The right wing has wasted no time attacking the Supreme Court and those who supported its ruling on Guantanamo yesterday. Rush Limbaugh’s website ran the headline, “Liberals Celebrate Supreme Court Victory for Terrorists.”

Attacking the patriotism of those who support the decision is ironic. The majority opinion in the case was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, “winner of a Bronze Star for his service as a Navy officer in World War II.” And Hamdan was represented by Charles Swift, a Navy lieutenant commander, who Washington Post defense analyst Bill Arkin today describes as “The Hero of Guantanamo.”

Here is a man in uniform who could have done a perfunctory job, who could have seen Hamdan as an assignment, or as an evil and not a human being; who could have saluted and followed orders; who risked promotion and now faces certain retirement without it. He is the hero of Guantanamo.

Swift was interviewed last night by Greta Van Susteren. Watch it:

Full transcript below: Read more

Justice Breyer stated in today’s Hamdan opinion, “Nothing prevents the President from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.” Reacting to Breyer, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Fox, “The court is telling us that tribunals would be okay if you have the Congress’ blessing.”

President Bush seems to be quickly embracing the idea.

As I understand, a senator has already been on TV — I haven’t seen it. I haven’t heard what he said, but they briefed me and said he wants to devise law in conformity with the case that would enable us to use a military tribunal to hold these people to account. And if that’s the case, we’ll work with him.

But if Bush truly wants to devise law in conformity with the opinion, the military commissions will need to undergo significant changes. Mere congressional authorization of the military commission that the Bush administration has conceived will not be enough to pass the legal test. Today’s Supreme Court opinion makes clear that a congressionally-authorized military commission would need to comply with Geneva Conventions, particularly Common Article 3. From the opinion:

Common Article 3, then, is applicable here and, as indicated above, requires that Hamdan be tried by a “regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”
“¦
The commentary accompanying a provision of the Fourth Geneva Convention, for example, defines “‘regularly constituted’” tribunals to include “ordinary military courts” and “definitely exclud[e] all special tribunals.
“¦
Common Article 3 obviously tolerates a great degree of flexibility in trying individuals captured during armed conflict; its requirements are general ones, crafted to accommodate a wide variety of legal systems. But requirements they are nonetheless. The commission that the President has convened to try Hamdan does not meet those requirements.

In other words, Bush’s military commissions need more than a rubber-stamp from Congress.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald notes that Congress could decide to abrogate the Geneva Convention or exempt its application with respect to the military commissions. It would be an extraordinary step, but with this Congress, anything is possible.

In a 5-3 decision (Chief Justice Roberts abstaining), the Supreme Court ruled that President Bush did not have authority to set up military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, finding the “military commissions” illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. The opinion of the Court, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, declares that “the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction.”

UPDATE I: The AP has more: “The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terror policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under U.S. law and international Geneva conventions.”

UPDATE II: SCOTUSBlog has the voting breakdown: “The main opinion [was] written by Justice John Paul Stevens. That opinion was supported in full by Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote separately, in an opinion partly joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter…Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the dissenters, each wrote an opinion.” Read the opinions (pdf).

UPDATE III: From SCOTUSBlog: “The Court appears to have held that Common Article 3 of Geneva aplies to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today’s ruling. The commissions are the least of it. This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons ‘shall in all circumstances be treated humanely,’ and that ‘[t]o this end,’ certain specified acts ‘are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever’””including ‘cruel treatment and torture,’ and ‘outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.’ This standard, not limited to the restrictions of the due process clause, is much more restrictive than even the McCain Amendment. … This almost certainly means that the CIA’s interrogation regime is unlawful.”

