Guantanamo is that many countries have refused to take back their nationals held at the facility. Other countries have not provided adequate assurances that their nationals will not be mistreated or they will not return to the battlefield, as more than a dozen people released from Guantanamo already have.

We will continue working to transfer individuals held at Guantanamo and ask other countries to work with us in this process. And we will move toward the day when we can eventually close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. I know Americans have heard conflicting information about Guantanamo. Let me give you some facts. Of the thousands of terrorists captured across the world, only about 770 have ever been sent to Guantanamo. Of these, about 315 have been returned to other countries so far, and about 455 remain in our custody. They are provided the same quality of medical care as the American service members who guard them. The International Committee of the Red Cross has the opportunity to meet privately with all who are held there.

The facility has been visited by government officials from more than 30 countries, and delegations from international or organizations, as well. After the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe came to visit, one of its delegation members called Guantanamo a model prison, where people are treated better than in prisons in his own country.

Our troops can take great pride in the work they do at Guantanamo Bay, and so can the American people.

As we prosecute suspected terrorist leaders and operatives who have now been transferred to Guantanamo, we'll continue searching for those who have stepped forward to take their places. This nation's going to stay on the offense to protect the American people. We will continue to bring the world's most dangerous terrorists to justice, and we will continue working to collect the vital intelligence we need to protect our country.

The current transfers mean that there are now no terrorists in the CIA program. But as more high-ranking terrorists are captured, the need to obtain intelligence from them will remain critical, and having a CIA program for questioning terrorists will continue to be crucial to getting lifesaving information.

Some ask, why are you acknowledging this program now? There are two reasons why I'm making these limited disclosures today.

First, we have largely completed our questioning of the men, and to start the process for bringing them to trial, we must bring them into the open.

Second, the Supreme Court's recent decision has impaired our ability to prosecute terrorists through military commissions and has put in question the future of the CIA program. In its ruling on military commissions, the court determined that a provision of the Geneva Conventions known as Common Article 3 applies to our war with al Qaeda. This article includes provisions that prohibit outrageous upon personal dignity and humiliating and degrading treatment. The problem is that these and other provisions of Common Article 3 are vague and undefined, and each could be interpreted in different ways by an American or foreign judges.

And some believe our military and intelligence personnel involved in capturing and questioning terrorists could now be at risk of prosecution under the War Crimes Act simply for doing their jobs in a thorough and professional way.

This is unacceptable. Our military and intelligence personnel go face to face with the world's most dangerous men every day. They have risked their lives to capture some of the most brutal terrorists on earth, and they have worked day and night to find out what the terrorists know so we can stop new attacks. America owes our brave men and women some things in return; we owe them their (sic) thanks for saving lives and keeping America safe, and we owe them clear rules so they can continue to do their jobs and protect our people.

So I'm -- today I'm asking Congress to pass legislation that will clarify the rules for our personnel fighting the war on terror. First, I am asking Congress to list the specific recognizable offenses that would be considered crimes under the War Crimes Act so our personnel can know clearly what is prohibited in the handling of terrorist enemies.

Second, I'm asking that Congress make explicit that by following the standards of the Detainee Treatment Act, our personnel are fulfilling America's obligations under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Third, I'm asking that Congress make it clear that captured terrorists cannot use the Geneva Conventions as a basis to sue our personnel in courts, in U.S. courts. The men and women who protect us should not have to fear lawsuits filed by terrorists because they're doing their jobs.

The need for this legislation is urgent. We need to ensure that those questioning terrorists can continue to do everything within the limits of the law to get information that can save American lives.

My administration will continue to work with the Congress to get this legislation enacted, but time is of the essence. Congress is in session just for a few more weeks, and passing this legislation ought to be the top priority. (Applause.)

As we work with Congress to pass a good bill, we will also consult with congressional leaders on how to ensure that the CIA program goes forward in a way that follows the law, that meets the national security needs of our country, and protects the brave men and women we ask to obtain information that will save innocent lives.

For the sake of our security, Congress needs to act and update our laws to meet the threats of this new era, and I know they will.

