The FBI is reconstructing the cases against 15 Al Qaeda leaders that are at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The FBI is doing this because they believe that the evidence that they have against this mean is “inadmissible or too controversial to present at their upcoming war crimes tribunals” (Meyer). This is an embarrassing for the Bush administration because they called for CIA to use measures that would get information, but would not be allowed in the court or if it was it would be focusing on the agencies actions instead of he leaders. The most important captive in this case is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who has said he is the mastermind behind September 11th and while in Guantanamo Bay planned the event that killed Daniel Pearl. Basically the article says that the CIA has made many mistakes in this trial and the FBI is being used to help fix the mess if there are any more problems.
I found this article interesting because I had not heard much about the Al Qaeda leaders in Guantanamo Bay in a while. However, I found this article to be disheartening because of all the mistakes that the CIA has made. I believe that the CIA has made a tremendous amount of errors in planning this case, and also there were definite errors made by the Bush administration. I do not feel that it is the responsibility of the FBI to fix the mess that was made, but I also feel that we need to convict these men of the crimes they have committed. Another aspect that I was really surprised of was the comment from the head of Amnesty International who said, “ I think there’s no surprise that they have to call in the FBI to clean up the mess left by the CIA secret detention program” (Meyer). I feel that after this trial the government really needs to fix the problems in their programs quickly so this will never happen again. What do you think?
For more information look at Josh Meyer's article called "FBI working to bolster Al Qaeda cases":
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror21oct21,1,2519428.story
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2 comments:
I totally agree Rachael. I think this situation needs to act as a wake-up call to the United States regarding the importance of these programs and the current problems that are corroding the system. These Al Qaeda leaders in Guantanamo Bay is a subject that is particularly "touchy" for this country because it is so connected to September 11th and hence the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. The United States has to be very delicate and at the same time very decisive about how they handle this case because it will speak largely about how they are trying to move forward from the attacks in terms of foreign policy and national security.
This whole situation should have been delt with more effitiently in the first place, and now it is truly embarrassing to have to go back and fix all the damages. The CIA should be able to handle such cases on their own, but obviously not. I honestly don't know much about the Guantanamo Bay situation, but I do know that it directly links to many of Bush's decisions. It is no wonder Americans are seemingly giving up on our president when failures such as this happen so frequently now.
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