well i want to welcome everybody here and going to ask for your indulgence for another moment while we organize ourselves for congress this is early most hearings commence around ten o'clock and let me ask you is there any member of the piano lead has a time constraint of any sort we'll be  and a series of hearings we plan to hold which will explore the second stances surrounding the detention of twenty two years which is a t worldwide mrs coderre who along with the rest of the panel was unanimous in stating that we were an hour an oppressed minority in china law all agreed that the communist chinese government as used the was on terror as a means to avoid criticism as they brutally persecuted and oppressed the weaker minority in fact the house of representatives in a resolution numbered for nine hundred evan stated that the chinese communists had been this is the language of that resolution and both myself and the ranking member mr roboto were sponsors and again  quoting from the language of the resolution itself manipulated their strategic objectives of the international war on terror to increase their cultural and religious oppression of the muslim with violent terrorist activity in fact when i asked our witnesses that previous panel and again i'm quoting from the transcript if speak gingrich i was referring to mr gringas suggested that they be returned to china well if speak again he had his way and the seventeen we were to be return be equal to a one way ticket to the death chamber and the rest of the panel agreed to return to china would be certain torture and very well may lead to a summary execution well today we turn our attention to the east turkistan islamic movement  as it is known by its acronym bt i am the charge that the we get at guantanamo were terrorists was predicated on a nun and unsubstantiated claim that they were somehow affiliated with this group all the time the week has been cleared by both the bush administration and our federal courts and as we all know the obama administration has been making every effort to resettle lee's men and suitable countries full week is have been current lee been resettled in meudon and i wish to publicly thank and i am confident that my friend and colleague from california mr rubb aka joins in this thank the bermuda government premier brown who display great courage and decency when giving these we use a new home the premier will shortly be receiving a letter from myself and mr rohrabacher to that effect however my question is how did this accusation develop against twenty two men when even the very existence of them is subject to some debate particularly in light of the fact that these men were not apprehended on the battlefield by northern alliance soldiers are by american military but in my opinion with the victims of a bounty system as we have come to learn the wigglers was sold to american forces by unknown afghan ian pakistani individuals but the sum of five thousand dollars  during the bush administration i am most classified as a terrorist organization under an executive order numbered one three two two four it's important to note that under the executive order that under this executive order it defines terrorism as actions that do not necessarily threaten the united states and its citizens by a by contrast designation as a foreign terrorist organization again an acronym and f t l it's required that a group engage in terrorist activity and that this terrorist activity must threaten the security of the united states or its nationals i am unable to find not does any research appear as an f p o like organization such as hamas these groups properly labeled left deals are considered a direct and dangerous threat to the united states national security in any event my primary concern is that in making our own assessment as to the nature of this shadowy group the e t i and did we play or did we unduly rely on chinese communist intelligence so i may even call it propaganda chinese propaganda to suit their own strategic objectives are tactical objectives concerning the weaker minority the peers to me that we took substantial intelligence information from the chinese communist regime and then use that questionable evidence as our own as a significant factor in the determination that e t i m was a terrorist organization i'm going to ask staff to one includes a statement taken from a chinese stock human entitled east turkistan terrorist forces cannot get away with impunity this is published by the chinese communist information office in january of two thousand and two in that document the chinese attribute over two hundred terrorist incidents resulting in a hundred sixty two deaths and four hundred injuries to undefine party simply labeled by the chinese as the strictest on terrorist force now examined the second and this is a statement released from our department of treasury published in september of two thousand and two and in response to listing t i m as a terrorist organization in this statement our government takes the chinese statistics of two hundred terrorist incidents one hundred sixty two deaths and four hundred injuries and now attributes them to a single group the e t i and now let me pose a rhetorical question why has the perpetrator of the act suddenly changed from an defying groups to the e t i m and why did our government take the statistics of the communist chinese government and utilizing it in the classification of the i am as a terrorist organization that causes me concern now regardless of where the thirteen week is currently detained in guantanamo i resettle whether it be in bermuda palau i understand today that the prime minister of italy first colonial is indicated that italy will accept three of the we and again if that is accurate let me say thank you to the government of it this question about reliance and particular in the case of the specific case of e t e t i am must be answered because it raises serious concerns as to whether american foreign policy can be manipulated by the communist chinese