We're engaged in a global struggle, and the entire civilized world has a stake in its outcome. America is a nation of law, and as I work with Congress to strengthen and clarify our laws here at home, I will continue to work with members of the international community who have been our partners in this struggle. I've spoken with leaders of foreign governments and worked with them to address their concerns about Guantanamo and our detention policies. I'll continue to work with the international community to construct a common foundation to defend our nations and protect our freedoms.

Free nations have faced new enemies and adjusted to new threats before, and we have prevailed. Like the struggles of the last century, today's war on terror is, above all, a struggle for freedom and liberty. The adversaries are different, but the stakes in this war are the same. We're fighting for our way of life and our ability to live in freedom. We're fighting for the cause of humanity against those who seek to impose the darkness of tyranny and terror upon the entire world. And we're fighting for a peaceful future for our children and our grandchildren. May God bless you all.

End

    President Bush's Speech on Terrorism, NYT, 7.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/washington/06bush_transcript.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

U.S. gives details on CIA detention program

Wed Sep 6, 2006 8:00 PM ET
Reuters
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government released details on Wednesday about its secretive CIA detention program for top al Qaeda suspects, as President George W. Bush said the last 14 detainees had been transferred to military custody.

The program provoked European anger and accusations that the United States violated international law on the treatment of prisoners, after The Washington Post reported last year that detainees were secretly held in Eastern Europe.

Bush said in a White House speech the 14 suspects had been handed over to Pentagon custody at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. But he insisted the program would remain in place for future terrorism detainees.

The administration had not previously acknowledged the program's existence. It started in 2002 with the capture of Abu Zubaydah, a top lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. The CIA adopted techniques that intelligence officials say persuaded him to talk to interrogators.

The CIA requested and obtained a ruling by U.S. Justice Department lawyers that none of its methods violated U.S. statutes prohibiting torture.

The procedures, which remain classified, were later used on other high-level detainees.

Despite Bush's assertion that the program remained in place, its future is in doubt after the Supreme Court ruled in June that all detainees must be protected against degrading treatment under the Geneva Conventions.

U.S. officials and legal experts said the program, which has held less than 100 suspects all told, is unlikely to continue unless and until Congress states explicitly that CIA interrogation techniques meet Geneva Conventions safeguards.

One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the program appears to be suspended.

"Plenty of folks say those techniques are clearly in violation. Others say they're not. But it's at least a question in dispute and that's the uncertainty," said Robert Chesney, a law professor at Wake Forest University.

The intelligence document released by U.S. intelligence director John Negroponte described closely controlled procedures that rely on screened personnel and techniques requiring prior approval by the CIA director.

It said interrogations were observed by "non-participants" authorized to end any session that appeared to violate procedures. Deviations from the rules were to be reported to the CIA inspector general and the Justice Department.

Around the time the CIA received its guidance from the Justice Department, administration lawyers also produced a controversial memo outlining how to avoid violating U.S. and international law while interrogating prisoners.

The memo, which human rights advocates criticized as sanctioning torture, was withdrawn in 2004.

    U.S. gives details on CIA detention program, R, 6.9.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2006-09-06T235911Z_01_N06133370_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-2

Bush admits secret CIA prisons

Wed Sep 6, 2006 11:52 PM ET
Reuters
By Steve Holland and Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush acknowledged on Wednesday the CIA had interrogated dozens of terrorism suspects at secret overseas locations and said 14 of those held had been sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Bush made the surprise admission as he prodded the U.S. Congress to approve rules for military commissions to try such detainees and with national security a key issue for Republicans who face the possibility of losses in the November congressional elections.

"The need for this legislation is urgent," Bush said. "We need to ensure that those questioning terrorists can continue to do everything within the limit of the law to get information that can save American lives."

Bush was forced to come up with a new method to try foreign terrorist suspects after the U.S. Supreme Court in June rejected the military tribunal system his administration set up to try Guantanamo prisoners, most captured in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon said the 14 detainees arrived at Guantanamo, where they could face prosecution, on Monday from undisclosed locations. Among them were the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and two other al Qaeda leaders, Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah.

Bush strongly defended the secret detention and questioning of terrorism suspects and said the CIA treated them humanely and did not torture. His announcement was greeted with some skepticism by human rights activists. The detention program, disclosed last year by The Washington Post, provoked an international outcry.

