History > 2007 > USA > Terrorism (VII)

Guantanamo prisoner

dies of cancer: U.S.

Sun Dec 30, 2007
5:28pm EST
Reuters

MIAMI (Reuters) - An Afghan detainee has died from cancer at the prison camp at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, authorities said on Sunday.

Abdul Razzak, 68, who was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for colorectal cancer, was pronounced dead by a doctor at the base on Sunday morning, the U.S. military said in a statement.

He was the fifth prisoner to die in captivity since the detention and interrogation camp opened in 2002, Cmdr. Rick Haupt, a spokesman for the military's Joint Task Force Guantanamo, told Reuters.

The other four deaths at Guantanamo, which currently holds about 290 prisoners, were the result of apparent suicides, according to the U.S. military.

The United States has drawn intense international criticism for holding foreign captives for years without charge at its naval base in southeast Cuba.

Haupt said Razzak was detained in Afghanistan in January 2003 and was a "committed jihadist."

He did not elaborate except to say that Razzak, who would have turned 69 next month, was accused of "actively engaging the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan." He had been held in Guantanamo since January 2003, Haupt added.

"We make every attempt to preserve life here at Guantanamo and we regret any loss of life," Haupt said.

(Reporting by Tom Brown; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

Guantanamo prisoner dies of cancer: U.S., R, 30.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN3048497220071230

Bin Laden says

U.S. seeks to exploit Iraqi oil

Sun Dec 30, 2007
4:09am EST
Reuters
By Inal Ersan

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Washington of plotting to take control of Iraq's oil and urged Iraqis to reject efforts to rebuild a U.S.-backed national unity government there.

The militant leader also vowed in a recording posted on an Islamist Web site on Saturday to expand jihad to liberate all Palestinian land "from the (Mediterranean) sea to the (Jordan) river" and said his group will never recognize Israel.

"America seeks, alongside its agents in the region, to create an allied government ... that would accept in advance the presence of major U.S. bases in Iraq and give the Americans all they wish of Iraq's oil," he said in the 56-minute recording.

The Saudi-born militant said the envisaged Iraqi government was also meant to help Washington "fully dominate" the region with help from allies such as Saudi Arabia.

"The government of Riyadh is still playing its wicked roles," he said, describing Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah as the United States' "chief agent".

Referring to a Saudi push in February to help Palestinian rivals agree a unity government which fell apart in June, he said Riyadh was part of a scheme to lure Islamist Palestinian militant group Hamas away from its jihadist roots.

"I assure our kin in Palestine especially that we shall expand our jihad ... We will not recognize a state for the Jews over even an inch of Palestinian soil," said bin Laden.

Bin Laden did not mention accusations al Qaeda was behind Thursday's assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. A Qaeda-allied militant leader has denied involvement.

BLUE HELMETS

Bin Laden took a swing at Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group, for accepting the expansion of a United Nations force in Lebanon after the Shi'ite group's war with the Jewish state in 2006.

The peacekeepers sent to Lebanon after the war were there to "protect the Jews", said bin Laden, whose group belongs to a school of Islam that sees Shi'ite Muslims as heretics.

Bin Laden said Washington was planning to form a new Iraqi national unity government and warned that those who took part would be turning their backs on Islam.

Sunni Arabs pulled out of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government earlier this year, accusing it of being too sectarian.

FORGIVENESS

Bin Laden accepted responsibility for civilian casualties in al Qaeda attacks but he argued that the enemy used Muslims as human shields. "We beg God's forgiveness," he said, vowing to continue to fight "leaders" of Muslims countries.

Earlier on Saturday, Iraq's Interior Ministry said al Qaeda's influence in Iraq had dramatically fallen, with 75 percent of its networks and 70 percent of its activities having been eliminated.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in a statement the tape was a reminder of al Qaeda's continued activities in Iraq.

"This is a reminder that the aim of al Qaeda in Iraq is to block democracy and freedom for all Iraqis. It also reminds us that the mission to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq is critically important and must succeed," Fratto said.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official said Washington was aware of the recording and was looking into it: "There has never been a fake bin Laden tape, so there really wouldn't be any reason going in to believe it would be anything other than authentic."

Bin Laden also said Muslims were losing money to "unjust" policies by countries that link their currencies to the weak U.S. dollar, an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf Arab oil producers.

He urged supporting militants so they can "preserve your oil and wealth and protect your money that is slipping between your fingers due to the unjust and arbitrary dollar pegs".

Saudi Arabia and four Gulf neighbors agreed in a summit this month to keep their currencies linked to the dollar after fellow Gulf Arab Kuwait started tracking a currency basket.