government for that matter anyone else professor millwood who is a well known scholar in this area echoes my concern an article maybe i'm not going his concern in an article he wrote in titled  separatism in the week on a miss region a critical assessment on september second of two thousand and one the communist party secretary of that region said that the situation there was better than in history that's september second of two thousand and one while mentioning separatism the party secretary for the region stressed that society is stable and people are living and working in peace and contentment the communists even went on to say that the night life is terrific it goes on to two or three in the morning two weeks later not surprisingly the official chinese communist line change following the september eleventh attacks on the united states official chinese communist pronouncements began to stress that the threat of terrorism in that region was significant as china's leadership maneuvered itself side by side and again these are the words of professor millwood with the united states on the war on terror according to him this required a revision of the official description of separatists in the region and what had generally been described as a handful of separatists was now a full blown terrorist organization professor millward hypothesized that this helped beijing won its somewhat at the time chilly relationship with washington well hopefully today this panel will cast some light on this issue because i believe that the case of the  simply about the twenty two men from not western china it's much more it's about the very process we utilize in making far reaching decisions about critical foreign policy issues and national security concerns when we designate a group as a terrorist organization i we rely foreign intelligence whether it be chinese communist intelligence in such a way that the results are seriously flawed so that the consequences harm our national security and let's not forget that flawed intelligence played a key role in the decision to invade iraq and we learned subsequently that saddam hussein neither had links to al qaida nor had weapons of mass destruction so what i hope is that we can utilize the we years if you will as a case study to examine the process so that we may mitigate its deficiencies and help our nation reach better decisions acknowledge our mistakes and most importantly do justice to the innocent now let me turn to my friend and  colleague the ranking member mr rohrabacher for his opening statement and let me indicate to that i know he has other commitments today and my intention to lead him after we introduce the witnesses  proceed with his questioning before i do dana thank you very much and i do want to thank my good friend and chairman for not only holding this hearing but deciding that we should focus on this issue so the american people will understand the facts behind it and the relevance of this issue and also right off the bat like to express my deep  leadership is all about is being willing to take such tough i'm sorry that our own leadership here at home and even in my own party lacking at this moment i will be equally grateful to the leadership and pull out if that island nation gives refuge to these falsely accused we're people should stand behind their leaders and show that they too are morally superior group of people and this is one way that they will certainly be acknowledged for that by those of us who perhaps don't know them and how they could perhaps some lessons learned a defense intelligence agency expert on chinese counterintelligence operations once said that is it is the mother's milk of counterintelligence to create only political organizations he stated that the chinese are especially good at it and utilize this method in order to know who to watch and who eventually to eliminate only or front organizations can be used to tarnish a good cause by blaming it for violence against innocent people when in fact government agencies are often  that very violence we have good reason to believe this may be the case for some of the so called we are organizations much to my dismay some pundits in the republican party guantanamo as terrorists and they did this i believe to appease the chinese government in a pathetic attempt to gain its support at the beginning of the war against iraq and also to ensure china's continued purchase of u s treasuries many if not all the negative allegations against the wiggers can be traced back to communist  no republican who considers themselves a reagan republican should fall for this manipulation which has us do the bidding of a dictatorship  in the hall of shame of course is our former speaker newt gingrich his position on this should be of no surprise and is of no surprise to those of us who during newt leadership were dismayed by his active support for clinton era trade policies with communist china policies that have now had a disastrous impact on our economy while both bolstering china's economic and military powers most favored nation status trading status should never have been granted to such a vicious dictatorship newt and his big corporations as well as the those leaders in the clinton administration persuaded members of congress in the one nine hundred eighty s and then again in the ninety's to go along with an embrac of communist china and as such those people whether they're republicans like newt or whether there are those people in the clinton administration are advocating this did no favor to the people of the united states our current economic vulnerability to a dictatorship to the world actually actually the world's worst human rights abuses can be traced back to that more flawed policy in the one nine hundred ninety s within the span of twenty years we have gone from having a trade deficit with china of one point seven billion dollars to over three hundred billion dollars a year today we are losing six hundred fifty thousand jobs a month and it is obvious and sure should be obvious