9/11 families excluded from Guantanamo hearing

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/NASU60401.htm

As the Guantanamo war crimes court prepared to arraign five prisoners on death penalty charges of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks, a Pentagon official apologized on Wednesday for excluding victims' families from the hearing.

The U.S. military quietly invited one woman whose brother was an American Airlines pilot killed in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in the 2001 attacks.

But the invitation to attend Thursday's arraignment at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba was rescinded when the New York Daily News revealed that lone invitee Debra Burlingame was an ardent defender of President George W. Bush who spoke in support of his administration at the Republican Party convention during his 2004 re-election campaign.

Relatives of other victims complained that the Guantanamo trials were being politicized and the Pentagon's legal adviser, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, acknowledged the matter was mishandled.

"Out of good intentions, one of them was invited. It shouldn't have been done that way, it should have been done more comprehensively, more completely, more thoroughly," Hartmann told dozens of journalists who were flown to Guantanamo to observe Thursday's hearing.