testing one two testing testing one t period of time without votes but if we do have votes let me let me say once more please indulge us and we will return as quickly as  possible today's hearing continues our examination of the detention facility at guantanamo and how its operation influences the perception of the united states by the international community and the resulting consequences for american national security and foreign policy objectives years after secretary rumsfeld describe understand that a majority of the us were the victims of a bad system that made them easy prey for local plugs who seized the opportunity to make a quick buck remember only five percent of guantanamo inmates were captured by american forces the rest were primarily purchased by afghanis and pakistanis now the fact that mistakes are made in the fog  is understandable and as in any human endeavor can be expected but once discovered we should acknowledge those mistakes opinion compounds its mistakes i find it particularly repugnant that this white house did invite the worst of the worst to come and visit guantanamo the administration grant granted security agents interview imagine interrogators from one of the most egregious human rights violators in the world and by the way  evidence that they have actually boiled people a lot of that's according to our own department of state country reports that these individuals were given full reign by our own government to come in and threaten detainees who were in american custody minority from china these detainees claim they were supportive of the united states and yet we allowed chinese agents to threaten and abuse them i would say that is more than intolerable it's despicable i find it particularly ironic that while the back and chinese communist regimes can have their agents walk into this ultimate i'll draw a maximum security facility my own ranking member finds it difficult to meet with a convicted terrorist but by the u s practice of sending some detainees back to abusive countries on the basis of diplomatic assurances that's a term that i've come to have an opportunity to examine what other occasions what the term means that it's in its essence is that when we receive promises from the receiving country that the detainee would not be choice we would send those individuals there to comply with our convention against torture obligations now some of the countries that we received diplomatic assurances from include libya tunisia stan and iran iran all nations which our state department described as practitioners of systematic torture in their penal institutions while as i indicated this subcommittee has examined diplomatic assurances in the context of renditions and we know that all too often they worth little more than the scrap of paper if they are that they're written on if in fact they were in writing i can't seem to find one particular case anything in writing that cases a case of made here a canadian of syrian our arjun who was detained at j f k shipped off to syria on the basis of diplomatic assurances assurances that did little good in preventing his torture now the united states uses these diplomatic assurances to argue that it has as i said fulfilled its obligations under the convention against torture but in the case of the weaker chinese diplomatic assurances couldn't pass the laugh test ministration was forced to concede that the weak is could not be sent back to china albania agreed to take some but now china has made it very clear that any nation which  consequences so the rest of them simply languish at guantanamo now what about missed the job are often used back it's been over a year lawyer received an e mail indicating that he was determined to be quote unquote no longer a threat and could depart guantanamo but the administration has no place to send them all the while refusing to rule out that they might send him back to spec well if the chinese cannot be trusted to treat people humanely it's baffling to let's be clear about what is at stake here the damage from going time all goes well beyond the pain and suffering of those involved and their families it's become a symbol a sad symbol it has single handedly dealt a blow to the nation's image in the world that will take decades to overcome i presume that's why senator mccain clinton and obama as well as secretaries rice and gates of call for one tunnel to be close but we're paying the price the consequences to our national interest to devastating the state department's own group on public policy for the arab and muslim world concluded that hostility towards the u s policy goals far more difficult including dealing with terrorism and as we know it's not limited to the middle east as the government accountability office stated in april of two thousand and five that reputation seriously undermines our ability to pursue foreign policy objectives across the globe in a ray of whether it be building a security alliance selling american goods in  efforts to claim a moral authority one time a mile is a serious obstacle sixty eight percent of people across globe disapprove of how the united states government has treated detainees in guantanamo and other prisons in several countries including germany the united kingdom lodge in tina and brazil there it is i think i got it back disapproval rates exceed seventy five percent so it's well past time for the bush administration to deal with its mistakes and we all have to work aggressively to free those who everyone agrees can depart if no nation can be found to which detainees could safely be sent without risk of torture then we need to be creative about alternatives including bringing some of them to the united states so those who do you ministration still considers a threat give them a day in court and let's be done with it now i appreciate the fact that you are passionate on this issue and i appreciate the fact that two of called together to have an honest discussion of it whenever we discuss issues like guantanamo are some of the other elements of our current reality i have to always keep in mind that the reality in which we are dealing with the mass murder of three thousand americans on nine eleven as well as the slaughter of innocent people by the followers of radical islam in various parts of the world that's the world we live in was shaped by those events we are actually committed now and we have been committed since nine eleven to preventing such mass slaughter to happen again one of the reasons why this very well funded threat of radical islam has not been successful in killing more thousands of americans as well as others in the west as well as moderate muslims has been because we have had some success in our dealings with the challenges that we face and part of the success has been the incarceration of individuals who are in the leadership of that movement i have no apologies that  mohammad the man who planned nine eleven attacks number three man to osama bin laden was waterboarding i've got no apolog waterboarding but the fact is that information from this waterboarding which is nothing more than creating a psychological psychological sense of fear and overwhelming fear we got a lot of information and perhaps and perhaps from that from the mama who who gave us a tremendous amount of information we were able to do something that actually stopped another of the magnitude of nine eleven or maybe two or three of them or maybe the fact that ramsey who was part of  mohammad's family was targeting disneyland in orange county where i come from perhaps when they found his laptop in the philippines with targets that they meant to kill tens of thousands of people going to disneyland this is the type of people we're up against i have no apologies that we waterboard three of those people that has been turned into and in fact our special forces perhaps people know go through waterboarding as part of their training but it's ok to go through that to train our special forces but not to get information to prevent the blowing up of an american target saving hundreds or thousands of lives the people and get them out have been the subject of a great deal of attention and rightfully so these are not ordinary people these are not afghans that were caught in afghanistan and shipped to get them out who are they there by and large foreign fighters who were in afghanistan foreigners at a time of great conflict at a time when people were being shot and it mainly added down to five perhaps wrongly perhaps there were some words in a fight it accurately as being there who was actually part of the al terrorist legion who was at that time conducting a massive fight against commander masud forces and murdering afghans by the thousands who oppose the taliban  foreign legion of radical islam in afghanistan just prior to nine eleven murdering the people of afghanistan and that is why after nine eleven when we called on the afghan people they joined us in driving the taleban out of afghanistan as well as driving out of course and turning over anyone that they thought was involved with that now obviously some of the people in any type of chaotic situation are innocent and we should do  very best to make sure that in a time of conflict that we admit our mistakes we tell the truth and we have been our mistakes  depends and how do you determine what the truth is in a situation like this it's very difficult we could have left these people in afghanistan and i will tell you right now and we left these hundreds of men in afghanistan all we would have gotten the criticism for what we have done to them now because they'd be all dead now because the people who drove the taliban out of afghanistan would have killed these people because they looked at them as for terrorists would come into their society and were engaged in the murder of their own people but we took them to guantanamo in order to question them and even to protect because had we left them in afghanistan at that time i can tell you whether it's general the children are being threatened and tortured while she's on the phone there's no one has been working about that but she would have to believe there are some waiters who are not good people