to anyone who bothers to read the labels that just about every one of these jobs that we're losing are going to communist china the chinese communist party has accumulated two trillion dollars of sovereign wealth funds by producing and selling american brand products to americans on paper from one side of a table to the other does not create wealth manufacturing jobs create wealth and this basic fact has not been lost on communist party bosses  throughout the world on the economic relationship that it stablished with us back in the ninety's but have we drifted so far away from our principles that we that we willingly accept leaders and i say this was leadership in the democratic party during the clinton years and now we are from that era in the republican party doing the bidding of of the communist chinese party by attacking and in this case attacking people who are protesting repressed rule and that's what the leaders are  democracy for their own people many conservatives acknowledge who are knowledgeable about these facts actually have now joined in our abdul long time german all along have been on the side of the wiggers and tried to spread the word the truth about the situation and i will include for the record now a list of about twenty of them and i rather than read them all let me just note there are many prominent republican leaders and the discrimination against the wigger people that they suffer that we're so much about during the first hearing both republican and democratic parties need to recognize this and not cower before beijing now powerful economic capabilities it's my hope that this hearing will help dispel some of the serious confusion and propaganda about the wiggers both the riggers who are at home where struggling for their freedom  and to live in a democratic society and the seventeen wiggers who are courageous enough to try to learn the skills that would enable them to resist the dictatorship in beijing i am very proud to join my chairman my good to note that i've alluded to the fact that this is a series of hearings i anticipate we'll have seven or eight i intend to deploy our great staff to conduct interviews and i think it's time that the american people hear from those that have been detained i'm sure that many at least on this panel are aware as congressman rohrabacher indicated that communist chinese intelligence intelligence agents were provided access to the inmates the weaker inmates in guantanamo that i find profoundly disturbing yet at the same time i will request to discern as best we can the truth because this is a search for the truth we were denied access however i had a conversation last evening with premier a briefing a hearing whatever the appropriate tyrannus and invitees now freed we gors to come before this subcommittee and maybe in conjunction with other subcommittees of the foreign affairs committee to listen to what they have to say i think that is an important step whatever the results whatever the facts are let's put them out on the table it seems to be a proclivity on the part of the executive and again i'm not just referring to the bush administration but as well as the  in my opinion five too much information this will provide us an opportunity for every single american citizen and particularly those who are very much involved in  in scholarship and as students of the week is to hear from them firsthand unfiltered without pundits interpret ing member it's my intention in the very near future to go to bermuda to determine the feasibility of actually doing that and then coming back and reporting to the committee and and consulting  acca about having that kind of a exercise in bermuda which hopefully would educate members of the committee the academic community and all of us as to their reality in terms of how they saw and welcome anyone who has any disagreement with their view the come before this  to maybe listen what a refreshing change that would be and ask relevant questions so that as we proceed forward we don't make the mistakes that we have made in the past and again i say that not as a large democrat but as a small d democrat and as someone who is very concerned about american foreign policy being manipulated to influence in a way that is against our interests and against the better instincts of the values of the american people that we talked about so dana i will report back to you and hopefully i will be making a trip to the meeting and you're welcome to  i first witness randy schreiber randy is one of the five founding partners of i meant to international l l c a consulting firm that specializes in international business development and strategies prior to his return to the private sector he served as deputy assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs before joining the asia bureau he served for two years as chief of staff and senior policy adviser to deputy secretary of state richard armitage well by the way i always found to be refreshingly candid a straight shooter  shrive a holes a bachelor's degree in history from williams college not a bad school not quite middlebury not a bad school and a master's degree in public policy from harvard university our next witness and i'm sure he's listening will be joining us via video hookup from kosovo and that is professor shaun robinson professor roberts is the director of the international development studies program and associate professor in the practice of international affairs at george washington university's elliott school for international affairs he is a legitimate  expert on the region of central asia with a particular focus on the weaker people he has spent several years conducting research and we communities in both central asia and china and is the author of numerous dru gladney he too is a legitimate authentic expert in this area but he is a professor of anthropology at noma college in currently serves as president of the pacific basin institute in claremont california he has published over one hundred academic articles and numerous books he