Archive for July, 2010

Gitmo detainees were exploited for intelligence

Pakistan-based political analyst Ali Kamran Chishti recently interviewed former Guantanamo Bay prison chief prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis.

Following is the transcript of the talk.

Ali Kamran Chishti: Tell us about yourself?

Colonel Morris Davis: I am 51 and grew up in Western Carolina in the US and attended college and law school there. I joined the US Air Force in 1983 and served there for 25 years as an attorney. I was Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from September 2005 to October 2007.

AKC: How many prosecutors worked at Gitmo?

Colonel: I was head of a multi-agency Prosecution Task Force (PTF) that fluctuated in size over time. When I resigned in October, 2007 there were about 110 people detailed to the PTF on a full or part-time basis including attorneys, paralegals, intelligence analysts, law enforcement agents and support personnel’s from the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, CIA, FIA and other federal agencies.

AKC: So what did you do as chief prosecutor and did you have direct access to detainees?

Colonel: Probably the best analogy is to the role of a head coach of a sports team. I assigned team members, monitored their progress, provided guidance on the their preparations, ensured they had the resources they needed and made sure everyone understood the rules and followed them. The law enforcement members of PTF (CIA, FBI etc) had more direct access to the detainees. The PTF did have access to the detainees, which was necessary in order to prepare cases for trial and we interviewed many of them in detail. I interviewed directly with the two detainees.

AKC: Great! So you had the prosecution team at Gitmo but did you have a defense team too?

Colonel: I believe an ample number of very capable and qualified defense attorney’s both military and civilians were and are committed to the defense effort. And I believe they did a fine job of keeping military commission process tied up in litigation in the federal courts for years ending up with the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdam v Rumsfeld in June 2006 that ended the process created by President George Bush created by an executive order.

AKC: Okay! Now let’s talk about the Right’s which the Gitmo detainees never had. Apparently, President Bush did not give detainees protection under the Geneva Convention despite, Supreme Court’s ruling in “Hamdan v Rumsfed” which actually calls for a “minimal protection” to detainees (article 3 under Geneva Conventions) did people from “inside” disagreed to that?

Colonel: Yes, people disagreed with Geneva Conventions. If you haven’t already you might want to read Karen Greenbrg’s book, The Least Worst Place, which chronicles the first 100 days that Gitmo was in operation in early 2002. The military leadership, in absence of any other rules, fell back on their Geneva Convention training and the place operated I pretty humane manner at the outset. All of the Judges Advocate Generals, the senior uniformed attorney’s of each of the military services argued for application of the Geneva Conventions. Apparently, it was the civilians like David Addington, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez and Jim Haynes – a group referred to as “the big brains” – disagreed and had more clout. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was dissatisfied with the amount of information coming from the detainees and pressed to ratchet up the coercion to squeeze more intelligence from the detainees and the rest is history.

AKC: What were the legal standards used to put people in Guantanamo? The public has the impression that many innocent people were in there on the basis of rumors or malicious individuals. If no information was gained from them after a year or so, why were they kept for so long?

Colonel: I don’t know the precise process that resulted in most of the detainees going to Gitmo because that pre-dated my involvement in the military commissions. The only detainees sent to Gitmo during my tenure were 15 high value detainees that were transferred from the CIA black sites to DoD detention at Gitmo. Those were approved by President Bush. The customary laws of war permit detention of enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities. That authority is not dependent on whether they do or do not provide information. It is dependent on whether they pose a current or future threat to us or our allies.

AKC: Sir do you realise off all those years of establishment of Gitmo only three prisoners (David Hicks, Salim Hamdan and Ali Al-Bahlul) were convicted while 420 out of 775 were released without a charge? Why?

Colonel: Basically Gitmo was more of an “Intelligence Squeezing” center than a Jail.

AKC: Why were some people put in Guantanamo, others sent to secret detention sites in Europe, and others to Syria, Egypt etc for questioning? And some remained in Bagram, Afghanistan. Are these different categories of prisoners?

Colonel: Those sent to Gitmo were those believed to have intelligence value. People were not sent there to face prosecution, they were sent there to be exploited for intelligence.

AKC: Hmm