UPDATE IV: “Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent and took the unusual step of reading part of it from the bench something he had never done before in his 15 years. He said the court’s decision would ‘sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.’” Justice Breyer responded in the opinion that Bush should consult with Congress to receive specific authority, and doing so, would strengthen the nation’s ability to deals with threats: Read more

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing yesterday was the first time a congressional committee held a public hearing on the pre-Iraq War intelligence failure, and the first time any testimony had been taken on postwar intelligence failings. We still do not know for certain why officials were wrong in every one of their claims that Iraq posed such an immediate threat. But the available evidence strongly points towards a systematic campaign by senior officials to manipulate the intelligence. I explained why to the DPC panel yesterday:

If it’s true that [the intelligence failures] were the fault of some “group think,” as the Senate Intelligence Committee said, or some “systemic weaknesses,” then surely the evidence of that would have showed up immediately after 1998, when the original UNSCOM inspectors were kicked out. But we found that when you look at the intelligence assessments from ’99, 2000, and 2001, you saw a rising level of concern as it became harder and harder for us to ascertain with certainty what Saddam was doing over these programs. But also deep caveats, deep cautions about what we actually knew. No certainty at all in this, and certainly nothing like the definitive answers that suddenly came out of the intelligence agencies in 2002, particularly with the NIE.

The NIE took a dramatic leap forward that was a complete break with all previous intelligence. This led us to conclude that”¦intelligence failures were due primarily to political pressure brought to bear on the intelligence agencies by senior administration officials. [Video here.]

Here are three ways that administration officials systematically misled the American people about the nature of the Iraqi threat: Read more

This morning on Fox & Friends, anchor Brian Kilmeade and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) had a heated exchange over Gen. George Casey’s stated plan to begin redeploying U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of 2006.

Levin ended the segment by telling the anchor, “Well, thank you for your opinion. But I was hoping this would be an interview of me rather than an interview of you.” Afterwards, Kilmeade was shown scowling and shaking his head. Watch it:

Read the full transcript HERE.

This morning on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) argued that the broader al Qaeda network is gaining strength as a result of the Iraq war.

Feingold cited Somalia, where an individual listed by the U.S. State Department as a suspected al Qaeda collaborator was yesterday named as the new leader of a militia that has seized control of Somalia’s capital:

While we were asleep at the switch, while we were bogged down in Iraq, all focused on Iraq as the be all and end all of our American foreign policy, we are losing the battle to al Qaeda. … We’ve spent $2 million in Somalia in the last year while we’re spending $2 billion a week in Iraq. This is insanity if you think about what the priorities are of those who have attacked us and those who are likely to attack us in the future.

Watch it.

Full transcript: Read more

Yesterday, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour sharply criticized some of the tactics being employed in the war on terror, reminding all nations — including the United States — that they are constrained by an “absolute ban on torture and the right to a fair trial.” She added, “It is vital that at all times Governments anchor in law their response to terrorism.”

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton immediately slammed Arbour’s “misplaced priorities“:

For all the human rights problems in the world in places like North Korea and Iran and so on, to go after the United States and Israel — it is business as usual from the U.N. human rights machinery.

But just a month earlier, Bolton’s own deputy stated that the “U.N. human rights machinery” exists to inform all member states — including the U.S. — of their international duties and obligations:

The human rights machinery of the United Nations exists to assist UN Member States to meet their international obligations. Reflecting our strong support for human rights, the United States places a great deal of importance on the effective and efficient functioning of human rights bodies. … The United States holds the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in high regard and believes it has the potential to make even greater contributions to the protection of human rights around the world.

Bolton has once again shown he is willing to throw international cooperation by the wayside and employ double standards in order to defend flawed Bush administration policies.

Former Secretary of Defense William Perry is one of America’s great national defense assets. So it is difficult to understand his lapse in judgment in proposing, with Harvard’s Ash Carter, to start a war with North Korea. Perhaps it is an attempt to position themselves to the right of President Bush, but their plan is ill-conceived, factually flimsy, and feeds directly into the crisis atmosphere that dictator Kim Jong-Il wants to create. Their June 22 Washington Post op-ed, commits five basic errors:

1. They exaggerate the threat. Calling North Korea’s test launch an “intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead on U.S. soil” is a huge analytical leap unsupported by any evidence. The last time North Korea fired a long-range missile was in 1998, it went about 1300 kilometers and failed to put its tiny payload into orbit.

