Remember this is the media - who knows what was really said. ;-) I may add this disclaimer to all of my emails! >:o
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/13/MNL0V16B3.DTL&type=politics San Francisco Chronicle Obama criticizes prosecution of 6 detainees Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, February 13, 2008 The Pentagon's plans for death-penalty prosecutions of six men accused of plotting the 2001 terrorist attacks were criticized by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who said capital punishment is appropriate for such crimes but that military tribunals are the wrong forum for the case. The Defense Department announced murder, terrorism and conspiracy charges Monday against alleged attack mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other inmates of the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It gave the leading presidential candidates a chance to show how they would balance anti-terrorism zeal and civil liberties concerns in a heated political climate. Obama said the desire to punish the perpetrators of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, shouldn't blind people to the flaws of the military tribunals that the Bush administration established to try Guantanamo inmates. "These trials will need to be above reproach," the Illinois senator said in a statement Monday. "These trials are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks and that has been embroiled in legal challenges." Obama said the men should be tried either in a U.S. criminal court or by military court-martial, either of which would "demonstrate our commitment to the rule of law." Both those systems are more protective of defendants' rights than military tribunals, which allow evidence obtained through coercion and hearsay. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed no such reservations. "I'm sorry that it has taken so long," McCain told Reuters. "Let's begin this process." The campaign of Obama's chief Democratic rival, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, did not respond to inquiries from The Chronicle on Tuesday. But some of her views on the issue can be gleaned from past statements. Like Obama and McCain, Clinton has called for the closure of Guantanamo, saying in April that the military prison "has become associated in the eyes of the world with a discredited administration policy of abuse, secrecy, and contempt for the rule of law." Clinton is a co-sponsor of legislation by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would require the president to shut Guantanamo within a year and transfer its inmates to a U.S. civilian or military prison or an international legal tribunal. That bill does not specify how the inmates would be tried in their new locations and leaves the door open to try suspects in the existing military tribunals, which Obama has rejected. But both Clinton and Feinstein, along with Obama, voted against the Military Commissions Act, the 2006 law that created the framework for panels of officers to try Guantanamo prisoners who are charged with war crimes. McCain voted for the 2006 law. A year earlier, he sponsored an amendment that outlawed military interrogators' use of cruel, inhuman or degrading methods, including the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding. Administration officials have acknowledged that Mohammed was waterboarded, before McCain's amendment took effect, and insist the practice was legal. Whether Mohammed's statements to interrogators can be used as evidence is certain to be hotly disputed in the criminal cases. The Defense Department's rules for the military tribunals ban evidence produced by torture but allow the use of statements obtained by coercion that stops short of torture if the trial judge decides the statements are reliable. Such evidence would be prohibited in a U.S. civilian court or a military court-martial. Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the Pentagon's legal adviser to the tribunals, said Monday that the defendants will enjoy "an extraordinary set of rights," including the right to be represented by lawyers, present witnesses and evidence and cross-examine opposing witnesses. Obama's disavowal of military commissions was praised by Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents defendant Mohammed al-Qahtani. U.S. authorities have described al-Qahtani, who was kept out of the United States by immigration officials several weeks before the 2001 attacks, as the intended "20th hijacker." Time magazine has published a military log of his interrogators' use of dogs, beatings and other painful methods. "It's a significant step forward from where we are today," Ratner said of Obama's stance. "I'd rather have it in federal civilian courts, but courts-martial at least have a lot more protections than a rump military commission." /E-mail Bob Egelko at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ./ This article appeared on page *A - 16* of the San Francisco Chronicle -- * * *Peace,* *Linda* *http://freedetainees.org * --------------------------------- Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. 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