has held faculty positions and post doctoral fellow ships at harvard the university of south carolina california king's college cambridge and the institute for advanced study at princeton professor gladney received his ph d from the university of washington in seattle following professor gladney will be surely can't miss khan has worked at the congressional research service since one thousand nine hundred and writes policy analysis and provides other nonpartizan legislative support to congress as a specialist in asian security of his during the taiwan strait crisis ninety five ninety six she directly supported the defense at attache at the embassy in beijing for which she received the defense department special achievement award she graduated cum loudly from the school of foreign service at georgetown and from the university of michigan in ann harbor where she received a master's degree next joining us will be susan susan baker manning she is a partner had been in mccutcheon where she folk which is in boston headquartered in boston where she focuses are practice on intellectual property matters including paying patent trademark and copyright cases this is quite a diversion says she hasn't she also maintains a thriving pro bono practice including the representation of numerous we get detainees at guantanamo including the four who recently resettled in be new to you and she received her bachelor's degree from mount holyoke and a law degree from the university th jenny many welcome back and we look forward to hearing you and we will be seeking your assistance in terms of interviewing your clients and we would hope and welcome their written waiver and a consent for us to interview them finally we hear from my good friend bruce fein a nationally and internationally renowned constitutional lawyer writer served as both associate deputy attorney general for the justice department and general counsel for the federal communications commission under president reagan the latest served as legal advisor to ben congressman dick cheney on the joint committee on covert sales to iran i never knew that about you but this mystifying is the founding partner of bruce fein and associates and is currently writing a sequel to his recent book constitutional peril so it is an honor to welcome the witnesses here and we all look forward to your testimony why don't we begin as i introduce you and much for inviting me and for holding this important hearing congressman rohrabacher congressman paul palma vegas thank you also for your attendance and interest in this issue sadly not enough americans are aware the plight of the community this kind of hearing and the subsequent hearings you plan to hold are very valuable and very necessary so i commend you for this and i commend your staff as well it's been pleasure to work for them work with them in the preparations for this hearing and i look forward to working with for quite some time but i became much more involved and interested during my tenure as deputy assistant secretary of state for east asia through that experience to have a deep appreciation for the people for the nationalism among the weaker population i think this is somewhat difficult when you talk about any community because nationalism of course can manifest into quite admirable types of activities pride in country  advocacy for one's community and a number of ways of positive expression but of course there's also ways that nationalism can manifest in more negative ways unfortunately  community is not immune to this uglier side of nationalism although it's a very small minority within a minority and i would add that two successive administrations of course noted the bush administration decision to designate freedoms that we're grateful to enjoy here however we felt it was important in the government to have a consistent standard internationally when we talk about terrorist activities whether they be individuals or whether they be groups and we looked very closely at the u s state department along with members of the intelligence community about this particular group it was determined after every view that was based on u s information  as well as information provided by others including third parties that legal criteria under the executive order you mentioned might also add that the chinese authorities came to us with requests to designate many other likely unreliable and likely related to other political agendas and therefore we were unable to designate that group as well as other groups brought to our attention it was only group that in our view at the u s state department at the time met that criteria and therefore received that designation and i know there has been criticism about that decision i think that's part of what this hearing is to address some of the charges quite frankly  difficult to accept and analytically sound the suggestion that this was done solely to ingratiate ourselves with the chinese and try to enlist their cooperation in the global war on terror i think if you look at a more comprehensive view of to criticism very direct criticism in the state department human rights report about their oppression and our vigorous pursuit of the release of despite being told by the authorities that in those and i would simply start by saying this was a tragic situation individuals who are eligible for relay should not have been held for as long as they were held we found ourselves in very difficult circumstances in the bush administration when secretary powell rightfully said they wouldn't be returned to china but part of homeland security and many members of congress were saying no to no matter the country of origin should be returned to the united states that put us in a very difficult situation trying to find a third party in a third country to accept them something that i worked on directly and found frustrating and i agree with you it was the morally courageous countries that have now step forward going forward the best possible future for the weaker community is for the chinese to