2. They adopt the Bush administration’s deeply flawed preventive war strategy. The view that we have to go to war before “the threat has matured” is precisely what sent us into Iraq. The 1998 test was not an imminent threat and this one is no different — certainly not the “race to threaten this country” that the authors suggest.

3. They justify the attack on flimsy intelligence. The very first sentence of the op-ed – “North Korean technicians are reportedly in the final stages of fueling a long-range ballistic missile” — is in error. South Korean intelligence officials, who were the first to report the missile fueling, have now rejected the reports.

Read more

This afternoon on the Senate floor, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) blasted conservatives who have turned to “catchy political slogans” to avoid having a serious debate about Bush’s Iraq policy. Hagel argued that using such focus-group tested words like “cut and run” demean the debate and “debase the seriousness of war.” Watch it.

Full transcript below: Read more

(Our guest blogger, Brian Katulis, is the co-author of Strategic Redeployment, American Progress’ strategy for Iraq.)

Today’s Senate debate puts on full display the choice that Americans face on Iraq and national security policy.

Progressives are offering sensible policy ideas to change direction and the chance for accountability. White House allies are stuck on tired attempts to politicize national security, offering more of the same and serving as a rubber stamp for failed policies.

More than six months ago, President Bush offered up a plan for Iraq. The response from Congress? First, deafening silence. Then, Congress realized it was so unconvinced by the President’s ideas that it appointed an independent commission to look into Iraq to offer new ideas and recommendations.

No one has rallied around President Bush’s Iraq plan — in large part because a majority of Americans are don’t approve of it, and are looking for a new policy. Read more

Today, President Bush held a press conference in Vienna, Austria as part of a diplomatic visit to Europe. He was asked by a member of the press why approval for his policies, particularly on national security issues, was so low in Europe. Bush explained that Europeans didn’t take the 9/11 attacks seriously. “For Europe, September 11th was a moment. For us, it was a change of thinking.”

85 Europeans died in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Bush added that “some people,” presumably Europeans who disagree with his policies, believe it’s “OK to condemn people to tyranny.” Watch it:

We’ve posted the transcript HERE.

The Bush administration has responded to a North Korean missile that doesn’t work by activating an anti-missile system that doesn’t work. From Reuters:

The United States has moved its ground-based interceptor missile defense system from test mode to operational amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, a U.S. defense official said on Tuesday. …

“It’s good to be ready,” the official said.

But we’re not “ready.” The interceptors the administration has placed in silos in Alaska have never been realistically tested and are known to have serious operational problems. They have as much chance of hitting an incoming missile as a kid with a slingshot.

Fortunately, the missile the North Koreans may test does not work either. The last time they fired a long-range missile was in 1998, it went about 1300 killometers and failed to put its tiny payload into orbit.

The North Korean test is a political stunt designed to grab some attention. The same can be said of the decision to activate the Alaska site. The North Koreans want to increase their negotiation leverage; the U.S. Missile Defense Agency wants to protect its massive $10 billion annual budget — “more than the entire U.S. Army is spending on research and development” — for a product that doesn’t work.

We have to hope that neither stunt succeeds.

- Joe Cirincione

In his new book “The One Percent Doctrine,” Ron Suskind details the story of Abu Zubaydah – a man President Bush once described as “one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States.” Suskind writes that Bush made this claim despite CIA and FBI analysis that showed Zubaydah was “mentally ill and nothing like the pivotal figure they supposed him to be.” (“This guy is insane, [a] certifiable, split personality,” the FBI’s top al-Qaeda analyst said.)

Nevertheless, “under White House and Justice Department direction, the CIA would make him its first test subject for harsh interrogation techniques.” Ultimately, his story became an example of how torture doesn’t work.

