Guantanamo Turns Eight Years Old Today

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Fri Nov 13, 2009 at 06:08:03 PM EST
Tags: Guantanamo (all tags)

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Happy Birthday, Gitmo? Former President George W. Bush signed the order authorizing detention at Guantanamo on November 13, 2001:

On Nov. 13, 2001, President George W. Bush signed what has become known as Military Order No. 1 [4] in what he termed a Global War on Terrorism. Without informing his national security adviser, his secretary of state, his chief of staff or his communications director, Bush approved [5] what would appear three days later in the Federal Register as: "Military Order of November 13, 2001: Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism."

[More...]

The few people inside the former administration who knew about the order were instrumental in its creation, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, his lawyer David Addington, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and a young, and then unknown, lawyer inside the Justice Department named John Yoo .

The first group of detainees arrived at Gitmo on January 11, 2002. Here's a news story from the Washington Post that day describing the arrival. The dramatic pictures of the gagged and manacled prisoners immediately caused a controversy around the world.

On December 21, 2001, The New York Times ran an editorial, How to Try a Terrorist, adovcating trials in federal criminal court. On January 27, 2002, then Defense Secretary Colin Powell broke with the Bush Administration and said the detainnes were entitled to protection by the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war.

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Guantanamo Turns Eight Years Old Today | 2 comments (2 topical)

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Greg Craig, Gitmo fall guy (none / 0) (#1)
by caseyOR on Fri Nov 13, 2009 at 08:20:50 PM EST

Craig, who has been the point person on closing Gitmo, resigned from the Obama administration today. His official position was chief counsel to the President. He is taking the blame for the PR disaster that the closing of Gitmo became in Congress and around the country.

Rumor is ( I heard it on NPR from Nina Totenberg) that Rahm hates Craig and resents Craig's close relationship with Obama and doesn't like there being a WH power center other than his own. Nina said Rahm has been the source for all the Craig-bashing leaks of the last few months. Apparently, news of Craig's resignation was leaked before Craig had even written, much less submitted, his resignation letter.

As an aside, Craig, who was a friend of both Clintons from law school and served in Bill Clinton's State Dept., was the author of a very ugly, scathing attack on Hillary that was a prominent feature on the Obama website during the primary. Totenberg pointed out that after Craig's actions in the primary there was no way he was going to get a foreign policy job with SoS Clinton. Hence his job at the WH.

wow, did (none / 0) (#4)
by cpinva on Sat Nov 14, 2009 at 02:25:50 AM EST

they have a special birthday party, to celebrate?