just like there are some americans who are not good people i have no idea i am concerned that the innocent if there are people who are innocent or riggers just like any of those people were innocent we should do our best to try to find out but i would submit that we have released people from guantanamo who have gone out and participated again in the killing of americans every report which i for the record today this is dated may fifth without objection monday talking about the release of  weighty who had been detained and what happened when we let him go from guantanamo he's been killed in iraq after his participation things being done in guantanamo and to some of these fellows and we let this guy go and what is worse the killing of these seven people or the other people that were killed by some of the people we have released or the fact that several people to bow our heads and apologize for keeping them in guantanamo today that we learned more about the plight of them and we hope i hope to find out whether these are innocent people or whether or not these are terrorists gangster regimes like china we should never permitted the chinese to come and interrogate prisoners being held in guantanamo or anywhere else the people run the regime  china are the ones who should be in prison and i agree with you totally on that point but i do not agree with you on the assessment of the importance of guantanamo and what it is that has done to our battle against radical islam and protecting the american people against the other type of the type of mass slaughter that we faced and nine eleven thank you very much i thank the gentleman and i would note that we've been a greeing too often in the course of the past several hearings and it's finally good to have this shop disagreement that we now have with the exception of the statement that you made relative to allowing security agents off the tarion regimes such as china and is back to stand to come into an american prison to interrogate to intimidate and to abuse prison is under our control and custody that is not acceptable and i'm glad to hear that the gentleman agrees i also would yield to the gentleman from missouri but before i do i think you ask demands that they be dealt with but again we're americans we believe search for the truth we're not going to hide in the shadows we're not going to hide behind classified information when it's not really classif kid the american people with that i yield to the gentleman the vice chair of this committee mr carnahan from missouri thank you mr chairman and ranking member for having this hearing for our panelists many of the hearings we've held have shown that most people around the world don't view the us poorly because of what we stand for if your country partly because of the actions we've taken around the world administration demands a high standard from some countries excuses others and then turns around and commit serious human rights violations like guantanamo and abu ghraib it's not hard to see how our image is suffered a common theme that has come up in my discussions with other leaders and citizens from around the world is that most people still respect american values of international cooperation standing for the rule of law the geneva convention basic human rights but we really lose ground on the issue of how we act in the world the bush administration's actions over the last several years ago on tommo play directly into our declining image around the world when we don't hold ourselves to the standards of respect of others it's only common sense that our country will be viewed in a less favorable light and i think history is a good teacher in this respect back of the turn of the last century one of our presidents president teddy roosevelt during the philippine insurrection and accusations of water boarding against our own military wrote to one of our military commanders and i want to read a passage from his letter he said the president desires to know in the fullest and most circumstantial manner all the facts for the very reason that the president intends to back up the army in the heartiest fashion in every lawful and legitimate method of doing its work he also intends to see that the most vigorous care is exercised to detect and prevent any cruelty or brutality and that the men who are guilty there human conduct of any kind on the part of the american army that was president teddy roosevelt back at the turn of the last century i think those words are very useful today as well and you'll back i  ank the gentleman and i'll let me introduce our speakers the detainees will discuss their representatives however will discuss the situation in terms of their clients happen to all be from new england where it all began america boston he practices all areas of civil litigation before joining the firm as an assistant secretary prosecuting a broad spectrum of criminal cases in both the district and superior court he actually tried cases he's not an academic he understands what it is to deal with with witnesses and to examine credibility an attorney in for the bosnian algerians as a partner at wilma hale also in boston his practice focuses on complex civil litigation and appellate argument from nine hundred eighty but he's also the one or two thousand and seven recipient of the a b a s pro bono public service award for outstanding lifelong commitment to pro bono work and i think that is of special note steve  welcome he's a graduate from was going in as well is new york university law school elizabeth hills is a solo practitioner based in new haven connecticut she has studios of experience twenty and private practice intent as a lobbyist and public policy analyst her practice focuses on environmental regulation in general is a geisha and teaches the legal committee of the connecticut fund for the environment us and she has worked at the senate as one town i'm a global justice initiative since june two thousand and six in this role she helped coordinate the pro bono attorneys representing hundreds of men still detained  also welcome lee casey a partner at baker and hostetler here in washington this practice focuses on federal environmental constitutional election and regulatory law issues as well as international and international humanitarian law he has an extensive practice as well from nine hundred eighty six to nine hundred ninety three he shared in various capacities in the federal government including the office of legal counsel and the office of legal policy at the u s department of justice he served as a deputy associate general counsel at the department of energy he is an adjunct professor at george mason university school of law he's a graduate of oakland university and the university of michigan law school i want to thank all of our witnesses for coming here today and participating in this hearing good afternoon thank you chairman dodd ranking member of ocher and representative carnahan and the house oversight committee for hosting this hearing in the past six years we've seen two supreme court decisions that have recognized that h hearing should proceed in federal court for the prisoners at guantanamo allowing them that most basic right to challenge the galatea of their detention in a fair hearing yet there been five hundred men released from guantanamo and two hundred seventy five who remain and not a single one has had a fair hearing only one wanted him a prisoner has been convicted by military commission and only then on a plea agreement negotiated by political actors to secure his release and day by day the military commission process intended to try a very small number of the guantanamo prisoners losing any semblance of legitimacy and just last week the former military commission chief prosecutor testified on behalf of the defendant there was ever any doubt it should be clear now the continued existence of guantanamo as an offshore prison facility intended to be outside of the reach of the law is destructive for the u s image abroad and counterproductive for human rights and national and international security this statement should have been said has been said enough times by a diverse enough array of voices that one would hope that it would no longer need to be said but the prison continues and two hundred seventy five men remain one group of men remaining at guantanamo has been particularly forgotten fifty detainees refugees currently imprisoned most for more than six years in many ways the prison at guantanamo is a place devoid of fortune yet ones lot of guantanamo is shaped in large part by the great vagaries of fortune and misfortune that is the country of one's birth the prisoners from europe were released guantanamo years ago not because of threat assessment that said they never should have been there but because their countries demanded their return the sole westerner remaining in guantanamo in two thousand and eight has been removed from the psychologically deadening solitary confinement twenty three hours a day day after day and instead placed in a small communal living quarters his government's advocacy urged it and on the distant other end of the spectrum of fortune at guantanamo the most unfortunate may be the detainees refugees those men who were either born in brutal human rights abusing regime or those who are effectively stateless these men are faced with an impossible choice to be detained indefinitely in the u s extrajudicial prison camp at guantanamo bay or to be repatriated to countries in which they face certain torture or persecution in clear violation of the international law pro prohibition against rape almost to a person they remain imprisoned in solitary confinement at a super maximum security prison with almost no human interaction these men are from countries whose nationals comprise large swaths of the us refugee and asylum population places like algeria china libya russia syria tunisia and his back a stan these men have never been charged with any crime and are not expected to be charged indeed approximately thirty already have been acknowledged by the united states to have been cleared for release some months or years ago which means that the u s has officially recognized