From the Washington Post’s review of the book:

Bush “was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth,” Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, “Do some of these harsh methods really work?”

Interrogators did their best to find out, Suskind reports. They strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep.

Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety — against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty. With each new tale, “thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each…target.” And so, Suskind writes, “the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered.”

The answer to your question, President Bush, is “no.”

Today, the Senate will debate a pair of amendments that urge the administration to begin a phased redeployment of American troops out of Iraq. Increasingly, progressives and conservatives are unifying behind two very different approaches to resolving the Iraq conflict. Progressives across the spectrum believe that redeployment of U.S. forces must begin immediately:

“[Sen. Jack] Reed (D-RI) said redeployment should begin ‘as quickly as possible’ to ease the strain on the troops, but added that the measure does not establish a pace.”

Joint statement of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): “Our troops have done their job in Iraq. It is time to redeploy – to help increase stability in Iraq, and more importantly, to strengthen the national security of the United States.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI): “[The amendment] does urge that a phased redeployment begin this year, partly as a way of moving away from an open-ended commitment and a way of avoiding Iraqi dependency on a U.S. security blanket.”

Conservatives, however, remain wedded to Bush’s stay the course rhetoric, unwilling to make any promises of a near-term departure from Iraq. In defense of Bush, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) said:

Retreat is not an option. Those calling for an early withdrawal of American troops from Iraq utterly fail to understand the potentially catastrophic implications of their proposal.

But in fact, the administration and its conservative allies find themselves out of touch with Iraqi sentiment and are growing more and more isolated in their approach. Today, Iraqi National Security Adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, weighed in decidedly in favor of the progressive approach — the immediate start of a redeployment. Al-Rubaie writes:

Iraq’s ambition is to have full control of the country by the end of 2008. In practice this will mean a significant foreign troop reduction. We envisage the U.S. troop presence by year’s end to be under 100,000, with most of the remaining troops to return home by the end of 2007.

Al-Rubaie joins the Iraqi president, Iraqi vice president, and Iraqi prime minister in calling for a withdrawal to begin soon.

UPDATE: At this afternoon’s press briefing, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli was asked about the Al-Rubaie op-ed. “Frankly, I didn’t read it that carefully,” he said.

This afternoon on CNN Late Edition, White House Press Secretary repeatedly claimed that the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan was entirely predictable:

BLITZER: Let’s move on and talk about some other issues. I know your time is limited. Afghanistan. Is the Taliban making a serious comeback right now?

SNOW: I think what the Taliban is doing — and it’s predictable — is that they are trying to test in the south, where the U.S. forces are handing over to NATO…But A, it’s predictable, and B, in the encounters, as you know, the Taliban fighters have overwhelmingly been losing. Now, I think it is predictable…you can expect there to be pushback by the Taliban.

One person who didn’t predict this is President Bush. Here is what he had to say about the Taliban in September 2004:

And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free. (Applause.) In other words when you say something as President you better make it clear so everybody understands what you’re saying, and you better mean what you say.

The resurgence of the Taliban was not predicted by this administration. It is a consequence of shifting resources to Iraq before the mission in Afghanistan was completed.

Karl Rove attacked Rep. John Murtha during a speech last week in New Hampshire. Rove described Murtha’s Iraq plan as “cutting and running,” and suggested that the 37-year Marine combat veteran would “be with you at the first shots” but not “for the last, tough battles.”

Murtha defended himself this morning on Meet the Press:

MURTHA: He’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside, saying stay the course. That’s not a plan. … We’ve got to change direction. You can’t sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying 70 pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels hit with IEDs every day, seeing their friends blown up, their buddies blown up — and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, DC.

Watch it:

Full transcript below: Read more

At a press conference yesterday, a reporter asked U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan what he thought about the U.S. “secretly supporting secular warlords” in Somalia. (The same warlords who “reportedly fought against the United States in 1993.”) Here’s his response:

I would not have supported warlords. I don’t think I would have recommended to the UN or the Security Council to support warlords.