Citing gains made under the secret program, Bush said information provided by Zubaydah, described as a close associate of Osama bin Laden, helped foil an attack being planned inside the United States.

Intelligence gained from Mohammed led to the capture of a suspected terrorist named Zubair and provided information on al Qaeda's efforts to obtain biological weapons, Bush said.

With the fifth anniversary of the hijacked airliner attacks looming, Bush called the legislation a top priority for Congress in coming weeks and sent up a bill that rivaled an effort by several key Republicans that affords detainees greater rights.

Bush said he wanted the legislation to clarify the rules that interrogators may use and make explicit that they are meeting the requirements of the Geneva Conventions.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the major sticking point was over allowing defendants access to classified evidence, which the White House plan would limit.

SECRET PRISONS

The Bush administration previously declined to admit the existence of the secret CIA prisons. The U.N. committee against torture in May called on the United States to close any such facilities, but senior administration officials said the program was essential and would remain open.

Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, welcomed the transfer of the 14 suspects but said, "We are appalled that the Bush administration will further undermine its moral leadership" by continuing to use them.

U.S. officials said the CIA had held less than 100 suspects and after the transfer of the 14, the agency held none.

Bush would not say where the CIA secret prisons were located overseas but there have been reports of such facilities in Eastern Europe.

Bush's current focus on terrorism comes not only as the September 11 anniversary approaches but as his Republican Party faces stiff challenges in the midterm elections in two months. A vote on Bush's plan to establish such commissions could put Democrats on the defensive on the national security issue just weeks before the voting that could change control of Congress.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Democrats welcomed Bush's "long-overdue decision" to try September 11 suspects and called on Republicans to accept a bipartisan approach.

"The last thing we need is a repeat of the arrogant, go-it-alone behavior that has jeopardized and delayed efforts to bring these terrorists to justice for five years," Reid said.

The Pentagon also tried to soothe concerns about the Guantanamo facility.

It said it had prohibited eight abusive interrogation practices and allowed three new ones as part of long-awaited changes to the Army Field Manual governing the interrogation of prisoners held by the military.

Interrogators may not force a detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner, and cannot place hoods or sacks over a detainee's head or use duct tape over his eyes. They cannot beat or electrically shock or burn a detainee or inflict other forms of physical pain.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, Matt Spetalnick and Vicki Allen)

    Bush admits secret CIA prisons, NYT, 7.9.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-09-07T035150Z_01_N06455488_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-USA-DETAINEES.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C1-TopStories-newsOne-2

FACTBOX-Key points on secret CIA prisons

Wed Sep 6, 2006 3:30 PM ET
Reuters

(Reuters) - President Bush on Wednesday announced the transfer of 14 top terrorism suspects from detention by the CIA to Defense Department custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Following are some key facts about secret CIA prisons and the Guantanamo prison:

* Up to now, the Bush administration had not acknowledged a secret CIA detention system for senior al Qaeda members including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

* The existence of CIA prisons was revealed last year by the Washington Post, which said prisons had operated in Eastern European countries and elsewhere in the world. The report sparked outrage worldwide and opened the United States to new accusations of torture.

* An investigation by Europe's main human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, said 20 mostly European countries including Poland and Romania colluded in a global spiders web of CIA prisons stretching from Asia to Guantanamo Bay.

* The administration insists interrogation techniques used were lawful, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and that no one was tortured, but it will not reveal techniques. The International Committee of the Red Cross will be given access to the suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

* Fewer than 100 terrorism suspects have been held in CIA detention, and with the transfer of 14 to Guantanamo Bay none are currently in CIA custody, administration officials say. The others in the program were either sent back to their home countries, to another country, or to Guantanamo Bay.

* CIA interrogators are volunteers chosen for their maturity and judgment with an average age of 43, officials say.

* There are about 450 prisoners held at Guantanamo, which opened at a U.S. naval base on Cuba in January 2002. Three committed suicide and about 315 others have been released or transferred to other governments.