Al Qaeda media group As-Sahab said the tape was produced in a lunar calendar month which started on December 11, but did not give the actual date of the recording.
 

(Additional Reporting by Paul Eckert;

Editing by Diana Abdallah)

    Bin Laden says U.S. seeks to exploit Iraqi oil, R, 30.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2967783420071230

TIMELINE:

Messages attributed to al Qaeda

Sat Dec 29, 2007
7:23pm EST
Reuters

(Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Washington of plotting to take control of Iraq's oil and urged Iraqis to reject efforts to rebuild a U.S.-backed national unity government in an Internet posting on Saturday.

Following is a chronology of some statements attributed to bin Laden or his allies in 2007. Some 50 messages have been broadcast since Al Jazeera aired a statement by bin Laden following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Jan 22 - Second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri mocks President George W. Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq.

Feb 13 - Zawahri says a U.S. troop build-up in Iraq will fail and vows reprisals against Arab and Muslim states backing U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

March 11 - Zawahri says the leadership of Islamist group Hamas has surrendered to the Jews most of Palestine to keep heading the Palestinian government.

May 23 - Zawahri eulogizes Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah, killed in Afghanistan earlier in the month and urges his followers to pursue his fight against U.S.-led forces.

June 25 - Zawahri urges all Muslims to support Hamas in its battles with President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel.

July 4 - Zawahri talks about unity in jihad and calls for the overthrow of "corrupt" Muslim governments.

July 10 - Zawahri threatens more attacks on Britain two weeks after failed bombings in London and Glasgow.

Sept 7 - Bin Laden appears in a videotape marking the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks and says the United States is vulnerable despite its economic and military power.

Sept 11 - Bin Laden eulogizes a September 11 hijacker. In the videotape, what appears to be bin Laden's voice can be heard over a still image of him, praising hijacker Waleed al-Shehri.

Sept 20 - Bin Laden vows to retaliate against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf for the killing of a rebel cleric and a raid on his mosque.

Oct 22 - Bin Laden urges unity among Iraq's Sunni insurgents.

Nov 29 - Bin Laden urges European countries to end military participation with U.S. forces in the Afghan conflict.

Dec 14 - Zawahri denounces Saudi Arabia and Egypt, saying they were serving Israel and U.S. interests by attending a U.S. conference in Annapolis.

Dec 16 - Zawahri says Britain's handover of security in southern Iraq shows insurgents are gaining the upper hand there.

Dec 29 - Bin Laden accuses Washington of plotting to take control of Iraq's oil and urges Iraqis to reject efforts to rebuild a U.S.-backed national unity government.

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;)

    TIMELINE: Messages attributed to al Qaeda, R, 29.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL297906620071230





 

Ten Saudis return home from Guantanamo Bay prison

Sat Dec 29, 2007
8:25am EST
Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - Ten Saudis returned home on Saturday from detention in the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay where al Qaeda militants are held, the Saudi Interior Ministry said.

Washington has returned dozens of Saudis over the past year in an effort to reduce the numbers detained at the controversial camp ahead of finally closing it but around 13 are still held at the facility.

Public anger over the treatment of Saudi detainees in Guantanamo Bay has been high in the kingdom, a close U.S. ally but one which applies Islamic law.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz told the official Saudi Press Agency that efforts were underway to bring home the rest, and that U.S. authorities were cooperating.

Those repatriated to Saudi Arabia have received financial help from the government to rebuild their lives and many have been allowed to go free.

Fahd al-Shamri, a Riyadh-based lawyer representing families of Saudis held at Guantanamo, called for the release of those still held at Guantanamo Bay.

"We hope the next batch will be the last so that we turn this bleak page and bring to an end the suffering of the families of these detainees," he said in a statement.

Washington has designated Guantanamo prisoners, who were mainly seized in Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S. invasion, as "enemy combatants." They have been denied the prisoner-of-war status that would guarantee them certain rights under international law.

Two Saudis were among three prisoners who hanged themselves at the naval base in June.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States were Saudis and Osama bin Laden himself is Saudi-born.

(Writing by Lin Noueihed; editing by Sami Aboudi)

    Ten Saudis return home from Guantanamo Bay prison, R, 29.12.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL292768820071229

Mass Held at Ground Zero One Last Time

December 25, 2007
Filed at 8:31 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- The first midnight Mass at ground zero was celebrated as workers were still clearing debris from the World Trade Center and recovering bodies after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The last was held Monday night, giving police, firefighters, recovery workers and victims' families a final chance to pray on Christmas Eve at the site, where intensifying construction is increasingly taking up open space.