that it has no interest in detaining them as with so much else at guantanamo the term cleared for release is relatively meaningless and not just because these men remain in prison many months or years after official clearance according to the defense department there were one hundred eighteen men transferred out out of guantanamo in two thousand and seven but only about one third of them were officially cleared the remainder were not cleared but they flew home all the same at guantanamo the decisions about the fate of individuals are largely based on geopolitics so who are these refugees in prison at guantanamo after more than six years without charge the question the ranking member started with well there are seventeen chinese we girls still imprisoned at guantanamo i don't know where he is one he suffered in china because he was well connected to literary and progressive movements like other weaker as he escaped the persecution of the chinese government and made his way to what he thought was safety in afghanistan in a village with other leaders forced to flee when the war started the waiters were taken in by pakistanis at the border and then sold for bounty to the united states the u s according to defense secretary rumsfeld and documents that we have in our possession and are now publicly available had peppard afghanistan and pakistan with flyers promising quote wealth and power beyond your dreams some with very specific amounts of money attached to them for the handover of unknown enemies the wiggers like many others were caught up in a dragnet relying on limited intelligence and manufactured incentives abdul rauf alka seem is a libyan refugee who deserted the libyan army when he was young and fled religious persecution in his home country he was living with his pregnant afghan wife  when the war forced him and his wife to flee to pakistan mr alka seems house was subjected to a raid in which he was turned over to u s authorities also likely for a sizable bounty the u s government has twice attempted to transfer mr alka seem to libya despite libya's known record agree just human rights abuses dissolve fled russia because of religious intolerance and persecution by the russian intelligence and military services he fled in search of a new home that would be tolerant of his faith and has been able to his family instead he found himself a refugee twice over fleeing religious persecution in his home country and war in another his fearful second flight hoping for safety led him to guantanamo in the chaos of war he remains there today all of these men and approximately forty five others remain at guantanamo today tomorrow and for the forseeable future unless some intervention alters their situation the prohibition against torture and transfers to torture is one of the most widely recognized obligations of international law this  nonracial mom principle is the bedrock of refugee law and it requires an individualized determination of whether someone is at risk prior to a transfer yet almost forty men have been transferred by the united states from guantanamo to notorious human rights abusing regimes with no process in place to determine whether these men face individualized risk of torture or persecution upon their repatriation they've been returned to countries like is back  libya tunisia and egypt some of these men are known to have been tortured abused or indefinitely detained after their return others have simply disappeared the united states has for generations loudly spoken about the importance of human rights norms and refugee protection and is still the largest receiving country of refugees resettled refugees from around the world yet the united states has to its shame consistently refused to open its doors to any of the men it brought halfway around the world to u s military prison on extraordinarily limited information the us should demonstrate that it's committed to preventing the transfer of these men to torture and to facilitating an official review of the individual refugee claims by the united nations high commissioner for refugees or asylum claims by the department of homeland security representatives of the us government have insisted that they've asked dozens of countries to accept some of these men into their borders however if the united states is serious about finding a solution we would commit to adhere to the international law principle of non reform as the us is legally obligated to do invite u n h c r to conduct refugee status determination that guantanamo and accept at least some of those refugees inside our own border while a solution is being found these men without a country should at the very least not be held in brutal conditions in solitary confinement simply because no country has advocated for better for them they should be transferred out of camp to communal living urgently like the other hundreds of others who have been released these men were picked up and brought to guantanamo without any process in place to separate the guilty for the innocent any meaningful oversight was consistently averted the result is that these men remain at guantanamo in two thousand and eight afraid of being transferred to torture and afraid also that their debilitating confinement at guantanamo will never end we must rectify this wrong our commitment to uphold our legal obligations and realize a humanitarian solution must be more powerful than our desire to avoid qaeda and its jihadist allies are not controlled by any particular state or government they do not recognize accept or implement the law of armed conflict they do not have a regular and transparent command structure they do not wear uniforms carry their arms openly or distinguish themselves from the surrounding civilian population in any other manner because of these purposeful choices it has been far more difficult than in conventional conflicts for the united states to identify enemy forces with certainty that is exactly why guerillas and others engage in asymmetrical warfare especially those operating among and preying upon the civilian population organize themselves as irregulars although violating the laws of war gives such groups an operational advantage there illegitimate and unlawful choices do not change the legal rights of the united states to confront  militarily and to attack capture and detain its personnel just as we would be entitled to attack capture and detain the lawful soldiers of a sovereign state that is the purpose served by the guantanamo bay facilities closing those facilities as some have suggested would require the construction of a similar detention camp elsewhere and it would be very likely not dampen international criticism of the united states the real issue is not the physical location at guantanamo bay but the policy of treating america's conflict with al qaida as a war a legally cognizable armed conflict rather than a criminal law enforcement exercise while it is true that abandoning this policy might obtain some temporary in us international popularity it would at the same time severely handicapped efforts to anticipate and prevent future catastrophic attacks on the american homeland and against the united states and its allies overseas at the same time again because of the difficulties created by our enemies illegitimate choices a handful of individuals have been detained at guantanamo bay who should not have been in such cases it certainly would be appropriate for congress to provide some compensation just as compensation has been provided by the u s armed forces to civilians in iraq and afghanistan who have been mistakenly targeted these cases however must be distinguished from other instances in which the armed forces have concluded that particular enemy combatants no longer need to be detained this conclusion does not undercut our legal right to detain these individuals individuals nevertheless a number of such individuals have been released and repatriated in some cases however returning detainees to their homes is not possible either because of a refusal of their own governments to accept them or more especially because they would face a realistic danger of persecution or mistreatment by those governments this obviously puts the united states in a difficult position of detaining individuals who may know no longer present a threat on the battlefield but who also may not be appropriate subjects for a grant of asylum or some other access to the united states property they have no right of entry into the united states however congress has broad constitutional power over immigration and naturalization would certainly permit the adoption of a new status that might allow certain detainees to enter the united states under restrictions designed to ensure that they do not pose a danger this of course is far easier said than done and the better solution room repatriation with suitable guarantees by the receiving state however the problem will not go away the legal right of the united states to hold the detainees depends upon continuation of active hostilities when hostilities the detainees will have to be criminally charged or repatriated for those who cannot be returned to either their own country or the country in which they were captured in the first instance a long term solution will have to be filed and this may take the form of some type of administrative detention or potentially a conditional parole into the united states or some combination of both creating the system will be practically politically and legally difficult but the effort must begin now and i'll stop there and be pleased to take any questions for me thank you m bay cuba my client is approximately one of thirty detainees who represent guantanamo's refugees these detainees who have been cleared for release by the u s government for some years ago yet they remain imprisoned at guantanamo because they come from high risk countries where there is a boat tensional danger of persecution or torture should they be forcibly returned in no country other than albania has been willing to accept these refugees from guantanamo for resettlement indeed the united states has already transferred detainees from guantanamo to high risk countries