* Ten prisoners have been charged before the U.S. military war crimes tribunals with conspiring with al Qaeda, though none is charged with direct involvement in the September 11 attacks. The U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled the tribunals were illegal

    FACTBOX-Key points on secret CIA prisons, R, 6.9.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyid=2006-09-06T192940Z_01_N06469072_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-5

FACTBOX-Pentagon prohibits some interrogation tactics

Wed Sep 6, 2006 2:27 PM ET
Reuters

(Reuters) - The Pentagon on Wednesday prohibited eight interrogation practices more than two years after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq burst into public. It also authorized three new methods. Following are details of those tactics, listed in the new Army Field Manual.

Interrogators may not:

-- force a detainee to be naked

-- force a detainee to perform sexual acts or pose in a sexual manner

-- use hoods or place sacks over a detainee's head or use duct tape over his or her eyes

-- beat or electrically shock or burn detainees or inflict other forms of physical pain

-- use "water boarding," which simulates drowning

-- perform mock executions

-- deprive detainees of necessary food, water and medical care

-- use dogs in any aspect of interrogations.

Interrogators may:

-- engage in "Mutt and Jeff," or good-cop, bad-cop interrogation tactics

-- use "false flag," portraying themselves as someone other than American interrogators

-- use "separation" to keep unlawful enemy combatants apart from each other so that they can not coordinate their stories. This technique can be used only with "unlawful enemy combatants," not traditional prisoners of war, and requires special, high-level approval. The Pentagon said separation "does not mean solitary confinement."

    FACTBOX-Pentagon prohibits some interrogation tactics, R, 6.9.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyid=2006-09-06T182731Z_01_N06466268_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L1-RelatedNews-4

Bush outlines Gitmo trial plan, transfer of CIA-held terror suspects

Updated 9/6/2006 2:42 PM ET
USA Today
From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON — Fourteen senior members of al-Qaeda, including the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, have been transfered from CIA custody to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, President Bush said today as he outlined plans to try prisoners held in the war on terror.
The announcement is the first time the administration has acknowledged the existence of CIA prisons. The United States currently holds about 445 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Many have been held without charges for more than four years.

The 14 include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, and Abu Zubaydah, a top lieutenant to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Bush said. The list also includes Riduan Isamuddin, known additionally as Hambali, who was suspected of being Jemaah Islamiyah's main link to al-Qaeda and the mastermind of a string of deadly bomb attacks in Indonesia until his 2003 arrest in Thailand.

"They are in custody so they cannot murder our people," Bush said in a White House address in which he defended the administation's policies on prisoners in the war on terror.

"In this new war, the most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists themselves," he said. That has required the United States to hold prisoners in several locations, including military prisons near battlefieds, in Guantanamo Bay and a "small number" in secret, he said.

Defending the program, the president said the questioning of these detainees has provided critical intelligence information about terrorist activities that have enabled officials to prevent attacks not only in the United States, but Europe and other countries. He said the program has been reviewed by administration lawyers and been the subject of strict oversight from within the CIA.

Bush would not detail the type of interrogation techniques that are used through the program, saying they are tough but do not constitute torture.

"This program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they have a chance to kill," the president said. "It is invaluable to America and our allies.'

Bush said he was sending to Congress legislation to authorize the creation of military commissions to try enemy combatants for war crimes. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration's military tribunal system to try the prisoners is illegal. The court said the tribunals lacked congressional authorization and did not meet U.S. military or international justice standards.

That system would have allowed the defendants, most of whom were captured in Afghanistan, to be barred from their own trials. It also would have limited their access to evidence and allowed testimony from interrogations.

"We intend to prosecute these men as appropriate for these crimes," Bush said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the administration would propose trying enemy combatants based on military court martial procedures, although with a number of key changes such as admitting hearsay evidence, limiting rights against self-incrimination before a trial and limiting defendants' access to classified information.

Gonzales also told lawmakers the administration's plan might allow testimony obtained by coercion if it was reliable and useful.

Democrats have said those provisions would leave the new trial system vulnerable to another Supreme Court rebuke.

Senate leaders were briefed on the legislative plan Tuesday night. It already has met resistance from lawmakers who say it would set a dangerous precedent.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said he and Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were circulating their version of legislation, which adheres more closely to military court martial procedures.

Warner's spokesman John Ullyot said there were "some sticking points with the administration" on it.