''A lot of us felt sad this was the last official midnight Mass on-site, but at the same time, there was a sense of relief. This brought closure for us,'' the Rev. Brian Jordan said early Tuesday after the service ended. A chaplain who spent 10 months at ground zero after Sept. 11, he has since presided over every midnight Mass there.

About 75 people attended the Mass, he said. One police officer was there for the first time; he had recently returned from military service in Afghanistan and before that Iraq, Jordan said. A sanitation worker who was involved in the ground zero cleanup and has sung at each year's service rendered ''God Bless America'' and ''O Holy Night.''

At one point in the prayers, those gathered were asked to say the names of loved ones who died in the 2001 attacks. As many as 150 names were mentioned, said Jordan, who carried a chalice dedicated to the memory of the Rev. Mychal Judge, a fire chaplain killed while performing last rites on other victims' bodies outside the trade center.

''It was poignant, it was moving, it was uplifting,'' Jordan said.

More than 150 people attended the first Mass in 2001, while thousands of workers were still removing the debris from the fallen twin towers and searching for bodies. Over the years, the service became a spiritual salve for those who participated.

''I see the healing that it does,'' construction worker Frank Silecchia said. ''It's like a pilgrimage.''

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, has moved the service at times from one part of the property to another, depending on construction. Officials hope to open five office towers, a transit hub and a Sept. 11 memorial there within the next five years.

Jordan said he decided to make this service the last after Port Authority officials told him that heavier construction would make it impossible to continue the tradition in 2008. Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman disputed that claim, saying Monday a spot would be found if Jordan wanted to hold future services at the site.

Jordan said it was fitting for this year's Mass to be the final one, noting that the most recent Sept. 11 commemoration may have marked the last time victims' families were allowed to descend into the pit at ground zero to remember their relatives.

''This was a holy night on sacred ground,'' he said. ''As I told the people at the site, it's been an honor and a privilege to be able to say Mass here.''

------

Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

    Mass Held at Ground Zero One Last Time, NYT, 25.12.2007,
    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Attacks-Last-Mass.html

Editorial

Notes From the Global War on Terror

December 14, 2007
The New York Times

During the presidential campaign, candidates from both parties will warn of the risk of another terrorist attack on this country. Americans should insist that they also explain how they will repair the damage President Bush has done to America’s intelligence-gathering capabilities in the name of fighting terrorism.

Congress certainly has not done the job. For six years, it stood by mutely or actively approved as President Bush’s team cooked the books to justify war, drew the nation’s electronic spies into illegal wiretapping and turned intelligence agents and uniformed soldiers into torturers at outlaw prisons.

Now, with the opposition party in control on Capitol Hill, lawmakers have a chance to start setting right some wrongs in these areas. But there are disturbing signs that they will once again fail to do what is needed.

EAVESDROPPING After the disclosure that Mr. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail messages without a court warrant, Congress has been struggling to write a law that does three important things: force the president to obey the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA; preserve the power of judges to approve and monitor surveillance of Americans; and update FISA to keep pace with technology. Last summer, Congress gave Mr. Bush a bill that had the needed updates but made it easier to spy on Americans.

That law expires in February, and the House has passed a bill that updates FISA while doing a great deal to ensure real judicial and Congressional oversight of any eavesdropping. The Senate Judiciary Committee also wrote a bill that does those things — with a sensible two-year expiration date.

Mr. Bush, of course, wants fewer, not more, restrictions and wants those powers to be made permanent. He also wants amnesty for telecommunications companies that gave Americans’ private data to the government for at least five years without a warrant.

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, seems intent on doing the president’s bidding. He has indicated that instead of the Judiciary Committee’s bill, he may put on the floor a deeply flawed measure from the Senate Intelligence Committee that dangerously expands the government’s powers and gives undeserved amnesty to the telecommunications companies. The White House says amnesty is intended to ensure future cooperation but seems truly aimed at making sure the public never learns the extent of the companies’ involvement in illegal wiretapping.

That will leave Democratic senators like Christopher Dodd and Russ Feingold in the absurd position of having to stage filibusters against their own party’s leadership to try to forestall more harm to civil liberties.

INTERROGATIONS AND TORTURE The recent disclosure that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogation of two Al Qaeda prisoners was a stark reminder of the catastrophic blunder that Congress made by enacting the Military Commissions Act of 2006. In addition to creating kangaroo courts to try the Guantánamo detainees, the bill permitted Mr. Bush to abrogate the Geneva Conventions by creating secret, extra-legal rules for interrogations by intelligence agents.