despite credible individualize fears of persecution what tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time now thirty years old boy back in his pregnant wife infant son you know the lean mother living with other refugees in northern afghanistan in two thousand one when fighting broke out between the taleban and the northern alliance way back was not captured on the battlefield nor was he armed instead he accepted a ride from a group of northern alliance soldiers he met at a roadsi tea house who said they would give him a ride to mazar e sharif unfortunately instead of driving him to mazar e sharif the soldiers took ojt back to bob graham air base where they handed him over to u s forces undoubtedly in exchange for a sizable bounty in a desperately poor war torn country way back was an easy mark for soldiers responding to leaflets throughout dropped throughout afghanistan by the u military offering thousands of dollars in cash rewards to anyone who turned over a taliban or foreign fighter after bhaag way back was taken to a prison in kandahar afghanistan and then transferred to guantanamo bay in june two thousand and two during his first few months a one time all an f b i agent told lawyer back you are free man you're not a problem and to be patient while diplomatic arrangements were made for his release but months turned into years and still nothing happened finally in february two thousand and seven way back received approval from the united states government to leave guantanamo this news brought little comfort however return to pakistan and implied he might face torture to force him to confess to things that he did not know they asked him questions about the islamic movement of uzbekistan the i m u and outlawed islamic extremists interrogators also told oil back he would be sent to prison upon his return to afghanistan for the alleged crime of illegally crossing the border into a stand without a visa even though no requirement for a visa existed at the time they showed him a photo array and asked him if he could identify any of the individuals picture when he did not recognize any of the faces one back interrogated bang his fist on the table and told him menacingly when you go back to the stand you will know these things will be back on to the security officers to mean that they would torture him until he told them what they wanted to hear mr chairman my client is more than unfortunately oid fits the very profile someone will face persecution arrest imprisonment and torture at the or back with like to practice islam freely even the most basic acts of wearing a prayer cap keeping a beard and going to mosque in the foregone a valley where he is from are viewed  suspicion by the security service even worse the stigma attached to his prolonged detention in guantanamo will follow him home with dire consequences the u s government has accused  back of being a member of the i m u as well as supporting out keda and fighting for the taliban all of which or back denies and for which no credible evidence has been proffered but these accusations are tantamount to a death sentence  harshest legal even extra judicial treatment ever returned to his country yet despite the grave and obvious danger facing him the u s government refuses to rule out repatriating boy back to his afraid that if he's returned to spec a stand he will be killed my client continues to languish behind the concrete walls and barbed wire of camp five in guantanamo the result of a grave mistake not of his own making it is our mistake that he sits there and we as a nation need to recognize that guantanamo does not contain just the worst of the worst it also contains far too many mistakes like my client who was not captured on the battlefield as an armed enemy combatant but was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time we are a great nation but we are our as our founding fathers envisioned a perpetual work in progress sometimes our nation has made mistakes slavery our treatment of native americans the internment of japanese americans and jim crow to name a few but part of our greatness lies in our capacity to recognize when we have made a mistake and to make it right i think it is fair that we as a nation ask ourselves how many more days must  remaining guantanamo for our mistake how many more days must by twelve cell until we get right thank you and be happy to answer any questions you may have thank december of two thousand and four and april of two thousand they were not in the wrong place they were in the place they had chosen to live which was bosnia in october two thousand and two united states ordered them arrested by the bosnians on the grounds that the united states evidence they were going to blow up the u s and british embassy the bosnian said that they had no such evidence that their justice system which we had approved at the dayton peace accords in one thousand nine hundred five would not allow them to arrest without evidence united states the only evidence you need is that we're telling you to arrest these men if you do not do it will withdraw support from your country and then god help bosnia the bosnians complied they then investigated the man for ninety days in the educational system with the help of interpol and the united states the man's computers were seized their offices and homes were searched no evidence was found of any plot no weapons were found no plans nothing on their computers disclosed any inkling of any terrorist affiliation the bosnian justice system which we had put in place and nine hundred ninety five of them released for lack of evidence on the recommendation the bosnian prosecutor the human rights chamber corner of the european human rights court which we had stablished at dayton to speak with file of for human rights abuses in bosnia ordered the men not taken out of was new so there was an order for release and ordered that they not be turned over by two different tribunal's one is a national court that we had directly of the men were turned over to the united states military in bosnia at the united states demand despite those orders they were flown to guantanamo over thirty hours in cargo planes the pictures are attached to my testimony those are not the pictures of my clients those are pictures from the internet of other men being flown to cuba  for a number of months in the open air medicine threatened by dogs and soldiers and beaten they have been prisoners there since january twenty third two thousand  in just over six and one third years in guantanamo they have never been charged with anything they have never been tried for anything there is no indication of they ever will be tried or charged with anything  i want to just comment briefly on the treatment of three of my clients which is highlighted in my testimony but i'll summarize it here sabra lock maher has been in ice near complete isolation for the past two years for eighteen months he was confined by six cell alumina twenty four hours a day the only window was painted with opaque paint so he could not tell night from day he was for a time denied toothbrush and toothpaste and for the entire time he was denied any books except the qur'an he was given ten minutes of exercise a day i didn't i was not able to see him for a year until this march  and i said i've been here the last three times roughly three to four month intervals i'm unable to see you and they told me that you did not want to see me and he said you know that i was in isolation i said yes i didn't know that he said they never told me that you were here i always saw you before i'm seeing you now of course i want to see you why would i not want to see you you are my only link with the outside world he has a host of debilitating physical and psychological  and muscle damage has been told to engage in physical exercise which is realistically not an option for him given his lack of mobility now and the tiny cell in which he is confined has been deliberately exposed to in two thousand and four was in a cell block where guards came through and demanded everyone give up their pants because the men have to pray with their knees covered which means either a prayer rug in islamic tradition as i understand it or with pants he refused to give up his pants he was rushed by a squad of five guards were tear gassed and beat him back to things near to the breaking point and left him a few days later they came back to his cell pepper sprayed him secur days while holding his head still so as to cut off all air twisted the remaining fingers on his hand not been damaged in the previous attack took him back to his cell slammed him against the wall and slammed him headfirst into a toilet asked for a second pair of shorts on account of a rash the following day were coming back to recreation shackled and so that he could not see where he was a god grabbed him so hard by the arm that left bruises drove his not into his back and then slammed him into a wall so that he heard a pop on his back his head began to bleed bleed from the wound he was not allowed to go to the clinic talk to interpreter speak with his superiors since then he's at headaches lakhdar i may have the privilege of speaking to a committee of the u s congress and they may ask why is it that in this place where you have suffered so much already you would go on a hunger strike and he said i want to hunger strike because i've been here for six years and more i've never been charged never been tried i've never been told why i'm here and i've been told i will be kept here until the end of something called the war of terror on war on terror in which i did not participate and in which i have no role the only thing left for me is to do and take some control over the only thing that i can control and that is food so i will not take food i said you know your force fed twice a day i have read about it i want you to tell me in your own words so i can tell the congress what is it like to be a force that in one time and so he did and this is an abbreviated description twice a day he strapped head chest arms and legs into a chair in the courtyard outside his cell in force that for an hour or more through forty three inch tool