The House Armed Services Committee also was set to release its version of the bill in hopes of producing final legislation before Congress breaks in early October to campaign for November congressional elections.

The administration also plans to brief lawmakers today on a new Army field manual that would set guidelines for the treatment of military detainees. Congress passed legislation late last year requiring military interrogators to follow the manual, which abided by Geneva Conventions standards.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the new Army manual "reflects the department's continued commitment to humane, professional and effective detention operations and builds on lessons learned and a review of detention operations."

The new manual specifically forbids intimidating prisoners with military dogs, putting hoods over their heads and simulating the sensation of drowning with a procedure called "water boarding," one defense official told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the manual had not yet been released.

Sixteen of the manual's 19 interrogation techniques were covered in the old manual and three new ones were added on the basis of lessons learned in the war on terrorism, the official said, adding only that the techniques are "not more aggressive" than those in the manual used before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said from the start of the war that prisoners are treated humanely and in a manner "consistent with Geneva Conventions."

But Bush decided shortly after 9/11 that since it is not a conventional war, "enemy combatants" captured in the fight against al-Qaeda would not be considered prisoners of war and thus would not be afforded the protections of the convention.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Armed Services Committee Democrat, said after being briefed on the proposed changes that the Army "looks as though it's moving in the right direction."

Congress last year passed a law championed by McCain to prohibit cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners and to create uniform standards for treating them.

It spells out appropriate conduct and procedures on a wide range of military issues and applies to all the armed services, not just the Army. It doesn't cover the CIA, which also has come under investigation for mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan and for allegedly keeping suspects in secret prisons elsewhere around the world since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Contributing: USA TODAY's David Jackson; Associated Press

    Bush outlines Gitmo trial plan, transfer of CIA-held terror suspects, UT, 6.9.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-09-06-guantanamo_x.htm

New Questions About Inquiry in C.I.A. Leak

September 2, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 — An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case has been solved in recent days, but with a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of the leaker from his very first day in the special counsel’s chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, on obstruction charges.

Now, the question of whether Mr. Fitzgerald properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion in continuing to pursue possible wrongdoing in the case has become the subject of rich debate on editorial pages and in legal and political circles.

Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, first told the authorities in October 2003 that he had been the primary source for the July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak that identified Valerie Wilson as a C.I.A. operative and set off the leak investigation.

Mr. Fitzgerald’s decision to prolong the inquiry once he took over as special prosecutor in December 2003 had significant political and legal consequences. The inquiry seriously embarrassed and distracted the Bush White House for nearly two years and resulted in five felony charges against Mr. Libby, even as Mr. Fitzgerald decided not to charge Mr. Armitage or anyone else with crimes related to the leak itself.

Moreover, Mr. Fitzgerald’s effort to find out who besides Mr. Armitage had spoken to reporters provoked a fierce battle over whether reporters could withhold the identities of their sources from prosecutors and resulted in one reporter, Judith Miller, then of The New York Times, spending 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify to a grand jury.

Since this week’s disclosures about Mr. Armitage’s role, Bush administration officials have argued that because the original leak came from a State Department official, it was clear there had been no concerted White House effort to disclose Ms. Wilson’s identity.

But Mr. Fitzgerald’s defenders point out that the revelation about Mr. Armitage did not rule out a White House effort because officials like Mr. Libby and Karl Rove, the senior white House adviser, had spoken about Ms. Wilson with other journalists. Even so, the Fitzgerald critics say, the prosecutor behaved much as did the independent counsels of the 1980’s and 1990’s who often failed to bring down their quarry on official misconduct charges but pursued highly nuanced accusations of a cover-up.

Mr. Armitage cooperated voluntarily in the case, never hired a lawyer and testified several times to the grand jury, according to people who are familiar with his role and actions in the case. He turned over his calendars, datebooks and even his wife’s computer in the course of the inquiry, those associates said. But Mr. Armitage kept his actions secret, not even telling President Bush because the prosecutor asked him not to divulge it, the people said.

Mr. Armitage has not publicly commented on the matter. The people who spoke about Mr. Armitage’s thoughts and action did so seeking anonymity on the grounds that the criminal case was still open and that their remarks were not authorized by the prosecutor. A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment.

