On January 15, 2009, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury sent a memo titled, ‘Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.’ It stated that ” ‘certain propositions stated in several opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel in 2001-2003 respecting the allocation of […]
1/15/2009
In his farewell address to the nation on January 15, 2009, President Bush said: “Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I’ve always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my […]
1/14/2009
“In January [14, 2009], Osama bin Laden releases an audiotape urging Muslims to launch a Jihad against Israel. The head of al-Qaeda vows to open new fronts against the United States and its allies. The twenty-two-minute audiotape includes an appeal for donations to support the fight he is waging.” – Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin […]
1/14/2009
Convening authority of military commissions Susan Crawford declined to bring charges against alleged 20th hijacker and Guantanamo inmate Mohammed al-Qahtani, on the grounds that he was tortured. “The harsh techniques used against Qahtani, she said, were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ‘A lot of this happened on his watch,’ she said.” – Bob […]
1/14/2009
Convening authority of military commissions Susan Crawford declined to bring charges against alleged 20th hijacker and Guantanamo inmate Mohammed al-Qahtani, on the grounds that he was tortured. Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. ” ‘The techniques they used were all […]
1/14/2009
From a Washington Post article on January 14, 2009: “The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, […]
1/14/2009
Regarding the use of torture at Guantanamo, which was first confirmed by a Bush official and mentioned in an article by Bob Woodward on January 14, 2009, convening authority of military commissions for Guantanamo Susan J. “Crawford said [President] Bush was right to create a system to try unlawful enemy combatants captured in the war […]
1/14/2009
Journalist Bob Woodward wrote of the first confirmation by a Bush official of torture at Guantanamo Bay, on January 14, 2009. ” ‘We tortured [alleged 20th hijacker Mohammed al-] Qahtani,’ said Susan J. Crawford in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. […]
1/11/2009
President-elect Barack “Obama repeated Sunday [January 11, 2009] that he intends to close the Guantanamo center but acknowledged the challenges involved. ‘It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize,’ Obama said on ABC’s ‘This Week,’ ‘and we are going to get it done, but part of the challenge that you have […]
1/7/2009
In an article in The Times of London on January 7, 2009, “British intelligence identified as many as two thousand citizens or residents who posed a ‘serious’ threat to security, many of them linked to al-Qaeda, in a country with only a fifth of the population of the United States.” – Peter Bergen, The Longest […]