inserted to his right nostril because his left knowledgeable is damaged so you only have it through one nostril twice a day when inserted properly as often happens this causes excruciating pain in one instance the guard tied his head back so far the feeding tube choked most and caused so much damage he was unable to speak for five days on many other occasions medical personnel and had trouble inserting is feeding tube at one point they tried to two hours he said he's had to experience the force feeding only twice a day for the past eighteen months this is in direct contravention of article five of the world medical association toyota declaration which us doctors are legally bound to follow through their membership in the american medical association which that article but disobeys forbids doctors from force feeding voluntary hunger strike under any circumstances we have twice had a proxy psychological evaluation done by a forensic psychiatrist at the university of proxy psychological evaluation which we administered through interpreters to our clients in two thousand and five in two thousand and seven dr matthews is diagnosed severe post traumatic stress disorder and opined that without substantial thorough assistance when the man returned home which is problematic was mia i don't have to tell you it's unlikely that they will be able to do what we all think of as healthy functioning life so these are men who went to bosnia after the war for the most part to assist in its reconstruction two of them worked for the red crescent of united arab emirates which is one of the members of the international association of red cross and red crescent they were doing what we would consider social work they were not on a battlefield they were not carrying guns there were thousands of miles from the battlefield i agree with the ranking member that time is long past to determine the truth about their innocence if they are guilty of anything let them be properly charge of the be put in a proper court room we have predicates for that many times you know usual system the blind sheikh the bombing of the u s called the embassy bombings in africa richard reid the shoe bomber was tried with the chairman our own court and boston but let's not hold them until the end of whatever it is we say is a war on terror let's practice the american justice system as we've all known it and lived in it and been so proud of it been it was a independent country till it was overrun by the chinese communists in one nine hundred forty nine and has been annexed to china ever since and the people have been persecuted so your question was who are these people in guantanamo evidence against them they weren't allowed a lawyer but there was a process by which the military said let's reconfirm that they were enemy combatant so it was not a hearing and on top of that my client was found an enemy combatant but they recommended his release but not to china we can go through that but as far as command professor pressure we have a petition filed on the detainee treatment act i'd like to submit for the record in pakistan they've never been on a battlefield never picked up a weapon and turned over for bounty you've heard about these bounty flyers which secretary rumsfeld said were dropped on the afghan and commanders made statements such as they were dangerous we didn't catch always catch we didn't always catch the right guys these guys didn't know anything of value and general martin luther n t who was then the deputy commander said guantanamo al qaeda was an enemy of the whole world and the united states the whole world is against the al qaeda organization if we had ties with al qaeda that would mean all the weaker people would lose help from the whole world and lose our goals and other statements like that it's heartbreaking in fact the weavers consider themselves allies of america because they themselves are so supportive of an independence movement this kind of support they've got mrs kid you're put in prison for nearly six years and three of her sons are in prison now for what the chinese call split is now it is not surprising then that the chinese were intensely interested in the weavers at guantanamo bay in two thousand  the chinese foreign ministry demanded that these men be returned to china to face terrorism charges and this is a very tragic story that i'm about to tell the chinese claim that week or dissidents they're violent or peaceful are terrorists and they've accused them of being organized as a group called the east turkish turkistan islamic movement e t i and we don't have any independent evidence that it even exists and our men had never heard of such a thing and certainly denied being part of it this label is applied indiscriminately to weaker dissidents but we've never heard of it in fact the state department which maintains a list of terrorist organizations never had e t a i am on its list then in two thousand and two during the run up to the iraq war both iraq we were trying to get a coalition of the willing together for the invasion of iraq and iraq itself wanted china to be on its side and we wanted china to remain neutral there was a race to china which the iraqi ambassador went first and richard armitage our own undersecretary of state got there ahead of him and took the point he arranged a quid pro quo with the weavers as a bargaining chip whereby china would agree to remain neutral in our iraq war and we in turn would agree to list the we girl and the e t i am on our terrorist watch list interestingly enough they're not on the other list they're not on the list for  you know the organisation says funds need to be stopped we have been a preferred minority for immigration purposes it's not on the immigration list but on this terrorist watch list which is separately maintained for the first time we changed our mind we've said we have statements saying that we don't think e t i em is a real group we because of this devil's bargain not only listed e t a i am on our terrorist watch list but we allowed the chinese  interrogate these poor helpless men who were in our care you are well aware of this let me just tell you a few of the things they said not only did they threaten as a man you're lucky you're in guantanamo because if you get out and come to  death more frightening in some ways and so we know who your family is and we know where they are and that have been told bothered them more than anything else so i guess establishes that these men have a reasonable fear a process of persecution should they be sent back to china indeed i and other counsel for the weavers recently wrote to the justice department the lawyers who are getting the cases asking them to confirm that the u s position was still that the weavers would not be sent back to china and we have not been able to get any confirmation as to this we also understand that the weavers after six almost seven year hiatus may be being interrogated again this things have changed in the world we're just not sure when america had nothing of value before to your knowledge were any of them in afghanistan yes they were in africa i mean after they were transported but have they been in afghanistan during the time of before nine eleven yes and in deed it's in my my statement what happened in the case of my client along with it's very similar to others he was an ambitious young man he left china to find a better life he had seven hundred dollars in his pocket he made his way to pakistan from the starkest stand and found that that was not going to last him very long he was told that there was a we are a village in the mountains of afghanistan he went there they were put to work doing construction it was always there were no arabs there he'd never even seen an arab before he got to guantanamo he says remember i come from a closed country he didn't they knew something they'd never heard of al qaeda the village was not near or was not part of any fighting between the taliban and the northern alliance but one day during the afghan incursion by the united states in september of two thousand and one the their bombs started falling the men lead into the mountains without their passports without their luggage and wandered around for about a month when they found their way into pakistan where they were welcomed by a village  pakistanis fed and then soon betrayed for bounty they were in afghanistan there was no accusation in at all that they engaged in a hostilities against america or its allies and indeed the only statements that they did make is that if they were hostile to anyone it was to china that's we have not received in class i can't tell you about classified information but in the unclassified information there's no five thousand dollars a head right into like cattle while our country calls these guys the worst of the worst here at home for years they've been shopping these leaders abroad trying to find a place for them and i think as  rohrabacher said no one will take them because the chinese always get there first and the weaker community in america the leaders the president and the secretary general who are here today stand ready to help resettle these leaders in america with jobs and housing how so far the u s government has declined that solution meanwhile my clients for unfathomable reasons remain locked away in solitary confinement the twenty two i don't know if anyone's told you about this these are metal boxes with three windows each three inches wide with only a clock to look at it's almost we think very carefully about charges that are made like this because two elements number one innocent people may be being mistreated and being treated very harshly  i personally do not believe that a human rights analysis should be based on how you treat a terrorist who has murdered lots of other people and you're trying to get information from him but instead human rights concerns are what you are trying to do to make sure that innocent people are not injured in your attempts to get get it people who are terrorists over what we're voting i made sure i asked for some information and i've gotten information from the intelligence committee which indicates that over thirty former detainee who