Senators say legislation needed for Guantanamo
By Vicki Allen Thu Jul 14, 5:29 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress should pass legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay to avoid more damage to the United States' image abroad and reprisals against U.S. soldiers, senators said on Thursday.
But the Pentagon said existing laws allow the indefinite detention of people the United States has deemed enemies in the war on terrorism, and that legislation could be too restrictive and was not needed.
"The truth is due to no one's fault Guantanamo Bay is a legal mess," Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), a South Carolina Republican, said at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing.
With the Pentagon under fire for the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, Graham is working on legislation with fellow Republicans John Warner of Virginia, the Armed Services Committee chairman, and John McCain of Arizona to clarify the legal standing of people the administration calls "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely.
Human rights groups and a number of European countries have said that term has no standing under international law, and the detainees should have the rights of prisoners of war.
Guantanamo, opened after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has become a lightening rod for criticism with accusation that the mostly Muslim detainees from the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan have been tortured and humiliated.
The Pentagon contends detainees have not been tortured, although it found a key prisoner was subjected to "abusive and degrading" treatment when U.S. interrogators told him he was a homosexual, forced him to wear a bra, made him wear a leash and perform dog tricks, and subjected him to interrogations up to 20 hours a day for about two months.
There are about 520 detainees at Guantanamo from more than 40 countries being held because they are deemed dangerous or to extract information from them on the al Qaeda network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks. Many have been held for more than three years. Only four have been charged and none prosecuted.
Senators said harsh interrogation practices and the refusal to grant prisoner of war status to detainees could backfire when U.S. soldiers are captured.
"Our troops are looking at us to see whether we're going to adopt a standard that if they were captured would be acceptable," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the committee's top Democrat.
Warner defended Guantanamo's current operations "as the best they can do under a framework of laws that is either not clear or needs to be refined."
Graham pressed a panel of Pentagon legal officials on whether a law passed by Congress clarifying the status of enemy combatants would speed up the legal dispute that has blocked prosecutions of detainees.
Daniel Dell'Orto, the Pentagon's principal deputy general counsel, said the litigation would continue with or without legislation. "I don't know that that's a panacea for any problem we have right now," he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June 2004 ruled that detainees had the right to go to federal courts to seek their release from Guantanamo, but there have been sometimes contradictory lower court rulings since then.
By Vicki Allen Thu Jul 14, 5:29 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress should pass legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay to avoid more damage to the United States' image abroad and reprisals against U.S. soldiers, senators said on Thursday.
But the Pentagon said existing laws allow the indefinite detention of people the United States has deemed enemies in the war on terrorism, and that legislation could be too restrictive and was not needed.
"The truth is due to no one's fault Guantanamo Bay is a legal mess," Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), a South Carolina Republican, said at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing.
With the Pentagon under fire for the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo, Graham is working on legislation with fellow Republicans John Warner of Virginia, the Armed Services Committee chairman, and John McCain of Arizona to clarify the legal standing of people the administration calls "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely.
Human rights groups and a number of European countries have said that term has no standing under international law, and the detainees should have the rights of prisoners of war.
Guantanamo, opened after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has become a lightening rod for criticism with accusation that the mostly Muslim detainees from the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan have been tortured and humiliated.
The Pentagon contends detainees have not been tortured, although it found a key prisoner was subjected to "abusive and degrading" treatment when U.S. interrogators told him he was a homosexual, forced him to wear a bra, made him wear a leash and perform dog tricks, and subjected him to interrogations up to 20 hours a day for about two months.
There are about 520 detainees at Guantanamo from more than 40 countries being held because they are deemed dangerous or to extract information from them on the al Qaeda network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks. Many have been held for more than three years. Only four have been charged and none prosecuted.
Senators said harsh interrogation practices and the refusal to grant prisoner of war status to detainees could backfire when U.S. soldiers are captured.
"Our troops are looking at us to see whether we're going to adopt a standard that if they were captured would be acceptable," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, the committee's top Democrat.
Warner defended Guantanamo's current operations "as the best they can do under a framework of laws that is either not clear or needs to be refined."
Graham pressed a panel of Pentagon legal officials on whether a law passed by Congress clarifying the status of enemy combatants would speed up the legal dispute that has blocked prosecutions of detainees.
Daniel Dell'Orto, the Pentagon's principal deputy general counsel, said the litigation would continue with or without legislation. "I don't know that that's a panacea for any problem we have right now," he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June 2004 ruled that detainees had the right to go to federal courts to seek their release from Guantanamo, but there have been sometimes contradictory lower court rulings since then.
I was worried that Congress would refrain from something stupid, something moronic like fuck up our efforts to combat the war on terror by inserting themselves into the thick of it, but now I'm glad to see that those fears can be laid to rest.
Most of our elected officials are little more than trained fucking chimps. Now, ordinarily, their rampant flapdoodle is merely a vexation that we all, as Americans, must bear, but this, of course, is different, because it relates directly to actions taken by our military which are designed to combat the war on terror, defeat our enemies, and prevent another catastrophic terrorist event such as 9/11. I have the distinctive feeling that our 'esteemed' representatives, by sticking their nose into things, are just going to FUBAR the entire thing because they're either too goddamn stupid, or ideological, or desperate to win brownie points with an international community that is filled with petty, pedantic miscreants who will still loathe and despise us out of jealousy.
Congressmen have complained after the fact about the Patriot Act, claiming they didn't know or really read what it is they were signing into law. I say, they shouldn't have even tried - they're far too fucking retarded to understand it, or realize that it is / was what is necessary.