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| Defense attorney Andrew Patel did not mount a defense for Jose Padilla (not pictured) in the three-month terror-conspiracy
trial in Miami. Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty images/file |
Beyond Padilla terror case, huge legal issues
His detention and interrogation in the US raises basic constitutional questions.
from the August 15, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 4
Plot hit airwaves in 2002
The Padilla story burst into the national consciousness in June 2002 when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft interrupted a trip to Moscow to make a dramatic televised announcement.
"We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive 'dirty bomb,' " he said. Padilla was a "known terrorist" who had trained with Al Qaeda, studied how to wire explosives, and researched radiological dispersion devices, he told the world.
What he didn't say was that Padilla had been locked in a solitary confinement cell in New York City for the past month and that Padilla was only now being taken into military custody on the eve of a scheduled court hearing that would have required the government to legally justify Padilla's continued detention.
Instead, President Bush declared Padilla an "enemy combatant" who posed a "continuing, present, and grave danger" to US national security. The president said Padilla possessed intelligence information that could help prevent Al Qaeda attacks on the US.
Some officials offered a less dramatic take on the dirty-bomb plot than Mr. Ashcroft's. Then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the CBS "Early Show" that Padilla was "in the very early stages of his planning." He added, "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk."
Nonetheless, the dirty-bomb announcement sent shock waves across the country and immediately helped justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques against Padilla, analysts say. And it gave news reporters an irresistible tag line to link to Padilla's name – "dirty bomber."
The dirty-bomb stigma would later help the government battle constitutional challenges to Padilla's military detention, according to many legal scholars. And it helped rally public support for an array of tough counter-terror policies by feeding national anxiety about possible terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction.
Perhaps most important, these analysts say, the Padilla case presented US officials with a situation that resembled the often discussed "ticking time bomb" scenario. Under this hypothetical plot, a terrorist has been captured after planting a ticking time bomb in a busy public location. Officials face the moral dilemma of either using traditional noncoercive interrogation methods that can take hours, days, or weeks and risk the deaths of thousands of innocent people or resort to brutal tactics to quickly obtain information to discover and defuse the bomb. Under the scenario, saving thousands of lives is viewed as the greater good that justifies using torture against the terrorist.
Mr. Bush has repeatedly stated that his administration does not use torture. But he has also acknowledged that in certain instances harsh interrogation methods have been authorized and used to help protect the nation.
Although civil libertarians protested Padilla's detention without charge, there was no significant public outcry.
Terror war innovation: long detention
The dirty-bomb allegation emerged from information obtained through a Bush administration innovation in the war on terror. That innovation called for the open-ended detention of terror suspects to facilitate aggressive, prolonged interrogations. The questioning was often accompanied by specially authorized harsh interrogation techniques, including isolation, sensory deprivation, and stress positions, among others, according to former interrogators.
No judge in an American courtroom could permit the introduction of information gathered under such coercive techniques, in part because they carry a high risk of producing unreliable results. If the technique is coercive enough, a subject will say whatever it takes to make it stop, former interrogators say. In addition, the rules of procedure and long-established constitutional protections forbid the use of coerced statements as evidence in a trial.
But the rules of the courtroom are not necessarily the rules of the interrogation room. Senior Bush administration officials made clear that once an individual is classified as an enemy combatant, he is no longer entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution.
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