have who were detained but have been released over thirty of them ended up going back into some sort of radical and or violent activity and many of them there are some examples here which i will put in for the record  individuals who went back and killed other people after being released from after being released from gitmo and there are examples here in the taliban or al qaeda operations that were going on in afghanistan and that they claimed to have been farmers or truck drivers or cooks or had gone to afghanistan looking for a wife  or study the qur'an or any number of excuses they had thirty that were left thirty ended up going back and participate in the activity that threaten the lives of took the lives of individuals like the one i just mentioned that was reported today one who was released and was involved in bombing in iraq but because of seven people so when we're talking about this issue all counsel have looked into these allegations and i'm not sure that that's not anecdotal evidence many of these men apparently never were in guantanamo we have never had related to the letter that you were able to receive from the department of defense that was that said that there are thirty people who have returned to the battlefield not clear whether they were all on the battlefield and certainly i'm sure there is evidence that some people have  might have engaged in things that we would find problematic and violent but they're included in that list were five l b five who had been transferred to albania and were living in a refugee center in albania at the time and they were presumably on that list because they had spoken with a new york times reporter at the time that president bush was visiting albania included on that list were three men who are living freely in the u k who are living  that specific back from you and i will if my friend would yield for a moment i think that the ranking member has really raised an issue here that would serve a thorough review because when i don't think that we really know i don't think there's much that we really know and that's what causes me grave concern we can take allegations that everybody and get was evil well and then we hear it was five thousand dollars a  head sold by the afghani and the pakistanis i think the american people have a right to know what is happening in terms of guantanamo i think this goes to the issue  about the lack of a significant bio ball process to make the kind of assessments as to whether an individual should have been detained in the first place if that's accurate that there are thirty individuals that left and then went back and committed violence against innocents or against american forces it tells me something about the threat assessment was robert shaw he was raw the people and certainly we don't know we don't know who the good guy and who the bad guys because of what i consider a very faulty process has been described by many and i think mr casey would disagree and his written testimony calls and a labrat procedure i call it a sham procedure i think it has absolutely minimal the terrorists as we know are trained one of the things al qaeda did and they had training camps in afghanistan operating for several years where they trained hundreds of thousands of people one a part of the training is when you china horrible situation where the chinese have massive human rights violations upon their wigger population and i am one of the defenders of that but that doesn't mean that i if the truth is some of those people  client reported in an official report and i complained about the abuse well i report these things but the military of course doesn't have to respond because there's no forum in which they have to answer my questions refused to provide us with the tape very clear if people are being treated that way that we should be we should know about that should be corrected and no one is suggesting that we should cover up wrongdoing like what you  hiding something in their trousers and they had to look into a prisoner's trousers and he began fighting them everything that you have reported is frankly justified if they just came in an inmates in guantanamo are in camp five and six i believe the population one in four are being dead alevi declined and more people are being put into camps five and six my client initially when it was in camp one until one day he woke up in the middle of the night and his back was in excruciating pain he had numbness in his legs and he couldn't get up and he couldn't void so he was taken to the hospital and they determined that he had a herniated disk that was impinging on one of his nerves of unknown idiology i asked my client how do you think you got it he said well it could have been injured while i was exercising in my cell or could have been injured and one of the thirty to thirty five times that the emergency reaction forces came into my cell and visited me so but he was taken to the hospital they operated on him they were not able to fix the problem when he got out of the hospital it was good for him and the reason he went into camp walk he was confined to a wheelchair all right after the surgery what i'm trying to find out how many people are in guantanamo or in solitary confinement and how many of your clients are in solitary confinement and why your clients are in solitary confinement as compared to the other people in my client was put into solitary confinement to be taken out of the open air camp and into a place that was wheelchair accessible and out of the elements so that his client you and you could bring your polygraph and you could bring mr berkowitz and i could bring this cauldron and you think that we would get cooperation from this white house this administration to do that which is our function as an oversight of american foreign policy and i would suggest this implicates american foreign policy is that asking too much frankly mr chairman i do believe that we've had so many members of contact in there and i don't believe simply because they have not reported evil things because they haven't had it they have not had the access they have not had the access to these individuals and i think th and elected representatives of the american people have a right to go down and examine these allegations i think we'd have to certainly have a right to and i think that there would be no get no argument about you more than welcome to request there's a single motion to adjourn and i'm going to it's not necessary that i be in attendance but i point out to my friend it was the federal bureau of investigation that repeatedly have censorship the memos contain graphic details of abuse in which military and government interrogate is what lit cigarettes and detainee ears spat on them knocked him unconscious or resorted to deliberate humiliation i would say to my friend from california we're hearing this from representatives of those detainee's how about getting the in here with these memorandums and we going to not believe what they say and we going to continue to speculate are we going to listen to our own federal bureau of investigation that wanted to get out of there as fast as they could because they were concerned about liability i'm being embarrassed that's the reality i would be in the federal bureau of investigation does anybody have any comment last year that i think there's no dispute that those reports exist and they're valid there were reports up the chain from agents sent eight interrogation but they couldn't participate because the conduct that the military was engaging with the prisons violated f b i rules for the treatment of prisoners in custody so i don't think i think the chairman's right and i have never understood easy to dispute about the authenticity of that last year the president of the international red cross came to washington with the government and gave an interview which he said that the conditions a has had an opportunity to interview any of your clients or any other detainees down there and we would welcome but let me let me put this into the record too it's a report a out there about what this is and what that isn't what this is these are the military lawyers let me read but top lawyers for the i mean navy marine corps have told congress that a number of aggressive techniques used by military interrogators on day would not consistent with the guidelines of the army field manual manual the judge advocates general responded in writing to the senate armed services committee found that several techniques used at guantanamo bay could be considered violation of policy because individually they were degrading i mean these are internal patman of france marine corps army navy f b i that are saying things went on there that as the form a comment that of the united states marine co p x kelly i would say we could consider him a good american and a good patriot someone who is concerned about terrorism attacks in this country that this to say we cannot in good conscience defend a decision that we believe has compromised our national on a and that may well promote the commission of war crimes by americans and place at risk the wealthy of capture an american military that's general pierre kelly that's not some fuzzy was he us it's about our responsibility to get in and to examine this now if i may mr roy back to you brought up a very important point which as it relates to this specific issue but it's a very whether it's thirty or fifteen or how we've never been able to get an answer as to how many of laughter who they are or what evidence they have to support the fact that they return to the battlefield but just accepting that it's thirty isn't that just an incredible indictment of the entire process in guantanamo as is the fact that my client who's been cleared over a year ago which they have no credible evidence that they can proceed with that he continues to sit there complete in other indictments of the entire process down there in the problem is that you've got a process that who's that that gives you results that you cannot rely on the man from kuwait this last person who is alleged to have blown himself up in a suicide did the saudis get out of guantanamo because their close allies