It was obvious that the tapes were destroyed to protect interrogators or their bosses from being held responsible for illegal acts like waterboarding. Congress must investigate the destruction of the tapes, using subpoenas, if necessary, to officials like John Rizzo, the C.I.A.’s senior lawyer, and Jose Rodriguez, the former chief of clandestine services, who ordered the tapes’ destruction in 2005.

USE AND MISUSE OF INTELLIGENCE Americans were stunned when the White House released a new intelligence assessment that said that Iran had halted its covert nuclear weapons program in 2003. Beyond those startling facts were questions about whether Mr. Bush knew of this assessment when he was warning about World War III if Iran were allowed to get a nuclear weapon.

And that was a reminder of another time when Mr. Bush misled the nation about Iraqi weapons programs that had long disappeared. The Senate Intelligence Committee was supposed to have an investigation years ago into what Mr. Bush and other officials knew about the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons when they used it to stampede the country into war.

For more than two years, the Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Pat Roberts, made sure that a report would never be finished. It has now been in the hands of his replacement, Democrat Jay Rockefeller, for nearly a year, and there is still no report. That means Americans still don’t know whether Mr. Bush deliberately hyped and distorted the intelligence on Iraq or was also misinformed.

Americans need to know what Mr. Bush knew on both Iraq and Iran, and when he knew it. Anything less is unacceptable.

•

Resolving these issues will require leadership, political courage and candor — from Congress and the president. The country has had enough acquiescence, excuse-making and obfuscation.

    Notes From the Global War on Terror, NYT, 14.12.2007,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/opinion/14fri1.html

U.S. Falters in Terror Case Against 7 in Miami

December 14, 2007
The New York Times
By KIRK SEMPLE

MIAMI — One of seven indigent men charged with plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago as part of an Islamic jihad was acquitted on Thursday, and a mistrial was declared in the prosecution of the six others after the jury said it was hopelessly deadlocked.

The outcome was a significant defeat for the Bush administration, which had described the case as a major crackdown on homegrown terrorists.

Officials had acknowledged that the defendants, known as the Liberty City Seven for the depressed section of Miami where they frequently gathered in a rundown warehouse, had never acquired weapons or equipment and had posed no immediate threat. But, the officials said, the case underscored a need for pre-emptive terrorism prosecutions.

In acquitting Lyglenson Lemorin, 32, a Haitian immigrant who was cast by the prosecution as a junior foot soldier in the group, the jurors were compelled by evidence that suggested he had tried “to distance himself” from the others, Jeffrey Agron, the jury foreman, said outside the courthouse.

Mr. Lemorin had split with the group’s leader, Narseal Batiste, 33, and moved to Atlanta months before the seven were arrested last year, according to The Associated Press.

As for the six defendants on whom the jury deadlocked, the United States attorney’s office here said Thursday that it would retry them. The judge, Joan A. Lenard, ordered jury selection for the retrial to begin Jan. 7 and barred prosecution and defense lawyers from discussing Thursday’s outcome with reporters.

The defendants — five Americans and two Haitians — worked in a small construction business owned by Mr. Batiste and were members of the Moorish Science Temple, a sect that blends Islam, Christianity and Judaism and does not recognize the authority of the United States government. They were charged with planning to join forces with Al Qaeda to blow up the Chicago skyscraper and several federal buildings in an effort at a government overthrow.

The seven came under government surveillance in the fall of 2005 when a Yemeni man contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to report what he described as suspicious activity by them and their request that he help them contact Al Qaeda.

Mr. Agron, the jury foreman, who described himself as an educator at a synagogue, said the case’s complexity, with seven defendants each facing four conspiracy counts, had made for “tough” deliberations.

“There were just different takes by different people,” he said. “People have different takes on what they saw, on what was said and what was meant.”

Mr. Agron declined to detail how the 12 jurors had split on each count and each defendant. But he said they had thought the weakest count was the government’s charge that the defendants had conspired to wage war against the United States.

The other charges were conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, conspiracy to destroy federal buildings and conspiracy to provide material support for the destruction of federal buildings.

Each defendant faced up to 70 years in prison if convicted on all four charges.

The case first seemed headed for a mistrial on Thursday of last week, when the jury, in a note to Judge Lenard, suggested that it was struggling to agree on verdicts for all seven defendants. A second, similar note was sent to the judge on Monday. Both times, she directed the jurors to keep trying.

