Terror Attempt May Hinder Plans to Close Guantánamo

[darrels joy]

Terror Attempt May Hinder Plans to Close Guantánamo
By PETER BAKER and CHARLIE SAVAGE

KANEOHE, Hawaii — The attempted bombing of an American passenger plane on Christmas Day could greatly complicate President Obama’s efforts to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as lawmakers in both parties call on the administration to rethink its approach.

The task of determining what to do with the detainees held at Guantánamo has already proved so daunting that Mr. Obama is poised to miss his self-imposed one-year deadline for shuttering the prison by Jan. 22. But evidence that Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen was behind last week’s failed plane attack will make closing the center even harder since nearly half the remaining detainees are from Yemen.

“The current threats emanating from Yemen dramatically increase the political costs of closing Guantánamo,” said Matthew Waxman, a former top Pentagon official who handled detainee issues and supports trying to close the detention center. “To close it anytime soon, the Obama administration either has to send many detainees back to Yemen — widely viewed as a major terrorist haven — or it brings many of them into the U.S. for continued detention without trial.”

The possible impact on Guantánamo represents just one ramification of the Christmas Day plot. The administration is already reviewing changes in intelligence analysis and aviation screening to address what the president on Tuesday called “human and systemic failures” that allowed a 23-year-old Nigerian with known radical views to board a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with explosives in his underwear.

Mr. Obama, who is spending the holidays with his family in his home state, Hawaii, was briefed Thursday on the preliminary results of twin reviews into the breakdown leading up to the failed attack, and he ordered his senior advisers and agency heads to meet with him in Washington next week.

Mr. Obama spoke by telephone separately with John O. Brennan, his counterterrorism adviser, and with Janet Napolitano, his secretary of homeland security, but he offered no fresh assessment on Thursday as he waited for more reports later in the day. The president said in a written statement that he would meet with agency directors on Tuesday “to discuss our ongoing reviews as well as security enhancements and intelligence-sharing improvements in our homeland security and counterterrorism operations.”

The reviews were expected to tell the president that the government had intercepted conversations about a possible attack by the Yemen group, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but did not correlate it with information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man arrested in the airline plot, that might have pointed to his plans.

They also were looking at how explosives were taken onto the plane despite security procedures and what changes might be required to detect such materials in the future.

Ms. Napolitano announced that she was sending top deputies to meet with leaders from major international airports in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South America to review security procedures and technology used to screen passengers bound for the United States.

“We are looking not only at our own processes, but also beyond our borders to ensure effective aviation security measures are in place,” Ms. Napolitano said in a statement.

The Guantánamo issue is not part of this review, but leading members of Congress are pressing Mr. Obama to either abandon plans to close the prison or to suspend any transfers of prisoners to Yemen.

Mr. Obama inherited 242 detainees at Guantánamo when he came into office, and his team has released or transferred 44. Of the 198 remaining, about 92 are from Yemen, and of those, about 40 have been cleared for release.

But a senior administration official said Thursday that Mr. Obama’s interagency team had already decided quietly several weeks ago that the security situation in Yemen was too volatile to transfer any more detainees beyond six who were sent home in December. The government concluded it had to release those six because it was about to lose habeas corpus hearings in court that would order them freed.

As for the rest, “we all agreed we couldn’t send people back because of the security situation,” said the official, who like others requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The administration has been trying to help develop a rehabilitation program for Yemen like one in neighboring Saudi Arabia that has been judged largely successful in transitioning former detainees back into society. But the senior official said that such a program appeared unlikely to be set up, and that without it, sending dozens of Yemenis back home would not be feasible.

The administration will re-examine the question in late 2010, when an Illinois prison is ready to take remaining Guantánamo detainees, the official said.

Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Obama remained “as committed to closing the detention facility at Guantánamo” as he was a year ago, in part because it is a magnet for anti-American propaganda.

“That facility has been used as a rallying cry and recruiting tool by Al Qaeda and its affiliates, including Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” Mr. LaBolt said.

But criticism has grown with reports that one former Guantánamo detainee released to the Saudi program under President George W. Bush in 2007 is now involved in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has claimed responsibility for the Christmas attack.

Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans, and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, sent a letter to Mr. Obama asking him to stop the transfer of the six detainees sent to Yemen in December, even though that transfer had already been completed. Other Republicans joined the call to reverse Mr. Obama’s Guantánamo policy.

“Turning these terrorists over to other countries is not working, and we shouldn’t import them into the United States,” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, said in a statement. “It’s time for the president to halt terrorist transfers to other countries, including Yemen, and to re-evaluate his decision to close the prison at Guantánamo.”

