 AN INTENSE security review is under way as the Obama Administration considers holding a trial in Washington for the Guantanamo Bay detainee suspected of planning the deadly Bali nightclub bombing. The move would bring one of the world's most notorious terrorism suspects to a courthouse just steps from the Capitol, officials say. Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was allegedly Osama bin Laden's point man in Indonesia. Until his capture in August 2003, he was believed to be the main link between al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, the terror group blamed for the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Other terrorism trials also might be held in Washington and New York City under a proposal being discussed within the Obama Administration, according to US officials. The officials said the decision could come in a matter of weeks. Authorities have begun reviewing the security measures needed to bring Hambali and others before a Washington federal judge, the officials said. Conducting a trial in the nation's capital would be a symbolic repudiation of the policies of former President George Bush, who portrayed Hambali as a success story in his administration's program of interrogating terror suspects in secret CIA prisons overseas. Mr Bush said such interrogations, which included the simulated drowning technique of waterboarding, helped crack alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and led authorities to Hambali. The Age 
 That's what voters say, according to today's Rasmussen survey: Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% oppose the use of such techniques, and another 12% are not sure. There's this, too: Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters think the attempt by the Nigerian Muslim to blow up the airliner as it landed in Detroit should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act. Only 22% say it should be handled by civilian authorities as a criminal act, as is currently the case. My conclusion: the debate is over, and Dick Cheney won it. PAUL adds: I would waterboard the guy only as a last resort. Does that make me a moderate on this issue? Power Line
 Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is a columnist for National Review and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. FP: Victor Davis Hanson, welcome to Frontpage Interview. First things first, let me ask you this. If our government was serious about fighting Islamic terrorism and saving lives, wouldn’t Abdul Mutallab be getting water-boarded just about now? We know that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed – which included waterboarding – forced KSM to give up crucial information that ended up preventing countless terrorist attacks and saving an infinite amount of innocent lives. It allowed, for instance, the U.S. to capture key al- Qaeda terrorists and to thwart a planned 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles. But now, thanks to the Obama administration and its approach to the terror war, Abdul Mutallab will probably be getting a lawyer and not have to say anything. This, naturally, drastically increases, rather than minimizes, the possibilities of a future terror attack on our soil and against our citizens. Your thoughts? Hanson: I don’t think right now the question is over interrogation techniques, but rather not giving this foreign national would-be mass murderer full rights, as if he were a common criminal rather than a non-uniformed soldier at war. Mutallab apparently, has been happy to tell all he knows without even being interrogated formally, which makes the entire foiled attack even more absurd: a Nigerian radical Muslim buys with cash a one-way ticket, carries no check-in luggage, was previously reported by his own father as a threat to America, and boards a plane to America after previous stays in Yemen? Before we even get to questions of interrogation, how about first some sanity? And in reaction to all this, Secretary Napolitano nonchalantly talks about the system working like “clockwork”? I think very soon we will hear of no more “overseas contingency operations” and “man-made disasters”—and no more Janet Napolitano as head of our homeland security. And when the next official struts and says “Bush did it”, the public will sigh “Thank God, he did”, since in comparison with the seriousness with which the prior administration dealt with terrorism, the Obama team seems to consider radical Islam an interesting catalyst for a civil liberties debate. “Reset” button probably won’t be used any more either—the phrase is too ironic now, and would mean going back to our anti-terrorism policies from 2001-9, which are preferable to the present mess. In political terms, one cannot ask millions of Americans to take off their belts and shoes, and then not put someone like Mutallab on a no-fly list. FP: The fate of Gitmo? Hanson: With over 100 Yemenis in Guantanamo, I doubt the facility will be closed; perhaps it will be virtually closed like the Iranian deadlines to stop building a bomb, or the health-care deadlines. I doubt too that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is ever tried in New York; that partisan gambit will be quietly Guatanamoized. More at FPM
 The Obama Administration will send 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and four other Gitmo detainees to New York to face trial in a civilian court.MSNBC reported, via Free Republic: Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday. The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning. The official is not authorized to discuss the decision before the announcement, so spoke on condition of anonymity. Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in President Barack Obama’s plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Obama initially planned to close the detention center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline. Waterboarding
The New York case may also force the court system to confront a host of difficult legal issues surrounding counter-terrorism programs begun after the 2001 attacks, including the harsh interrogation techniques once used on some of the suspects while in CIA custody. The most severe method — waterboarding, or simulated drowning — was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before the practice was banned. With thanks to Gateway Pundit
 Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials." In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture. Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group's plans, ideology and operatives," said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified. "He'd even use a chalkboard at times." Read more here,,, Source: Washington Post
The number of times Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded was the focus of major media attention -- and highly misleading. By Joseph Abrams The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world. It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves. A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face -- not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment." Read more ... Source: Fox NewsH/T: Christopher Brown
 January 23, 2009
US President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison within a year and banned the use of torture in terror interrogations in a dramatic repudiation of his predecessor George W. Bush.
The signing ceremony in the Oval Office was the latest graphic sign of Obama's vow to trigger fundamental political reform and will ultimately mean big changes in how the US handles al-Qa’ida and Taliban suspects.
Mr Obama signed executive orders on the controversial camp, requiring US investigators to stop short of abusive methods - which critics equate to torture - and requiring a review of the case of the only “enemy combatant” on US soil, Qatari national Ali al-Marri.
“The message that we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism,” Mr Obama said.
“We are going to do so vigilantly; we are going to do so effectively; and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals,” the new president said in a signing ceremony inside the Oval Office.
“I think the American people, understand that we are not, as I said in the inauguration, going to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.”
Mr Obama did not however resolve the question of what to do with terror suspects who have been in Guantanamo for years, some without being charged or facing trial or if and how many would ultimately be prosecuted or released.
Guantanamo Bay, which still contains more than 240 terror suspects, is seen by critics of the Bush administration as a potent symbol of abuses and constitutional infringements they say were committed under the war on terror.
More than 800 men and teenagers have passed through Guantanamo since it was opened on January 11, 2002, and around 245 remain there.
The Obama administration has said that it will launch a review to decide whether remaining prisoners should be released, tried or transferred.
Some outgoing Bush administration officials rejected accusations tactics used had amounted to torture and argued the camp and US interrogation tactics like “waterboarding” or simulated drowning had yielded useful intelligence.
The flurry of executive orders will cement Mr Obama's fast start to his symbolic first 100 days in office, when a new president's powers and political leverage are at their apex.
Yesterday, flexing diplomatic muscle on his first day in office, Mr Obama telephoned Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and King Abdullah II of Jordan.
Mr Obama “used this opportunity on his first day in office to communicate his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term,” his spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
He also followed through on a promise to order top military brass to start planning a “responsible” military drawdown in Iraq.
Mr Obama also sought to make a splash on his ambitious domestic agenda, in line with a promise to purge the influence peddling and corruption staining US politics by signing a string of executive orders dealing with political ethics.
The orders tightened rules on contact between lobbyists and members of the government and restricted contact between former administration members with ex-colleagues when they leave public service.
With many Americans feeling the economic pinch, Mr Obama also clamped a salary freeze on top staff earning more than $US100,000 a year.
Later Mr Obama and Vice-President Joseph Biden were set to travel across Washington to the State Department to greet Ms Clinton on her first day in office.
“I believe with all my heart that this is a new era for America,” Clinton told hundreds of diplomats and others at the entrance to the State Department as she showed up for her first day. Source: The Australian
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AN INTENSE security review is under way as the Obama Administration considers holding a trial in Washington for the Guantanamo Bay detainee suspected of planning the deadly Bali nightclub bombing.
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