On Thursday afternoon, the jury sent out a third note, saying that it had reached a verdict on one defendant but that “we believe no further progress can be made.”

Terry Aguayo contributed reporting.

    U.S. Falters in Terror Case Against 7 in Miami, NYT, 14.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/us/nationalspecial3/14liberty.html?hp

C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations

December 7, 2007
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said.

In a statement to employees on Thursday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said that the decision to destroy the tapes was made “within the C.I.A.” and that they were destroyed to protect the safety of undercover officers and because they no longer had intelligence value.

The destruction of the tapes raises questions about whether agency officials withheld information from Congress, the courts and the Sept. 11 commission about aspects of the program.

The recordings were not provided to a federal court hearing the case of the terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui or to the Sept. 11 commission, which was appointed by President Bush and Congress, and which had made formal requests to the C.I.A. for transcripts and other documentary evidence taken from interrogations of agency prisoners.

The disclosures about the tapes are likely to reignite the debate over laws that allow the C.I.A. to use interrogation practices more severe than those allowed to other agencies. A Congressional conference committee voted late Wednesday to outlaw those interrogation practices, but the measure has yet to pass the full House and Senate and is likely to face a veto from Mr. Bush.

The New York Times informed the intelligence agency on Wednesday evening that it was preparing to publish an article about the destruction of the tapes. In his statement to employees on Thursday, General Hayden said that the agency had acted “in line with the law” and that he was informing C.I.A. employees “because the press has learned” about the matter.

General Hayden’s statement said that the tapes posed a “serious security risk” and that if they had become public they would have exposed C.I.A. officials “and their families to retaliation from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers.”

Current and former intelligence officials said that the decision to destroy the tapes was made by Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who was the head of the Directorate of Operations, the agency’s clandestine service. Mr. Rodriguez could not be reached Thursday for comment.

Two former intelligence officials said that Porter J. Goss, the director of the agency at the time, was not told that the tapes would be destroyed and was angered to learn that they had been.

Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Goss declined to comment on the matter.

In his statement, General Hayden said leaders of Congressional oversight committees had been fully briefed about the existence of the tapes and told in advance of the decision to destroy them. But the two top members of the House Intelligence Committee in 2005 said Thursday that they had not been notified in advance of the decision to destroy the tapes.

A spokesman for Representative Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, who was the committee’s chairman between 2004 and 2006, said that Mr. Hoekstra was “never briefed or advised that these tapes existed, or that they were going to be destroyed.”

The spokesman, Jamal Ware, also said that Mr. Hoekstra “absolutely believes that the full committee should have been informed and consulted before the C.I.A. did anything with the tapes.”

Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the committee between 2002 and 2006, said that she told C.I.A. officials several years ago that destroying any interrogation tapes would be a “bad idea.”

“How in the world could the C.I.A. claim that these tapes were not relevant to a legislative inquiry?” she said. “This episode reinforces my view that the C.I.A. should not be conducting a separate interrogations program.”

In both 2003 and 2005 C.I.A. lawyers told prosecutors in the Moussaoui case that the C.I.A. did not possess recordings of interrogations sought by the judge. Mr. Moussaoui’s lawyers had hoped that records of the interrogations might provide exculpatory evidence for Mr. Moussaoui, showing that the Qaeda detainees did not know Mr. Moussaoui and clearing him of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said that the court had sought tapes of “specific, named terrorists whose comments might have a bearing on the Moussaoui case” and that the videotapes destroyed were not of those individuals. Intelligence officials identified Abu Zubaydah as one of the detainees whose interrogation tape was destroyed, but the other detainee’s name was not disclosed.

General Hayden has said publicly that information obtained through the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program has been the best source of intelligence for operations against Al Qaeda. In a speech last year, President Bush said that information from Mr. Zubaydah had helped lead to the capture in 2003 of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Staff members of the Sept. 11 commission, which completed its work in 2004, expressed surprise when they were told that interrogation videotapes had existed until 2005.

“The commission did formally request material of this kind from all relevant agencies, and the commission was assured that we had received all the material responsive to our request,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as executive director of the Sept. 11 commission and later as a senior counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“No tapes were acknowledged or turned over, nor was the commission provided with any transcript prepared from recordings,” he said.

Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.

If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to obstruction of justice to withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations.

Mr. Gimigliano, the C.I.A. spokesman, said that the agency “went to great lengths to meet the requests of the 9/11 commission,” and that the C.I.A. had preserved the tapes until the commission ended its work in case members requested the tapes.

Several current and former intelligence officials were interviewed for this article over a period of several weeks. All requested anonymity because information about the tapes had been classified until General Hayden issued his statement on Thursday acknowledging that they had been destroyed.