Bolton quickly hit back, wondering if Annan was criticizing “American efforts to round up terrorists”:

Q: The SG [Annan] seems to be criticizing the United States support of warlords in Somalia. In some ways is this meeting a recognition of that policy, I don’t know that you have confirmed at this point, but that that policy was sort of misdirected and that there needs to be a real re-thinking of the approach to Somalia?

BOLTON: Well, I didn’t hear what the SG said. But the situation in Somalia, and I certainly hope that it’s not an implicit criticism of American efforts to round up terrorists, I hope that’s not what he was saying.

Yet rather than “round up terrorists,” the clandestine support the administration gave to secular warlords “thwarted counterterrorism efforts inside Somalia and empowered the same Islamic groups it was intended to marginalize.”

Annan isn’t the only one who’s been critical of the policy – there’s been quite a bit of internal dissension within the State Department. The New York Times reported last week that “Leslie Rowe, the [Nairobi] embassy’s second-ranking official, signed off on a cable back to State Department headquarters that detailed grave concerns throughout the region about American efforts in Somalia.” In addition, “the State Department’s political officer for Somalia, Michael Zorick, who had been based in Nairobi, was reassigned to Chad after he sent a cable to Washington criticizing Washington’s policy of paying Somali warlords.”

After Bush returned from his trip to Iraq this week, President Bush attacked those calling for a timetable for withdrawal. He said Iraqis had “concerns” that a timetable would disrupt their strategy to create a secure and democratic Iraq:

And the willingness of some to say that if we’re in power we’ll withdraw on a set timetable concerns people in Iraq, because they understand our coalition forces provide a sense of stability, so they can address old wrongs and develop their strategy and plan to move forward. They need our help and they recognize that. And so they are concerned about that.

Today, the AP reports that Iraq’s Vice President, Tariq al-Hashimi, personally asked President Bush to set a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. forces the day before. Iraq’s President, Jalal Talabani, said he supported the request:

Iraq’s vice president has asked President Bush for a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, the Iraqi president’s office said. Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, made the request during his meeting with Bush on Tuesday, when the U.S. president made a surprise visit to Iraq.

“I supported him in this,” President Jalal Talabani said in a statement released Wednesday. Al-Hashimi’s representatives could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

Separately, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that Iraqi security forces should be completely in charge of the nation’s security in 18 months.

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was asked this afternoon if President Bush had any reaction to the death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq reaching 2,500. Snow responded: “It’s a number.”

Snow added that the President “feels very deeply the responsibility for sending men and women into harm’s way, and feels very deeply the pain that the families feel.” To illustrate, Snow reminded the press corps of when “you had this crowd of servicemen and women who were cheering loudly for the President, and he got choked up.” Watch it:

Transcript: Read more

Twelve conservative House Republicans have written a letter to President Bush backing unconditional direct talks with Iran, and warning that the United States should “not allow a disagreement over pre-conditions to scuttle negotiations before they have the chance to begin.”

The letter pointedly notes that the “‘no negotiation’ stance has not yielded positive results” — an implied indictment of the Bush policy over the last several years — and concludes by saying that “There are seldom occassions in history where a great country should fear dialogue with a potential adversary.”

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently announced that the Bush administration would participate in direct negotiations with Iran — but only if Iran first agreed to suspend uranium enrichment. Many experts doubt whether that offer will be sufficient. Kenneth Katzman, an Iran expert at the Congressional Research Service, told Laura Rozen:

“I don’t think the Iranians are going to accept this. The U.S. didn’t offer any concrete concessions. All the U.S. said is we would come to the table. We didn’t say what we would do at the table. There’s not enough in it for Iran.”

The letter was signed by Reps. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), John Hostettler (R-IN), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), among others.

– Andy Grotto