end the oppression and move in the direction of allowing greater freedoms greater latitude  community of people to live their lives and pursue liberty as they see fit however in my view we must also continue to deal with global terrorism no matter the nominee global war on terror is out of favor now but i think  there is a global phenomenon that must be dealt with directly if you look at a place like china and the terrorists we know that have taken place irrespective of the source of those  incidents we must note very sober mindedly that we have a million and a half to two million american visitors a year visiting china and we have events like the olympic games and the world's fair coming up in shanghai american citizens would not be immune where recommendations for the obama administration and for others in government i do believe the obama administration should continue to make human rights and religious freedom a priority in our relationship with china any policy that is conceptually based on the premise that we can downgrade these issues in the hopes of pursuing higher priorities would be a policy in my view based on false tradeoffs and potentially harmful policy i think president obama himself platform is very unique  capabilities his charisma his personal history to reach out to this community and to highlight the plight of the weaker community president bush met with here which i was delighted while i served in government i believe president obama should do the same i think the obama administration should also endeavor as no they are for the release of the remaining detainees but also i think it's important that the administration and the congress continue to take an interest in their wellbeing after their release this is after all our responsibility even once they're resettled to ensure that they don't face any replications for having wrongfully been in a place like guantanamo for as long as they were forth i think more u s officials and members of congress should visit she and john and visit with the we are communities directly and highlight their experience as an advocate on behalf of this community i would hazard to guess not many members of congress have visited places like iran and other places in  jiang and i think this would be vital addition to the public dialogue and then finally i think the u s government should support a policy similar to the policy we haven't about where we would encourage a dialogue between the chinese government and the legitimate representatives of the wigger community to talk about their future to talk about what genuine autonomy might mean to talk about how to improve their lives which in my view necessitates enhancing their basic freedoms practice of their faith freedom of  speech and i think we should actively be promoting such dialogue for for the benefit of the people there again mr chairman and other members thank you very much for allowing me to testify today thank you mr secretary and i look forward to consequences for the week or people of course directly led to the imprisonment of twenty two legal orders eventually cleared of all wrongdoing in the guantanamo detention facility for between between five and seven years indirectly has allowed the people's republic of china to evade international criticism over the last eight years as it has stepped up its suppression of week or so human rights in the name of fighting terrorism and despite the serious ramifications of the e t i ams designation as a terrorist group we have never and still do not know much about this organization or to activities given the lack of reliable information about e t a i am i will not claim today to paint a comprehensive picture of the organization or rather by covering five major points from my longer written testimony which i encourage you to read i will raise some substantial doubts about the assumptions we have made in claiming that it is a dangerous terrorist group linked with international jihadi movements first we should assume that e t a i am has never been a large well organized or capable group while there were many we political organizations outside of china in the late one nine hundred ninety s e t i am was virtually unknown among these groups for this reason many scholars studying we gores have disputed the organizations existence conducted by western journalists with leader hassan must soon into thousand and two appears to confirm that indeed the group did exist but it also supports the assumption that it was a small organization with little to no small group of young religious we were men from china organizing in afghanistan to mount a challenge to the chinese government's rule of their homeland in the shin jiang province but lacking the capacity and resources to do so assertions the group has never received assistance from al qaida is credible in my opinion given that china was one of the few major states to have diplomatic and commercial interactions with the taliban government at the end of the one nine hundred ninety s it is reasonable to believe that the taliban would have actively discourage any weak or presence in al qaida or other terrorist organizations inside afghanistan this is also corroborated by south asian media after the pakistani army killed once on my sume as an enemy combatant in two thousand and two if little was heard of e t a i am before september eleventh virtually nothing was heard from or about the group after my students death the only exceptions have been official chinese sources which greatly exaggerate the group's reach and capacities while chinese authorities have continued to arrest weaker nationalist inside china over the last eight years claiming the i'm just hoping that someone out there that knows what they're doing because i certainly do not brian how were you doing with the video link declines that probably was a good decision hello hello we're back at professor thank you you were on your third point we were talking about that after the the death of that soon in two thousand testimony that's where you