updated 12:00 p.m. ET November 26, 2003

Daily Update

A weblog of the post 9/11 world

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

updated 12:00 p.m. ET November 26, 2003

Top British judge slams conditions at Guantanamo

The BBC reports that Lord Steyn, one of Britain's most senior judges, condemned the US over the detention of terror suspects at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. in a speech seen on TV in Britain, Mr. Steyn said conditions at Camp Delta were of " utter lawlessness."

"The question is whether the quality of justice envisaged for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay complies with the minimum international standards for the conduct of fair trials," Lord Steyn continued. "The answer can be given quite shortly. It is a resounding 'no'."

The BBC also reports that it is rare for British judges to speak on contentious political issues and almost unheard of for them to attack a foreign government. Other judges around the world have also been questioning the conditions at the prison used to house "enemy combatants." Recently, a judge in Australia's high court raised the issue of conditions at Camp Delta. During a case that argued the definition of "lawful punishment," Justice Michael Kirby asked if a cell on the base had a broken toilet, was full of vermin, rats and cockroaches, and bread was the only food, would a detainee not be justified in law to try and escape?

Charles Levendosky writes Tuesday in The New York Times that the prisoners are being held in a kind of " legal limbo" until the US Supreme Court decides on an appeal from attorneys for 16 prisoners held at the base. He also described conditions in which the prisoners are held.

The current facility, Camp Delta, in which the ... prisoners are housed is constructed from international shipping containers. Each container houses five prisoners in separate 2m by 2.4m cells. Three sides of the containers are replaced by steel mesh. Eight containers make up one cellblock. The containers are not air-conditioned.

Several prominent Democrats have also criticized the situation at the prison camp. Theresa Heinz-Kerry wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, said Monday that suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay should be given prisoner of war status. Ms. Heinz-Kerry said denying detainees the protections of the Geneva Conventions was "insulting, ignorant and insensitive." She added that under President George Bush, the United States, once known as the standard-bearer for human rights, is now considered a hypocrite.

Recently a federal judge said letting the Bush administration detain US citizens indefinitely as an anti-terror tactic would have an "unprecedented" impact on Americans' legal rights. Judge Barrington Parker made his comments last week during arguments in the case of Jose Padilla, an American who is a suspect in an Al Qaeda plot to explode a radioactive bomb in the United States.

But Rich Lowry, writing at Townhall.com, argues that capturing and detaining enemy belligerents is part of the president's war-making powers under Article II of the Constitution.

As US courts have recognized, going back to the Civil War, a court can no more review the commander-in-chief's battlefield detentions than it can, say, overturn his decision to bomb Tikrit. Both would be equally absurd and would equally trespass on the president's fundamental powers.

The Associated Press reports that the US did release 20 Guantanamo risoners recently, while at the same time it brought 20 more to the camp. Senior officials at the Defense Department, in consultation with other US government officials, determined that the 20 freed "either no longer posed a threat to US security or no longer required detention." A total of 88 people have been transferred out of Guantanamo so far.

NCMOnline, a service of the Pacific News, reports that the first Pakistani terror suspect released from Guantanamo is demanding financial compensation for the time that he was mistakenly imprisoned at the facility. Muhamad Sagheer, who was arrested in Aghanistan, is demanding $10.4 million for his alleged mistreatment. At a news conference, he told reporters his ordeal resulted in the loss of his job and emotional, and financial suffering for his family.

"They did not allow us to pray," Sagheer told Al-Alam television. "They shaved our heads, kept us from sleeping and put us in cold rooms as a kind of punishment. When they realized that I have no relations with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, they released me and gave me 100 US dollars. I was jailed without a court hearing and the rest of the prisoners have not been tried yet. That is a great injustice."

Jonathon Turley of The Washington Post writes about one man who came to Washington recently to add his voice to the situation at Guantanamo, Fred Korematsu. Mr. Korematsu filed a brief on behalf of hundreds of Muslims being held in detention. His name can be found on "one of the most infamous decisions ever rendered by the US Supreme Court," the 1944 case of Korematsu vs. United States. With that decision, Korematsu was sent to internment camps, along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans, imprisoned solely because of their ethnicity. (Korematsu was given the Medal of Freedom in 1998 for his fight against internment. President Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, apologized to Japanese Americans on behalf of the United States.)

The Korematsu case has been largely taught in law schools as an abomination, a case in which the Supreme Court yielded to fear and pressure in sending tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children into camps. Then came 9/11. Soon, the Bush administration was relying on the arguments from the Korematsu case to assert the same authority exercised by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to put individuals into detention without trial or access to the courts.

Fox News reports that the US is fighting a " raging intelligence war" with suspected terrorists at Guantanamo.

"Time is a double-edged sword because we're finding that the longer some stay, the more they talk," said [Thomas] O'Connell, a former Army intelligence officer whose has been assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict since late July. On the other hand, the longer it takes to get them talking, the more outdated their information becomes.

Finally, The Seattle Times reports that an Army Muslim chaplain accused of mishandling classified documents while serving in Guantanamo Bay, was charged Tuesday with making a false official statement, committing adultery and storing pornography on his government computer. James Yee's defense team said the new charges were added only because the military was trying to salvage "a deteriorating case" against Mr. Yee.

"I don't know why the government would pursue these charges, except for the fact that it's embarrassed by the implosion of charges it originally asserted against my client," said Eugene Fidell, his lead attorney.

Yee's wife released a statement saying she stood by her husband. "It is very clear to me that the US government only wants to destroy his character and his family," said Huda Suboh.

Also...
• How cleric trumped US plan for Iraq ( Washington Post)
• Israel 'lied' over Gaza air raid that killed at least 10 civilians ( BBC)
• US cuts Israeli loan guarantees ( BBC)
• Former chief administrator in Iraq says major mistakes made in occupation ( Associated Press)
• What has to be done ( Washington Times)