The C.I.A. program that included the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects began after the capture of Mr. Zubaydah in March 2002. The C.I.A. has said that the Justice Department and other elements of the executive branch reviewed and approved the use of a set of harsh techniques before they were used on any prisoners, and that the Justice Department issued a classified legal opinion in August 2002 that provided explicit authorization for their use.

Some members of Congress have since sought to ban some of the techniques, saying that they amounted to torture, which is prohibited under American law. But President Bush, who revealed the existence of the C.I.A. program in September 2006, has defended the techniques as legal, and has said they have proven beneficial in obtaining critical intelligence information.

Some of the harshest techniques, including waterboarding, which induces a feeling of drowning and near-suffocation, were used on several of the first Qaeda operatives captured by the C.I.A., including Abu Zubaydah. But intelligence officials have said that waterboarding is no longer on an approved list spelled out in a classified executive order that was issued by the White House this year.

In his statement, General Hayden said the tapes were originally made to ensure that agency employees acted in accordance with “established legal and policy guidelines.” He said the agency stopped videotaping interrogations in 2002.

“The tapes were meant chiefly as an additional, internal check on the program in its early stages,” he said. He said they were destroyed only after the agency’s Office of the General Counsel and Office of the Inspector General had examined them and determined that they showed lawful methods of questioning.

Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said General Hayden’s claim that the tapes were destroyed to protect C.I.A. officers “is not credible.”

“Millions of documents in C.I.A. archives, if leaked, would identify C.I.A. officers,” Mr. Malinowski said. “The only difference here is that these tapes portray potentially criminal activity. They must have understood that if people saw these tapes, they would consider them to show acts of torture, which is a felony offense.”

It has been widely reported that Abu Zubaydah was subjected to several tough physical tactics. But the current and former intelligence officials who described the decision to destroy the videotapes said that C.I.A. officers had judged that the release of photos or videos depicting his interrogation would provoke a strong reaction.

In exchanges involving the Moussaoui case, the C.I.A. notified the United States attorney’s office in Alexandria, Va., in September that it had discovered two videotapes and one audio tape that it had not previously acknowledged to the court, but made no mention of any tapes destroyed in 2005.

The acknowledgment was spelled out in a letter sent in October by federal prosecutors that amended the C.I.A.’s previous declarations involving videotapes. The letter is heavily redacted, with sentences identifying the detainees blacked out.

Signed by the United States attorney, Chuck Rosenberg, the letter states that the C.I.A.’s search for interrogation tapes “appears to be complete.”

Mr. Moussaoui was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison.

Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been pushing legislation in Congress to have all detainee interrogations videotaped so officials can refer to the tapes multiple times to glean better information.

Mr. Holt said he had been told many times that the C.I.A. did not record the interrogation of detainees. “When I would ask them whether they had reviewed the tapes to better understand the intelligence, they said, ‘What tapes?’,” he said.

Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane contributed reporting.

    C.I.A. Destroyed 2 Tapes Showing Interrogations, NYT, 7.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/washington/07intel.html?hp

Gitmo Prisoner Aided Bin Laden, US Says

December 7, 2007
Filed at 9:00 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- A Guantanamo detainee admitted helping Osama bin Laden evade capture after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. federal agents have testified, countering defense assertions that the man had no role in terrorism.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan told interrogators he chauffeured bin Laden between locations in Afghanistan to avoid U.S. retaliation after the al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington, agents from the FBI and Department of Defense told a court Thursday at this isolated military outpost.

At one point, Hamdan recalled overhearing bin Laden say he expected no more than 1,500 people would killed in the 2001 attacks, Special Agent George Crouch said. Nearly 3,000 people died.

''When Osama bin Laden learned it was much larger than that he was very pleased,'' Crouch recalled Hamdan telling him and two other FBI agents during interrogation sessions at Guantanamo.

The testimony came in a pretrial hearing to determine whether Hamdan can be prosecuted. The detainee, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly six years, is charged with conspiracy and supporting terrorism, and prosecutors called witnesses to bolster their case that he is an unlawful enemy combatant eligible to face the special court. The two-day hearing ended late Thursday with the judge saying he would issue a written ruling later.

The defense maintains Hamdan was one of several drivers for bin Laden and had no advance knowledge of or role in terrorist attacks.

Hamdan's lawyers want him declared a prisoner of war, which would entitle him to greater legal protections than those now afforded to prisoners at Guantanamo designated as ''unlawful enemy combatants.''

