By reversing itself and deciding to prosecute the Sept. 11, 2001, mastermind before a military tribunal, US President Barack Obama’s administration risks alienating its left-wing base and irking conservatives.
A stern Attorney General Eric Holder, who had spent a year-and-a-half seeking to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators in federal civilian court, announced on Monday that the administration was giving up on the controversial bid.
Obama’s team had to “face a simple truth” that the congressional restrictions against trials in the US were “unlikely to be repealed in the immediate future,” he said. “And we simply cannot allow a trial to be delayed any longer for the victims of the 9/11 attacks or for their family members who have waited for nearly a decade for justice.”
However, the bid to lay the blame at Congress’s feet on the very day Obama officially declared his candidacy for a second term, raised some analysts’ eyebrows.
“This is a problem of Obama’s making, even though ... Holder tried to blame Congress,” said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. “The Obama administration is almost hypocritical in complaining about this case when the president, Obama, -preserved the military tribunals.”
The president vowed to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp within a year in one of his first initiatives after taking office in January 2009, but he failed to fulfill that goal as he struggled to tear down the counterterrorism framework left over from former US president George W. Bush’s administration.
David Rivkin, a conservative attorney who favors the military trial venue, complained about the “unfortunate” delay for Obama to come to his latest decision.
“We are now exactly where we were at the time this administration takes office in January 2009. Things were moving forward. Military commissions obviously have suffered considerable losses in personnel and funding,” Rivkin added. David Glazier, a Loyola Law School professor in Los Angeles, said Obama’s move may signal he is trying to reach out to conservatives as he launches his re-election bid.
Republican lawmakers largely welcomed Obama’s move and said the issue was now closed.
However, pulling it all off as intended will still be a challenge.
A death penalty is not guaranteed because there is nothing under the law used in the Guantanamo tribunals to stop the suspects from pleading guilty. In December 2008, the defendants said they were inclined to do so without a full trial, but if one of the suspects pleads guilty, nothing says the defendants can be put to death.
“If the administration puts them in the military commission, and then does so in a way that they can’t get a death sentence, presumably it ends up antagonizing the very people it is trying to placate,” Glazier said.
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