were when the screen went blank ok well thank you let's hope we get through the rest of it without it going blank again i just wanted to say that in terms of that the only exceptions were chinese official chinese sources which greatly exaggerate the group's reach in capacities while chinese authorities continue to arrest we were nationalists inside china over the last eight years claiming that they are members of e t a i am these arrests have generally not been in response to acts of violence but are related most often to political dissent furthermore there is not credible evidence i have seen that those arrested in china have any connections with militant groups real or imaginary in afghanistan or pakistan but my fourth point is it is highly unlikely that the violence or alleged planned terrorist attacks during the olympic games last summer were perpetrated by the e t i m or any other organized terrorist group with ties to international jihadi groups there were no sophisticated explosives used or found on those arrested and the most publicized attack which involved two we were men allegedly driving a truck a truck into a line of chinese soldiers and then attacking them with knives in the city of kashgar looks more like an act of desperation by frustrated individuals than a well planned act of terrorism finally says and most importantly there's no conclusive evidence that or any organization for that matter has ever perpetrated a sophisticated and coordinated terrorist attack inside or outside of china while the chinese government has claimed that various acts of violence and in central asia over the last decade where the work of the t i a this is never been proven and the acts of violence themselves may not even have been acts of terrorism no legal group has ever been tied to well known methods of terrorism such as car bombings or suicide bombings which might confirm links to transnational groups instead they have been accused of organizing disturbances and assassinations which could be alternatively explained by a variety of other motives from popular political dissatisfaction to personal vendetta and even crime related violence given the lack the lack of evidence that i am is an active terrorist group or even an active organization any more is particularly disturbing that the united states decision to recognizes a terrorist group has caused substantial suffering to the weak or people so the question that i would like members of the subcommittee to ponder is what led us to recognize this group as terrorists was it merely a quid pro quo arrangement with the chinese in order to obtain their support in the global war on terror or as chairman  suggested does this reflect a serious defect in how we have gathered intelligence about terrorist groups over the last eight years i mean i would be very interested to hear and it's likely still classified by like to  hear from assistant secretary shriver what kind of u s intelligence do we really have about this group i think either of these answers to the question are unacceptable and have critical ramifications for how we continue to fight terrorism around the world thank you very much and thank you for bearing with technical difficulties thank you please stay with us professor  and i see that he is still prospering and and doing great work great audible chairman distinguished members of the subcommittee on international organization human rights and oversight it is my privilege to testify to you today in the case of the waiver people is my firm belief and this is based on over twenty five years of personal field research mostly in the region of western china and including cian job that there is very little evidence to support the claim that the people in question either the detainees in guantanamo bay or the weaker people in general are terrorists many of them could not either be accurately described as freedom fighters the vast majority of the nearly ten million people known as the we were and in my longer testimony i provide up to date population figures and maps and things like that for those who need a general background information  bookstores today they are upstanding citizens of the people's republic of china primarily agriculturalists an urban city dwellers in the largest cities and across that great region one sixth the size of all of china the largest province in china they're still the largest population group in the region and as an official my no the nationality research certain special privileges along with several other minorities many of them also muslims including kazakhstan whose backs except but they're now being surpassed in population by a growing number of han chinese settlers from the interior of china an honorable german i would submit that this is the primary reason for the civil unrest and violence that we see in the region rails to do with terrorism as much more to do with policies of development in education about problem the report below i  argue that the incidence of violence that have occurred in the region are best understood as instance of civil unrest and the state of china last year at mit it publicly impressed the government that there are over one hundred thousand separate incidents of civil unrest and china across the country so the few that we do see and change on are just as likely civil unrest rather than terrorist acts and this keep these incidents can rarely be described as terrorism in the traditional sense of the term which i see which i take to mean random acts of violence against civilian populations the struggle for the independence of the weaker people from the chinese nation states that have taken place since it's a corporation  forty nine are best understood in the context of efforts to attain sovereignty coming from many many years in the great state of hawaii we also know of other sovereignty movements that are not labeled as terrorist  and it's not a religiously or islamic inspired campaign except for the fact that the wigger are muslim people their concerns and issues resemble that