Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the White House on Sunday that there is only one way to close Guantánamo Bay: by abandoning civilian 9/11 trials.
Graham said Sunday that if the White House agrees to try self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in military tribunals, he will help the president get the votes needed to close the Guantánamo Bay prison facilities.
“We would be better off as a nation,” said Graham, “if we could close Gitmo safely and start a new prison that he could use—that the world would see as a better way to do business.” But even with Graham on board, Guantánamo is far from closed.
“I think if we could get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the co-conspiracies of 9/11 back in the military commission,” Graham said. He added that “it would go down well with the public.”
“But I am going to need Gen. [David] l Petraeus, Admiral Mullen, people not in public office. I’m going to need people from the Bush administration to try to close Gitmo, to put aside partisanship, rally around this president, stand by his side and say, let’s close Gitmo safely.”
President Obama signed an executive order shortly after he was sworn into office to shut Guantánamo within one year. He failed to meet that deadline.
Graham is not in sync with Republicans on this issue.
“Those who want to waterboard on the right and believe that we should keep Gitmo open forever and use any technique to get information, I think they’re equally off base,” said Graham.
“I’m getting a lot of grief,” Graham told Bob Schieffer, host of CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” “because I do believe it’s best to close Gitmo safely.” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell shot down the idea of closing Guantánamo and moving detainees to a near-vacant maximum-security prison in Thomson, Ill.
“When a foreign national terrorist is captured,” said McConnell, “in the United States like the Christmas bomber, or overseas—he should be sent to Guantánamo, detained there, interrogated there, and the case adjudicated there. They should be treated as military prisoners, not like U.S. citizens.”
Graham’s comments also contrasted fellow Republican Rep. Lamar Smith. On Friday Smith said, “Guantánamo Bay is best equipped for the detention and prosecution of terrorists, not a prison inside the U.S.”
Since he was sworn in, President Obama was told by his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, that closing Guantánamo will be impossible without Graham’s support.
Emanuel has been talking to Graham for a while about this issue. Emanuel favored a military trial for 9/11 detainees and persuaded Holder and Graham, opponents on the issue, to talk.
Emanuel saw Graham as the link to close the much debated prison. “You can’t close Guantánamo without Senator Graham,” he told the New York Times.
If the Obama Administration agrees to the compromise offered by Graham, it would be a complete reversal of the course Attorney General Eric Holder started in November when he announced that the 9/11 trials would be held in a lower Manhattan courthouse in New York City.
Graham told “Face the Nation’s” Schieffer that the ACLU theory was as “equally off base” as the right wing theory.
The ACLU channeled its frustration about the possibility of Obama reversing holding by taking out a full-page ad in Sunday’s of the New York Times that depicted President Obama morphing into former-President George W. Bush. The message was clear: Change or More of the Same?
“Three is the number of people,” said an ACLU statement released Friday, “who have been convicted in the military commissions system. Two of the men convicted in the military commission system are free today.”
A report released by the Justice Department confirmed more than 300 people were prosecuted and convicted for terrorism or terrorism related crimes in civilian courts, a fact the ACLU has been reminding lawmakers and the public about for some time.
“Military commissions are incredibly inept,” said Ben Wizner, an ACLU attorney. “The most basic aspects of trial process were contested down there. The military commission system is not only unjust, but incapable of handling a complex federal trial like the 9/11 trial.”
“This narrative plays into the hands of terrorists,” said Wizner.
“The biggest supporter in the world of military commissions is KSM,” said Wizner. “If you read his combatant status review transcript from Guantánamo, he is very, very delighted to be treated as an enemy combatant, and to address US military officers as equals. They’re proud to declare that they’re enemy combatants.”
In an apparent policy reversal on Friday, White House officials anonymously suggested that military commissions are under more serious consideration the 9/11 terror trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators. But the decision is reportedly still weeks away.
Joshua Durkin is a staff writer for The Public Record based in Connecticut. He can be reached at joshua.durkin@pubrecord.org
