إغلاق
غوانتانامو
واشنطن
بوست
27/6/2007
انه أمر حتمي, و الأفضل أن يقوم
السيد بوش بعمل ذلك بنفسه, بينما
يعمل على إصلاح النظام القانوني
الخاطئ خلفه.
Closing
Guantanamo
It's
inevitable; better that Mr. Bush do it, while fixing the
flawed legal system behind it.
Wednesday,
June 27, 2007
;
Page A18
THE
BUSH administration appears to be inching toward a
conclusion that most of the world reached long ago: The Guantanamo
Bay prison for terrorism suspects has been a
disaster and must be shut down. Both Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates have urged Mr. Bush
to move
Guantanamo
's detainees to the
United States
.
If he does not act, the prison will surely be closed by
Congress or Mr. Bush's successor. If the president moves
now, he can mitigate the stain
Guantanamo
will leave on his legacy.
More important, he can help to create a sustainable
basis for holding and interrogating foreign terrorism
suspects in the future.
Closing
Guantanamo
will deprive
U.S.
adversaries, from Osama
bin Laden to Hugo
Chávez, of a powerful symbol they use
to besmirch
America
and justify their own abuses. But it will not solve the
problems created by the Bush administration's decision
to set aside the Geneva Conventions in holding hundreds
of prisoners indefinitely without charge. Nor will it
address the continuing need to detain and interrogate a
small number of foreign terrorism suspects who are
captured far from a conventional battlefield and can't
be charged under
U.S.
criminal law but who may pose a deadly threat to this
country. The administration's attempt to create a legal
basis for detentions and trials at
Guantanamo
, hastily approved by
Congress last year, only deepened the mess -- as
evidenced by recent judicial rulings that stopped the
first trials by military commissions before they could
begin.
Simply
closing
Guantanamo
and transferring its prisoners to their home countries
or to prisons in the
United States
,
as several pending bills in Congress would mandate,
would create another legal quagmire. The detainees
almost certainly would recover the right of habeas
corpus, allowing them to challenge their detentions in
court. While we believe the prisoners should have that
right, the result would be years of litigation
challenging both the military commissions and the
tribunal system the administration created for
determining whether prisoners were "enemy
combatants" subject to detention without charge.
Both those legal systems need considerable improvement.
But it would be better if the changes were implemented
soon and legitimized by democratic process rather than
imposed by federal judges.
That's
why the closure of
Guantanamo
should be accompanied by legislation creating a sound
and sustainable basis for holding, interrogating and
trying foreign prisoners. Despite last year's failure,
Mr. Bush still has the opportunity to strike a deal with
Congress. He can and should offer a lot: the closure of
Guantanamo
and major improvements in
the commissions and tribunals. In particular, those
suspects to be held without trial as unlawful enemy
combatants should be given far more due process. They
should have lawyers and be allowed to call witnesses and
challenge evidence. Their cases should be considered by
full-fledged judges whose decisions can be appealed, and
reviews should occur more frequently. This is far from
impractical: Israel
and, until recently, Britain
have successfully used similar administrative systems to
hold suspected terrorists.
In
exchange, Mr. Bush can seek Congress's authorization to
hold a limited number of foreigners in the
United
States
without charge and to try
some suspects -- such as the top leaders of al-Qaeda
-- under rules that would depart from those of
conventional courts-martial and criminal trials. He
could create a legal system for the war on terrorism
that could serve future presidents. If he fails to act,
he will be remembered as the president who created the
terrible mistake that is
Guantanamo
-- and who missed his
chance to fix it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR2007062601855.html
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