Mr. Fitzgerald, who has spoken infrequently in public, came close to providing a defense for his actions at a news conference in October 2005, when Mr. Libby was indicted. Mr. Fitzgerald said that apart from the issue of whether any crime had been committed, the justice system depended on the ability of prosecutors to obtain truthful information from witnesses during any investigation.

The information about Mr. Armitage’s role may help Mr. Libby convince a jury that his actions were relatively inconsequential, because even Mr. Armitage, not regarded as an ally of Mr. Cheney, was talking to journalists about Ms. Wilson’s role.

But the trial, scheduled for early next year, may be focused on the narrow questions of whether Mr. Libby’s accounts to the grand jury and the F.B.I. were true. Judge Reggie M. Walton of Federal District Court, who is presiding, has resisted efforts by Mr. Libby’s lawyers to give the case a wider political scope.

Mr. Fitzgerald may also point out that Mr. Armitage knew about Ms. Wilson’s C.I.A. role only because of a memorandum that Mr. Libby had commissioned as part of an effort to rebut criticism of the White House by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Mr. Fitzgerald was named as a special counsel to investigate whether the leaking of Ms. Wilson’s identity as a C.I.A. officer was part of an administration effort to violate the law prohibiting the willful disclosure of undercover employees.

Some administration critics asserted that her identity had been disclosed in the Novak column as part of a campaign to undermine her husband. Mr. Wilson was sent by the C.I.A. in 2002 to Africa to investigate whether the Iraqi government had obtained uranium ore for its nuclear weapons program.

On July 6, 2003, a week before the Novak column, Mr. Wilson wrote a commentary in The New York Times saying his investigation in Africa had led him to believe that it was highly doubtful that any uranium deal had ever taken place and that the Bush administration had twisted intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

Mr. Armitage spoke with Mr. Novak on July 8, 2003, those familiar with Mr. Armitage’s actions said. Mr. Armitage did not know Mr. Novak, but agreed to meet with the columnist as a favor for a mutual friend, Kenneth M. Duberstein, a White House chief of staff during Ronald Reagan’s administration. At the conclusion of a general foreign policy discussion, Mr. Armitage said in reply to a question that Ms. Wilson might have had a role in arranging her husband’s trip to Niger.

At the time of the offhand conversation about the Niger trip, Mr. Armitage was not aware of Ms. Wilson’s undercover status, those familiar with his actions said. The mention of Ms. Wilson was brief. Mr. Armitage did not believe he used her name, those aware of his actions said.

On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Armitage was up at 4 a.m. for a predawn workout when he read a second article by Mr. Novak in which he described his primary source for his earlier column about Ms. Wilson as “no partisan gunslinger.” Mr. Armitage realized with alarm that that could only be a reference to him, according to people familiar with his role. He waited until Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, an old friend, was awake, then telephoned him. They discussed the matter with the top State Department lawyer, William H. Taft IV.

Mr. Armitage had prepared a resignation letter, his associates said. But he stayed on the job because State Department officials advised that his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the leak, the people aware of his actions said.

Later, Mr. Taft spoke with the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, now the attorney general, and advised him that Mr. Armitage was going to speak with lawyers at the Justice Department about the matter, the people familiar with Mr. Armitage’s actions said. Mr. Taft asked Mr. Gonzales whether he wanted to be told the details and was told that he did not want to know.

One day later, Justice Department investigators interviewed Mr. Armitage at his office. He resigned in November 2004, but remained a subject of the inquiry until this February when the prosecutor advised him in a letter that he would not be charged.

But Mr. Fitzgerald did obtain the indictment of Mr. Libby on charges that he had untruthfully testified to a grand jury and federal agents when he said he learned about Ms. Wilson’s role at the C.I.A. from reporters rather than from several officials, including Mr. Cheney.

Mr. Libby has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and his lawyers have signaled he will mount a defense based on the notion that he did not willfully lie.

Neil A. Lewis contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

    New Questions About Inquiry in C.I.A. Leak, NYT, 2.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/washington/02leak.html?hp&ex=1157256000&en=86b058e3e3be2d22&ei=5094&partner=homepage