Some Democrats have expressed concern, too, including Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Ms. Feinstein still supports closing Guantánamo but said that “Guantánamo detainees should not be released to Yemen at this time” because “it is too instable.”

But David Remes, a lawyer representing Yemeni prisoners who are challenging their detention without trial, said the administration was transferring only detainees deemed not to be a threat.

“I don’t see what the chaos in Yemen has to do with whether to return Yemenis to their home because these men have been determined not to be dangerous to the U.S.,” he said. “It’s a non sequitur.”

Peter Baker reported from Kaneohe, and Charlie Savage from Washington. Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/us.../01terror.html

[darrels joy]

Plane attack renews debate over transfer of Gitmo detainees


By Tony Romm - 01/03/10 11:11 AM ET

A new focus on Yemen as a potential terrorist haven renewed an old debate on Sunday over whether the United States should have transferred or released some of its Guatanamo Bay detainees to foreign countries.

The White House has signaled it would be "mindful" of changing security conditions in those states as it makes those key decisions, but the Obama administration made no commitment this weekend to stop the transfer of about 40 prisoners to Yemen this year, as part of its larger plan to shutter the Gitmo detention facility.

"We make a decision about when they are going to be sent back and how they're going to be sent back and under what conditions," Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan told CNN on Sunday, noting the attempted bombing of Flight 253 by an attacker trained in Yemen "doesn't change the situation on the ground in Yemen one bit."

"We're going to do it the right way at the right time," Brennan added.

President George W. Bush first authorized the transfer and release of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to such places as Yemen and Saudi Arabia toward the end of his term. President Barack Obama has continued that policy, deciding in December to release six Yemeni detainees back to their home state.

The White House remains resolute that its December decision -- made before the Christmas Day attempt to bomb Flight 253 -- was the correct call, Brennan said. But lawmakers from both political camps have expressed growing fears that those released prisoners -- and others soon to leave the camp -- could return to the battlefield and again try to plot against U.S. interests.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who just returned from a trip to Yemen, said those released al-Qaeda plotters in particular represent a "unique" threat to U.S. security at home and abroad.

"It's unique because the core group of al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula is formed by former Gitmo detainees," he told ABC's "This Week," noting anti-American sentiment there had further radicalized them. "These are people that were held in Gitmo, have been returned, and have now gone back to the battlefield."

That sentiment was shared by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who seemed to suggest both Bush and Obama were to blame for returning terrorists to areas where attacks are typically designed and hatched.

"The last administration, President Bush made a huge mistake by sending the Yemenis back," DeMint charged on CNN. "The core leadership of al-Qaeda now is made up of those folks who were at the Gitmo prison. We can't make that mistake again."

However, blocking the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to countries like Yemen could jeopardize the Obama White House's longstanding promise to close the military prison during his first term.

The administration has already overshot its 2009 deadline to shutter the camp, in part because it has failed to shore up support for its proposal to house some of the prisoners in domestic facilities. That debate is likely to intensify in the coming weeks as the White House learns more about the plot to bomb Flight 253 over Detroit.

"I believe the prison should close, but I also believe we should review again where we're going to send the detainees," Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said on "This Week," referencing her hope that some Gitmo detainees could be transferred to domestic prisons. "I think it is a bad time to send the 90 or so Yemenis back to Yemen."


On "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Kit Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, called for a moratorium on the release of detainees from Guantanamo.

“If we don’t stop the practice of releasing Gitmo detainees to Yemen, or to other countries, we’re asking for even more trouble,” he said.

Bond said Republicans recognize it hasn’t just been a policy of the Obama adminstration to release detainees. “I think that the Bush administration really needs to answer for releasing the detainees to Saudi Arabia and other places. We’ve seen that’s a mistake,” he said. “To continue to make the same mistake would be a tragedy.”

Still, Brennan stressed Sunday morning that the White House was weighing greatly how its Gitmo plans would impact homeland security -- a focus, he said, that long preceded the Flight 253 attack. He also assured the Obama administration remained committed to closing the detention facility as soon as possible.

"We know that al-Qaeda is out there. We know we have to be mindful of that," Brennan told CNN. "And we know that we have to take our steps with those detainees in a manner that is not going to put our citizens at risk. And we're not going to do that."


"Guantanamo has been used as a propaganda tool by al Qaeda and others," he added. "We need to close that facility. And we're determined to do that."

Sean J. Miller contributed to this report

This story was updated at 11:40 a.m.


Source:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/74103-plane-attack-renews-debate-over-transfer-of-gitmo-detainees