Crouch said Hamdan left his native Yemen in 1996 and ended up in Afghanistan, where he was hired as a driver by bin Laden and later became a member of the al-Qaida leader's security detachment.

Robert McFadden, a Department of Defense agent who interrogated Hamdan in 2003, said the detainee drove bin Laden's son, Uthman, at least once with the al-Qaida leader. Hamdan, who is now about 37, was paid $200 to $300 a month plus $100 for housing, McFadden said.

Just before the deadly 1998 al-Qaida bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, Hamdan helped evacuate bin Laden's compound in Afghanistan, Crouch testified.

''This was going to be the first time Osama bin Laden was going to go toe-to-toe or face-to-face with the United States and he was unsure what the reaction would be,'' the agent said.

Hamden also knew of bin Laden's involvement in the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, Crouch said.

Also Thursday, a U.S. Army officer said Hamdan was not wearing a uniform when he was captured in November 2001 in Afghanistan while driving a car with two surface-to-air missiles inside. The testimony was intended to underscore the U.S. contention that Hamden was not a traditional soldier deserving POW status.

Defense lawyers pointed out that many Afghan fighters under U.S. command did not wear what might be considered typical military garb and that no other weapons were found in Hamden's car -- even though he had a permit from the Taliban to carry a sidearm.

The defense called another detainee, Said Boujaadia, a 39-year-old Moroccan who the military says was captured just before Hamdan at a military checkpoint in Afghanistan. But Boujaadia, who has been cleared for release from Guantanamo, testified that Hamdan was already in Afghan custody. Civilian defense attorney Harry Schneider noted there were discrepancies in military documents about the capture of the two men.

Crouch said the FBI believed Hamdan could not have been ignorant of al-Qaida's workings.

''It didn't make sense to us as investigators that an individual assigned to drive Osama bin Laden, and be so close, would not be part of al-Qaida or have understanding of inner workings of al-Qaida,'' Crouch said.

The witnesses were the first to testify at a Guantanamo hearing since Congress and the Bush administration last year came up with new rules for military trials, known as commissions, after the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the old version.

On Wednesday, the military judge presiding at the hearing rejected a defense request to talk to the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attack and two other ''high value'' detainees.

Hamdan faces up to life in prison if tried and convicted. He followed the proceedings closely through a translator, smiling when his fellow detainee showed up in court and laughing when Boujaadia had problems with the translation headphones.

Hamdan's case has been delayed by legal challenges, including one he filed that went to the Supreme Court and resulted in the striking down of the original rules for military tribunals.

The U.S. now holds about 305 prisoners at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban and plans to prosecute about 80. Only three detainees have been formally charged and one, Australian David Hicks, was convicted in a plea bargain and sent home.

    Gitmo Prisoner Aided Bin Laden, US Says, NYT, 7.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Guantanamo-Trials.html

Witness Names to Be Withheld From Detainee

December 1, 2007
The New York Times
By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Defense lawyers preparing for the war crimes trial of a 21-year-old Guantánamo detainee have been ordered by a military judge not to tell their client — or anyone else — the identity of witnesses against him, newly released documents show.

The case of the detainee, Omar Ahmed Khadr, is being closely watched because it may be the first Guantánamo prosecution to go to trial, perhaps as soon as May.

Defense lawyers say military prosecutors have sought similar orders to keep the names of witnesses secret in other military commission cases, which have been a centerpiece of the Bush administration’s policies for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Some legal experts and defense lawyers said the judge’s order, issued on Oct. 15 without public disclosure, underscored the gap between military commission procedures and traditional American rules that the accused has a right to a public trial and to confront the witnesses against him.

Defense lawyers say the order would hamper their ability to build an adequate defense because they cannot ask their client or anyone else about prosecution witnesses, making it difficult to test the veracity of testimony.

The order, the documents show, followed a request by military prosecutors who said they feared terrorist retaliation against witnesses who appeared at Guantánamo proceedings.

“It is conceivable, if not likely, that Al Qaeda members or sympathizers could attempt to target witnesses,” a prosecutor, Maj. Jeffrey D. Groharing of the Marines, wrote to the judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army.

The order says that three weeks before trial, prosecutors can abandon the secrecy protections or ask the judge to extend them. Prosecutors have also suggested that they may ask the judge to bar all information identifying witnesses from the trial. “Providing the witnesses’ true identities will add nothing to their testimony,” the prosecutors wrote in a legal filing.