why did the brits get out why did david hicks get out why did your argument your argument is that they should have another gentleman from pakistan who was charged had the same exact charges attending an i m u training camp and being a member of the very similar charges this gentleman however had a personal representative at his c s r who who didn't realize that it was fixed and he actually offered a piece of evidence that called into question of the  information of the allegations against his client and as a result of that one document he got his client this gentleman here out of guantanamo he was declared no longer an enemy combatant and he  in albania ok my client that is the rare exception in the us to have a personal representative who actually puts a case on my client who had the allegations and he just sat there like a potted plant and because of that my client continues to sit in guantanamo bay whereas here who had the rare fortune of having a personal representative who was going to act like a lawyer and challenge the government's case he is the rare exception who's finally out that is what is that is the thin line between what keeps you in guantanamo in what get you out particular your testimony in this particular hearing i think is very very important that we educate the american people and educate members of congress as well as to the realities i'd like to get into the issue of process and i think that's what this is about and i want to get simply to examine the issue of the  c mr kay she describes it as an elaborate robust administrative process nothing that i have seen would indicate that that is the reality department lawyers specifically excluded it was provided that the personal representatives could not be lawyers and they are not lawyers they were lower ranking military officers who as my colleagues said essential he showed up generally asked no questions took new active role in the hearings went over i'll give you a graphic example of the process coming out of my prior testimony my client's obviously we uniquely situated in that they had been for a criminal justice system in allied country in bosnia they had been arrested held investigated and then ordered released for lack of evidence you would think that was pertinent when they were called before almost three years later and accused of being lawyers determines it reasonably available so two of my clients said to the panel i have an order of exoneration on release from bosnia i'd like to have you see because that will show you that i've been through a criminal justice process process involving inquiry into whether i was a terrorist if i had been ordered released by our ally bosnia then that would certainly be strong evidence that i shouldn't be here held as a terrorist in one case the panel immediately ruled that that release order was not reasonably available because it wasn't in their file in a second they actually were more conscientious they suspended the hearing for a week that's what the transcript shows and then the transcript shows they came back on the record in the presiding officer who says the defense department asked the state department to inquire of the bosnian government about the existence of such an order it is reported back to us here that there is no and the case of the second with the supposed inquiry took place we had filed our abs proceeding in washington reciting in july of two thousand and four months before reciting that this had happened and calling out in our papers that order and we determined later that the order was available in fact to at least saw in guantanamo so what can you make of a process where people have been hauled off the streets in an allied country thousands of miles from the battlefield sent to guantanamo after they've been exonerated in that country and then say let me show you the paper of exoneration i told that it's not available or can't be found and they have one that none of this can be considered that's why people say this process was a sham and that's why a review of that record will always be a sham and that's why we all had to get for a b s well let's let's talk up for a minute about the c facing the first challenges or a b s said that the process in guantanamo which was no process was suspect and efficient and they had to be some process and suggested that something happened approximately ten days later deputy secretary wolf to provide some quantum of evidence to establish that the initial apprehension of these individuals was accompanied by evidence that would lead to the conclusion that they were enemy combatants is that i would say that would be the defense department's explanation of the process ok well i mean the problem with the process is that most of the record sees is classified so the prisoners literally called in and we've seen this in every transcript and said congressman we understand that you are affiliated with or associated with al qaeda what do you say and you say that that's not true had at his c s r t where the tribunal president says you've been accused of traveling with someone who was taliban who was it maybe he was maybe i maybe wasn't he said we can't tell you who it was and he says well when was this when did this happen they said we can't tell you it's classified and he breaks up the room they laugh he says i have to tell you if you came before me and you had this kind of evidence i would say it's a bunch of rubbish but he was unable to defend himself because they wouldn't tell him what it was he was charged with and while that's a strong example it was the way it was these men didn't see what they were charged with in fact they were never charged with anything this isn't evidence this is  not a single source behind this mr lefty told you the material is not sourced for example it wouldn't be information in the record that would indicate the size where the only evidence that is publicly available is the detainees own statement how would it how would it be established in individual cases the place for the apprehension of this particular individual the dead does that exist anywhere question is whether the individual is an enemy combatant not the question that question is not the question the question because he goes to the credibility of the evidence as to whether the individual is an enemy combatant presumably some of that evidence would come via the individuals who receive the bounty i would like to know if i were there was a bias on the part of the individual who will apprehended identified this individual as being affiliated with criminal trial as an administrative process to determine whether there is credible evidence not whether you're right or wrong whether there's credible evidence that the individual is an enemy combatant and i agree with that but  point is credible evidence you use that term credible evidence the impeachment of an individual because five thousand dollars is a significant factor to that determination as to whether that evidence is credible it's absolutely i would think probably a paramount concern that i would have if i were t of fact in that particular case but it's not and i'm not using the criminal justice paradigm higher rate of a paradigm but of course that's what's implied by trier of fact the per i'm not implying however let me make it let's make it in terms of what is common to prudence rational thoughtful search for the truth if you don't know if you don't know whether that individual before you was purchased five thousand dollars and whether the information that was provided to the law as you exchange that cash was false then i did say that is not a very that's not a any kind of a process that has any integrity whatsoever unless that information the charge somebody is going to spend six years and we're not going to tell you what it is but you've got to come up with and gas and tell us why we shouldn't hold you i don't care whether it's a  could be the equivalent of a life sentence without a trial or hearing that's as true now as when she said it in two thousand and four for the reasons you just articulated mr chairman and that was justice o'connor not an advocate for a prisoner  getting back to the question of how we can operate that way i think the issue here is whether the traditional law of war way of handling this is harsh and i agree it's very harsh it's meant to be hard the fact that people may be held based on minimal evidence based on evidence that we would not accept in a criminal court room that would be excluded or simply considered to be not not  credible what i'm saying no evidence no credible evidence well that is what it's supposed to determine whether there is some credible evidence and the fact that you don't have a quantum of evidence that would lead you to believe that someone was quote unquote guilty sake of discussion purposes but what i'm suggesting is from what i'm hearing and from what i have been able to glean from the readings that that that i have done on this  as lawyers as a country that speaks to the rule of law that promotes the rule of law that preaches the rule of law and you know let's let me just for a moment digress this is a story that was published in the globe about well almost a year ago and and let me just read excerpts from it and i mean reserve officer who served on a military panel at guantanamo bay the term and whether a detainee should be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant and said the process is deeply flawed relying on  poorly trained personnel and is subject to undue pressure from the military chain of command according to an affidavit that was unsealed yesterday in the first account of a military due process by  participant which janet colonel stephen abraham wrote that when he and two other offices assigned to share in the tribunals concluded that a detainee should not be classified as an enemy combatant his superiors in charge of the process forced him to reopen the hearing so the government could present more evidence it goes back to mrs gilson to do again i mean the world is watching this this isn't again about you know making the distinction in my judgment between the so called lauren force one paradigm and you know the  the law of