WASHINGTON (KRT) — Under sharp questioning Wednesday from senators, the top official directing the Bush administration’s terrorist investigation vigorously defended military tribunals, lengthy detentions and other emergency powers as necessary given the threat.
“Are we being aggressive and hard-nosed? You bet,” Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “In the aftermath of Sept. 11, how could we not be?”
Chertoff, a veteran prosecutor, said the recent measures were needed to prevent future acts of terrorism and were being used “within established constitutional and legal limits.”
He said that “dragnet” interviews of 5,000 Middle Eastern men did not amount to ethnic profiling, and he defended the Justice Department order allowing the monitoring of conversations between some terrorist suspects and their lawyers.
In the first oversight hearing in Congress on a range of executive powers newly asserted by President Bush, several senators criticized Bush’s decision to set up military tribunals to try terrorist suspects and accomplices, which could include resident aliens in the United States.
According to Bush’s order, made without congressional consultation, the tribunals could be held in secret, with military officers serving as judge and jury. Rules of evidence would be relaxed, and defendants could be convicted and sentenced, including the death penalty, on a two-thirds vote.
Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., complained that the tribunals, by avoiding the federal court system, “would send a terrible message to the world that when confronted with a serious challenge, we lack the confidence in the very institutions we’re fighting for.”
Leahy and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., questioned whether Bush was overstepping his authority. Congress “has the exclusive authority to authorize tribunals,” said Specter.
Leahy noted that Spain was refusing to turn over suspects that might face a tribunal, and he reminded Chertoff that U.S. officials complained when Peru, Egypt and other nations used military courts without due process.
But Chertoff cited the president’s “inherent authority as commander in chief” in a time of war, even undeclared war. He tried to assure senators that Bush and the Pentagon would make sure that tribunals extend “a full and fair hearing” to those “accused of war crimes — not garden-variety crimes.”
The debate over use of tribunals became more timely Wednesday with reports that U.S. forces have captured several leaders of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan.
Chertoff suggested that for such defendants, overseas tribunals made sense for security and practical reasons.
“In the battlefield, if somebody is caught in Afghanistan, the president should have the option not to bring terrorists back and put them on trial in a federal court in New York or Washington and subject those cities to the danger of having that trial.”
And Chertoff did not rule out sending U.S. suspects before a military tribunal.
During the lengthy hearing, Chertoff had several Republican senators come to his defense. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said a terrorist trial in the United States “could be a replay of the O.J. Simpson trial.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the former committee chairman, said he approved of the executive powers taken so far, calling some of the criticism he had heard “almost hysterical.”
“Most Americans are worried that we are not doing enough to thwart potential terrorist attacks, not that we are doing too much,” Hatch said.
But Attorney General John Ashcroft has faced growing skepticism on Capitol Hill about some of the measures taken. Under pressure, Ashcroft on Tuesday released limited information on some of the suspects in custody, and he plans to testify before the committee Dec. 6.
Chertoff said all suspects were being treated fairly. He emphasized that the 603 people in custody are being held on criminal or immigration charges and all have access to lawyers.
Another 10 to 15 people are being held as material witnesses — the exact number has not been disclosed — and investigators believe they may have some connection to the Sept. 11 attacks.
In dealing with detainees, “nothing we are doing is different from what we did before Sept. 11,” said Chertoff.
The order to eavesdrop on some client-attorney conversations will be used very selectively, he said. So far, 16 prisoners are “eligible” for the monitoring, designed to deter plans for future attacks.
Chertoff once prosecuted organized crime cases in New Jersey and said criminals were quite capable of planning crimes in jail by using their lawyers.
And Chertoff told Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., that interviews of 5,000 young men, most from the Middle East, were “the least intrusive investigative technique that one can imagine.”
“This is not rousting people, this is not detaining people, this is not arresting people,” he said. “This is approaching people and asking them if they will respond to questions.”
After Chertoff’s testimony, a panel of six former officials and legal experts analyzed the new range of executive powers.
Two former attorney generals, William Barr, who served under the first President Bush, and Griffin Bell, who served under President Carter, defended using military tribunals. Barr said he considered using tribunals during the investigation of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland.
But Philip Heymann, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, said tribunals were wrong and unnecessary.
“I don’t think we should give the president that power,” he said. “A secret trial by three colonels? It does sound like Paraguay.”
© 2001, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
U.S. senators question anti-terrorism measures
Daily Emerald
November 28, 2001
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