Bush Nominee Plans to Stand Firm on War-Captive Memo

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/politics/06gonzales.html?oref=login

January 6, 2005
Bush Nominee Plans to Stand Firm on War-Captive Memo
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

ASHINGTON, Jan. 5 - Alberto R. Gonzales, who goes before the Senate on Thursday as President Bush's pick for attorney general, plans to offer an unapologetic defense of a draft memorandum he wrote in 2002 describing parts of the Geneva Conventions as "quaint" and "obsolete," administration officials said on Wednesday.

Critics of the Bush administration, who stepped up their attacks Wednesday on Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel, have called on him to repudiate the memorandum, which held that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners taken in the war in Afghanistan.

But a senior administration official who is involved in preparing Mr. Gonzales for what could prove a contentious hearing said that he would not back down from the legal rationale he had laid out in the memorandum.

"He'll explain what he meant - that he stands by the decision not to grant full protection to Al Qaeda and the Taliban under the Geneva Conventions and that that position was correct legally and for important public policy reasons," the administration official said.
<snip>

[papau]

1. AP Text of opening statement by Gonzales

"After the attacks of 9/11, our government had fundamental decisions to make concerning how to apply treaties and U.S. law to an enemy that does not wear a uniform, owes no allegiance to any country, is not a party to any treaties and - most importantly - does not fight according to the laws of war."

goes on to asset that the president was committed to defending the country "always in a manner consistent with our nation's values and applicable law, including our treaty obligations," the statement continued, "I pledge that if I am confirmed as attorney general, I will abide by those commitments."<snip>

I LIKE THAT HE IS ALSO STANDING BEHIND "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms and scientific instruments." since the conventions do not require that prisoners of war be given things like athletic uniforms and scientific instruments, but rather that the authorities allow such items to be received by mail.


AND ABCNOTE SAYS 15 Dems with vote to confirm!

[papau]

2. Gonzales's Clemency Memos Criticized

allegations that his summaries of case evidence and circumstances were unfair or incomplete in death cases in Texas

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51773-2005Jan5.html?sub=AR

washingtonpost.com
Gonzales's Clemency Memos Criticized
Crucial Facts Were Missing, Lawyers Say
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 6, 2005; Page A04


In 1995, a one-eyed drifter named Henry Lee Lucas was headed for execution by injection in a Texas prison for the murder of an unnamed woman, one of hundreds he confessed to killing in a crime spree lasting more than a decade.

The task of recommending whether then-Gov. George W. Bush should grant a reprieve or commute Lucas's death sentence fell to Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush's counsel. In a memo to Bush dated March 13, 1995, Gonzales marshaled a case for Lucas's guilt. He noted that Lucas had given a sheriff a drawing of the victim, and attached a record of Lucas's eight other Texas murder convictions, each of which led to lengthy or life prison sentences.

Left out of Gonzales's summary was any mention of a 1986 investigation by the Texas attorney general's office that concluded that Lucas had not killed the woman, and that he had falsely confessed to numerous killings in an effort to undermine the veracity of his confessions to the crimes he did commit.

While the six-page memo factually summarizes Lucas's court appeals, "it does not really address in any way . . . all the questions that were raised about his guilt," said Jim Mattox, the Texas attorney general from 1983 to 1991, who instigated an investigation of police conduct in the case. He said that if the memo had been prepared for him, he would have chastised the author "for allowing me to make a decision on partial information."
<snip>

[papau]

3. Terror Suspect Alleges Torture - Egypt -approved by Gonzales

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51726-2005Jan5.html

The Washington Post's Dana Priest and Dan Eggen outline an allegation of torture by a terror suspect transferred by U.S. officials to Egypt, where he says he was abused, before being moved to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The key points, which Priest and Eggen quite rightly point out are likely to figure prominently in Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearing, are Gonzales' opinions on what constitutes torture and what are acceptable tactics in interrogating terror suspects (i.e., the August 2002 memo), and Gonzales' reported participation in the Administration's policy about renditions — transferring prisoners to countries likely to use methods that, to put it mildly, differ from the stated U.S. standards, to put it mildly.

Terror Suspect Alleges Torture
Detainee Says U.S. Sent Him to Egypt Before Guantanamo
By Dana Priest and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 6, 2005; Page A01


U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen (Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001) to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt.<snip>

The State Department's annual human rights report has consistently criticized Egypt for practices that include torturing prisoners.

After six months in Egypt, the petition says, Habib was flown to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

U.S. intelligence officials have said renditions -- and the threat of renditions -- are a potent device to induce suspected terrorists to divulge information. Habib's petition says the threat that detainees at Bagram would be sent to Egypt prompted many of them to offer confessions.

His petition argues that his "removal to Egypt would be unquestionably unlawful" in part because he "faces almost certain torture."

The U.N. Convention Against Torture says no party to the treaty "shall expel, return or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture."

"The fact that the United States would contemplate sending him to Egypt again is astonishing to me," said Margulies, the attorney.

[UpInArms]

6. thanks for the post

I just thought I could not get any more angry - but somehow that last line

AND ABCNOTE SAYS 15 Dems with vote to confirm!

has pushed me right back into the seeing red zone.

:nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh::nuke::argh:

[teryang]

4. Gonzales appointment would mark a complete surrender

...to arbitrary rule and fascism by the federal government.

[aikido15]

5. Get ready for the total

fall of the Democratic Party!

[MisterP]

7. in just a few minutes

we'll all hear how we should roll over on this and how that would be a brilliant plan and we wouldn't want the GOP attacking us and it was good to roll over on Porter Goss too and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...

[aikido15]

8. Exactly...

They are confirming Electoral votes on C-SPAN...it reminds me too much of the elections, have to turn it off!

Hey, so does this mean the Dems folded on the voting thing also?

[winsflorida]

9. Anybody think he

won't be confirmed?? I think he'll be confirmed overwhelmingly.

[aikido15]

10. yep, me too...

unfortunately!

[aikido15]

11. Hooooo, objection to OH vote...

Congress is taking the two hours to discuss, they just walked out after counting all the electoral votes...

Won't matter..we are stuck with the Dumbya for four more years...I just hope this pushes for voting reform...BEFORE the next election!!!!