of wall and we this is we ought not to be minimalist you know i understand that you don't think that hate how many of you handle he if you know how long you think the happiest corpus petition held on your what kind of time is invested in haiti is corpus petition well it depends i mean the and i guess i'm asking you missed the lawyers and we can hire more judges right there are other issues at stake i mean but i just want to be really clear on that particular issue because my experience with is that this is not a very lengthy process  you know this isn't this isn't a five week well i think i read somewhere and maybe it was an op ed piece i think that maybe maybe was you missed a case or somebody else was talking about fifteen or process with great dispatch and certainly would be no strain on the federal judiciary believe me if you want to see if you want to or a education as to why the  regular legal process for enemy combatants is fundamentally antithetical to the ability to fight a successful war i mean i think he went into the probably the most articulate case i read something that you said about the tyrants and the criminal justice system you know would not be a sufficient deterrent to acts of terrorism there is no it's not international treaties it's not conventions on the laws surrounding the conduct of war that would  those people who have done us ill there is no such thing and i say this respectfully as the parents and really doesn't exist either in the criminal law believe me the people sanction would be but so did terence doesn't exist terence i would respectfully suggest doesn't exist in this debate it just simply doesn't doesn't happen the only deterrence is they have the intelligence and and the capacity to intercept and incapacitate at the right time and no one suggesting that any any different this isn't about the war on terror it's got nothing to do with the war on terror you're not going to find anybody and that is an argument that i would suggest is false i might use stronger language but you know we're on t v i mean it just doesn't happen but this does say that this process serves as  guantanamo i reject that totally what it does do is that radicalizes those that may be were innocent and it clearly about being you know popular this is about standing up for all of that us that's what this is about because that's what people admire about us that's the distinction and not providing faught are far enemy to say look at those hypocrites they say one thing and they do another they condemn the chinese government for human rights abuses they have resolution after resolution speaking to human rights abuses all over the world whether it's to bad or kazakhstan uzbekistan equatorial guinea and yet when it comes down to crunch time they're willing to put aside their principles so don't preach to me america don't preach to me system and had lawyers and evidence and witnesses and been convicted controls in guantanamo in two thousand and eight and they'll have the final word on that not what justice jackson said in a different context sixty years ago secondly the c process which you've been asking mr casey about was designed by the army not to be employed three years after people were sees all over the world on off battlefields but to be used to screen people on battlefields to make a quick judge green's opinion my client must stop with the same man whose face was mashed in a courtyard in guantanamo he said you say to me somebody sells i'm al qaeda tell me who it is maybe it's somebody in my mosque that i know from you know my religious services maybe it's somebody in my neighborhood but how can i respond and what he was saying and i turned to us how going to be quite a all evidence if you say you know from something i can't see that somebody says i'm qaeda but i can't even speak to it because i can't know about it that's the problem that's why it's not credible evidence that's why this process has been so misused well let let me go on with the mentioned earlier it's the you have it's the military officers here we have someone in the process that's expressing concern because it doesn't compute lieutenant colonel it's serving on the c r s t's and we all are adults and we know the pressures that come on people to comply and go along it's natural and to reject that is not recognizing human nature but he wrote that the intelligence agencies were teeny screen the information that he was allowed to see and refused to give him a statement pledging that they had not withheld any information that could point to a detainee innocent this is an intelligence agency not cooperating with an american serving his country in uniform as a lieutenant colonel if i may add something that isn't again the center for constitutional rights for the a c l u this the i was on a panel with lieutenant colonel abraham at one point and spoke to him about that process and how that process was for him and he said he came in a true believer in the process he thought we're going to go through we're going to look at the evidence we're going to have an understanding of who these people are and whether they are held rightly or wrongly he had decades of experience behind him doing intelligence work and he came out of the process feeling that it was a completely inadequate process and of course after combatant is still detained in guantanamo after more than six years of detention doing well by the profession and you're doing very well by our country and that's important that is so important because we need people to stand up and to speak out not to be confrontational but to be thoughtful and respectful and examine these things these issues in a way that really produces a process and an  approach that protects our national interest that protects our country i mean we will do whatever it takes to protect our country but we've stablished and proved over and over again that we can do it in a way that honors our constitution that the fact that we in my humble opinion really truly as the client we'll agree and we can bring this to casey along let him handle his first criminal defense case we don't call it a criminal defense case but you've got to get into it you've got to see it you've got to understand it you've got to feel it and you need to see the realities because only that way can you really understand you can only really understand the process and what we want to do is we all want every one of us that we need checks and balances on the executive as well as on the congress as well as on the judiciary and that's the only way we're going to move forward but we will take up that request but i'm to look to mr mclean to follow through on mr rohrabacher request about those thirty let's do this let's make this a project to call on mr casey he comes from a very large law firm they've got a lot of money they have a lot of pro bono time i'm sure you know and make him part of this team just to get to the truth i would love to and let's learn from this particular example that's the best way to understand this and if we can make adjustments and changes we will we will make the commitment here it will get the department of defense i mean everybody wants to guantanamo every candidate wants to close you know president bush talks about closing guantanamo senator mccain and how can we improve and let's try to do this in a way we come from it from different perspectives but the only way to really understand it is to take something specific and discreet to get into the weeds and find out where and one other issue because we have men here who the government has been trying to place you want to know we have some people who might possibly get a trial but the ones that the government has been trying to place and can't this problem will not be fixed stateless men who are not a danger to america but who have no place to go it won't be fixed until america and its allies agree to take them in and that won't happen until america  very true and i have said to them we need your help on this because we want to get those people who are no longer a mean noncombatants we don't want to send them into their way and i really don't want to send them to libya i mean i don't think any american wants to do that  all of you could compile a list of those that are in that status i have no reluctance in reaching out to the department of state saying how can congress help because there are times when members of congress have a much much more let me put it this way i better up before with other governments than our executive does and maybe if we bring enough pressure on the potential receiving countries that we can resolve this problem in a way that we can all feel good about at its conclusion i mean there's two hundred seventy five to two hundred seventy i think today with the latest statistics in monos we put a lot of people in jail with us and i had no reservations about doing that but we did it in a way that there's no we did the best we could and it was transparent and i believe that that was done in a way that the people who we represented had confidence in the integrity of what we did i can remember standing up in a press conference in apologizing to five young men that had been charged with a very serious rape but we pursued it and we discovered that they did not commit that crime but you know i was embarrassed i made a mistake but i know in the end that it was  to demonstrate the integrity of the process to the people we represented in that if you don't have that you do not have a healthy viable democracy you're on to this chair and that's the problem with this process it is so completely flawed you cannot rely on any decision coming out of it you cannot rely on there is no truth truth is the first casualty of war and  it went down a long time ago in this with this guantanamo in it there is nothing that you can rely on that comes out of these c s r ts it is a fundamentally flawed process has to be scrapped and guantanamo needs to be closed by finding a place for those who cannot go home lobbying the european union trying to find people who can return to their countries a place to go and buy clearly identifying those who have committed crimes and prosecuting them thank you al