Mr. Khadr’s military defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler of the Navy, said that while he has been given a list of prosecution witnesses, the judge’s decision requires him to keep secrets from his client and that he would ask Colonel Brownback to revoke the order. He said it treated Mr. Khadr as if he had already been convicted and deprived him of a trial at which the public could assess the evidence against him.

“Instead of a presumption of innocence and of a public trial,” Commander Kuebler said, “we start with a presumption of guilt and of a secret trial.”

Mr. Khadr, the only Canadian detainee at Guantánamo, is charged with killing an American soldier, giving material support for terrorism and other offenses. The documents released by the Pentagon, nearly 700 pages of previously unavailable records of arguments and rulings in the Khadr case in recent months, reflect a battle under way over how much information is to be revealed in public at the Guantánamo trials.

Some parts of trials are expected to be conducted in closed courtrooms for discussion of classified evidence, as permitted by law. Military officials say some witnesses might testify in open court behind a screen or, perhaps, in disguise.

The Bush administration’s effort to bring detainees to trial has been hampered for years by legal and logistical complications, but prosecutors have said they hope to try eventually as many as 80 of the 305 detainees at Guantánamo.

In an interview, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, a senior official in the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, said that the commission system was open to scrutiny from news organizations and human rights groups and that the order was necessary to protect the lives of witnesses.

“The system is designed to be open,” General Hartmann said. “But there are certain things that simply must be protected.”

Most witnesses in Mr. Khadr’s case are expected to be military personnel who took part in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan when an American special forces soldier, Sgt. First Class Christopher James Speer, 28, was fatally wounded. Mr. Khadr, who was 15 at the time, was badly injured.

“It is so fundamental,” General Hartmann said, “that we’re in this global war on terror. We need to protect our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines and there’s nothing nefarious about it.”

He said requiring prosecutors to identify which witnesses they want to remain anonymous before the trial would assure that the military judge will evaluate assertions about why individual witnesses may need anonymity.

But Joshua L. Dratel, a lawyer in New York who represented another detainee prosecuted for war crimes, described such orders as an Orwellian effort to hamstring defense lawyers while making it appear that detainees are rigorously represented.

“It is ‘1984,’” Mr. Dratel said. “No system in the United States would operate this way.”

Some legal experts said while the identities of witnesses were shielded on rare occasions in American courts, an order applying to all witnesses in a case would be exceptional.

Such an order “would be very, very unusual” in a civilian court, said James A. Cohen, a Fordham University law professor, adding that he knew of no blanket order protecting the identities of all witnesses in a case.

Scott L. Silliman, a law professor and the director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University, said people who had not heard the arguments could not fairly evaluate Judge Brownback’s order.

The military judge had the responsibility to protect witnesses while assuring a fair hearing, Mr. Silliman said. He added that Judge Brownback’s order appeared to balance those considerations appropriately.

But David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who has been a critic of the commissions, said shielding the identities of witnesses “plays into the perception around the world that that United States is not willing to give detainees a fair shake.”

The materials released on Thursday, after numerous requests from news organizations, include extensive legal arguments and judicial orders on many central legal issues in Mr. Khadr’s case.

Many of the arguments, the documents show, occurred in e-mail exchanges between the lawyers and Judge Brownback. Only some of them have been referred to in two brief public hearings on the case at Guantánamo.

In an e-mail message on Oct. 9, Major Groharing, the prosecutor, described Mr. Khadr as a “trained Al Qaeda operative” who is “certainly capable of exacting revenge” on witnesses should he ever be free.

The major also indicated that military prosecutors had difficulties persuading people to testify at Guantánamo. “Potential witnesses have previously expressed reservations with participation in the military commission process because of fear of retaliation from Al Qaeda,” he wrote.

Commander Kuebler’s e-mail messages were filled with assertions that his client’s rights were being violated and with arguments that Mr. Khadr should be afforded the lenient treatment that has been accorded child fighters in some other wars. He ridiculed “the absurdity of characterizing an alleged former child soldier” as a dangerous terrorist and said the prosecution was ignoring rules assuring that detainees charged with war crimes are entitled to public trials.

In an e-mail message on Oct. 11 to the judge and the prosecutors, Commander Kuebler argued that it was notable that the entire discussion of whether witnesses would be permitted to shield their identities was being conducted without anyone in the public or the press able to observe the arguments.

“The manner in which this is being dealt with (i.e., off the record, via e-mail),” he wrote, “creates an added level of difficulty by making it appear that the government is trying to keep the secrecy of the proceedings a secret itself.”

    Witness Names to Be Withheld From Detainee, NYT, 1.12.2007,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/us/nationalspecial3/01gitmo.html