Terrorism: A Guantánamo Plea Deal Vanishes | Newsweek Periscope

TERROR
The Politics of Gitmo
Michael Isikoff 7/19/2008 12:00:00 AM
A federal judge's ruling last week threw a potential new curveball into the campaign debate over the War on Terror. Democratic appointed Judge James Robertson gave the Pentagon a green light to start the first-ever military-commission trial of a Gitmo detainee this week—that of Salim Hamdan, an alleged Qaeda member who served as Osama bin Laden's driver. (Robertson said that if defense lawyers see the trial as unfair, they can challenge the results later in federal court.) But the ramifications of the ruling go beyond that one case. Pentagon officials say it allows them to proceed with a series of military-commission trials, hearings and new charges that (coincidentally or not) will play out in the middle of the election campaign. Among them are hearings, if not the actual trial, in the conspiracy case involving 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. "We are moving forward," said J. D. Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon, noting that the next round of KSM hearings are slated for August and another commission trial, involving Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, is due to begin Oct. 8.
INTERVIEW
Who’s the Pariah Now?
Lally Weymouth 7/19/2008 12:00:00 AM
Being the ambassador from Israel has never been a good way to make friends at the United Nations. But Dan Gillerman says that over the past five years he has forged ties with diplomats from several countries that officially scorn his own. In that time he has also had to manage the fallout from the invasion of Iraq, the 2006 Lebanon war and the growing Iranian nuclear program. With his term coming to an end, he spoke with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth about Iran, the peace process and last week's prisoner exchange between Israel and Hizbullah. Excerpts:
LAST WORD
Putting Al Qaeda on the Couch
7/19/2008 12:00:00 AM
Marc Sageman has charted an unlikely path. The first scholar-in-residence at the New York City Police Department is a child of Holocaust survivors who became a psychiatrist, a sociologist and a CIA case officer. Since the publication of "Leaderless Jihad" earlier this year, Sageman has been at the center of a debate about the inner workings of Al Qaeda. Is the organization dispersed and disorganized, as Sageman suggests, or is it resurgent, as CIA analyses have reported? Sageman spoke with NEWSWEEK's Christopher Dickey in New York. Excerpts:
CAPITAL SOURCES
'Fair, Open, Just, Honest'
Dan Ephron 6/2/2008 12:00:00 AM
This Thursday, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will appear in court at Guantánamo Bay for the first time since he was captured in Pakistan in 2002. He and four other detainees accused of engineering the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will be arraigned in a newly built courtroom on the island. KSM, as the government refers to Mohammed, is the most senior Al Qaeda leader held by the United States, and he has confessed to plotting not only 9/11 but a raft of other attacks on American targets over the past decade. Yet his interrogation and now his trial by military commission have been marred by allegations of torture. The CIA, which held KSM in secret prisons until he was transferred to Gitmo in 2006, has admitted using harsh interrogation methods—including the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding. Arguments over the abuse and other procedural issues are expected to be heard in pretrial motions over the coming months.
JUSTICE
Gitmo Grievances
Dan Ephron
You might think that the case against Mohammed Al-Qahtani would be relatively straightforward. The military prosecutors' file on him included strong circumstantial evidence that he was sent to the United States to be the 20th hijacker in the September 11 attacks. In August 2001, Qahtani traveled to Orlando, Fla., from Dubai, using the airline that a number of the other hijackers had used around the same time—but he was turned back at the airport by border authorities. About the time Qahtani's plane touched down in Orlando, 9/11 ringleader Muhammad Atta's car was photographed entering the airport parking lot, presumably to pick him up. When U.S. troops nabbed him in Afghanistan after the start of the war and sent him to Guantánamo, the 29-year-old Saudi allegedly confessed. So why did the Pentagon abruptly dismiss the charges against Qahtani last week—and without explanation?
JUSTICE
Is This Terror on Trial?
Michael Isikoff
Maj. Jon Jackson flew repeatedly to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the past month trying to build a rapport with his client. The veteran military lawyer had been assigned to represent Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, a 39-year-old Saudi who is one of five alleged co-conspirators in the attacks of September 11. Jackson says he thought he'd gained Hawsawi's trust during eight meetings—despite his Army uniform. He even brought him a white Arabic robe during one of his visits. But Hawsawi's demeanor changed when he sat in the same Gitmo courtroom with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused architect of 9/11. At their arraignment last week, Mohammed, sporting a bushy white and gray beard and a white tunic, held a menacing sway over the other four detainees, instructing and even reprimanding them. Hawsawi had indicated he was ready to accept Jackson as his lawyer—but backtracked when Mohammed taunted him: "What, are you in the American Army now?" Jackson says his client was visibly intimidated. "He was shaking," he tells NEWSWEEK.