of tibet and the occasional violence that takes place in the tibet china and protests against chinese rule are rarely if ever described as terrorists as will be demonstrated below the carrot zation of the guantanamo leaguers as epton terrorists by speaker gingrich is a misnomer at best and at worst a calculated mis characterization of a group of people whom the bush administration and the department of defense determined comprise no threat to united states and a majority of whom are noncombat the same time this testimony would show that the reason she and john has been extremely peaceful since the late one nine hundred ninety s and rather than a sight of terrorist independence it has been caught up caught up in an economic boom that would be the envy of any of it surrounding central asian states this testimony will not support an independent we burst on or separate state lest it fall into the same turmoil as a central asian neighbors but rather encourage greater autonomy direct engagement of the chinese with the wiggers to better understand their concerns and complaints a dialogue that was also suggested by randy shriver in his final remarks a dialogue that to the state has never taken place despite the fact that there have been many dialogues meetings of high level encounters between official representatives of the chinese government and the tibetan exile government in exile nothing like this at any level has happened with the weavers and also the need for the us to not contribute support even if inadvertently to any separatist or islam it sent islamic sentiments that might be brewing in the region indeed i should comment that and i mention this in my report that unfortunately i think partly as a direct result of u s policy towards these weavers growing anti u s of sentiment is is been experienced in the region speaking from over twenty five years of travel and research learning local languages i can account for the fact that now it is not the same as it was twenty years ago when americans regarded while e in this part of the world are just as likely to expect to not be welcomed into mosques and muslim homes in china as we are and this is a real sea change over the last several years and the china itself should be congratulated for the enormous economic and social transformation of the region over the past few decades but at the same time should be encouraged to find ways to preserve and promote the vibrant and extraordinary central asian civilization that we grew culture represents i won't go through any rest of my testimony as i mentioned there are many maps and charts and population figures to document that tremendous transformation of this region over twenty years it really is a booming economy a magnet for migration but i will mention that on the subject of atom along with my colleague sean roberts i do detail a large number of other organizations that were are charts and less and even an ample logical graph of groups that i thought were much more violent or at least claim to be more violent than action so it was always a surprise to those of us who study this issue atom itself was singled out i'll just mention of course that many of these groups go by the names that and labels that have turkistan in the title and this is generally in about five different languages  not only chinese weaver but also the other target language if it's in central asian who's back but we're also dealing with pakistani languages or do push doing so it's not surprising that some of these groups could be easily conflated but to suggest that all of them are core and all these incidents of violence were coordinated by any one single group struck many of us rather believe at the time and at the time many us raises objection but we were quickly swept away as not really knowing what was happening in country while conclude that the history of chinese muslim relations inching job as jim millward most recent book documents is at a trade bazaar and he was trying to encourage tourism and investment in the region and this is why he was so sanguine about the peacefulness of the region that time two weeks prior to nine eleven the relative quiet this last decade does not indicate that the ongoing problems of the region have been resolved or opposition dissolved this is a response to many travel reports will go to the region and say oh there's no over the last couple of decades has seen that the surface is not always tell the whole truth the opposition to chinese rule and she jiang has not reached the level of a chechnya or an intifada but similar to the ba separatists or the essay in spain or former irish in ireland in england it is one that may erupt in limited violent moments of terror and resistance and just as these oppositional movements have not been resolved in europe in latin america or in even the united states we have our own problems with domestic terrorism the weaker problem and she does not appear to be one that will  readily be resolved the admitted problem with your terrorism in the sense even in the diaspora is thus problematic for a government that wants to encourage integration and development in a region where the majority are not only ethnically differen but also devoutly muslim how does a government integrate a strongly religious minority be a muslim tibetans christian or buddhist into what i call a marxist capitalist system china's policy of intolerance towards dissent and economic stimulus does not seem to have resolved this issue as a responsible stakeholder china should find ways to open dialogue with representative individuals and groups to better cooperate in finding a solution to this ongoing problem there has been much progress and relatively peaceful development in this important region surely a dialogue can be opened up in order to help ensure a more prosperous and peaceful future for both wego her and han chinese alike thank you sir thank you professor gladney next we will go to  whose name is abdul hakim and i represent two more of the thirteen liter men who languish in guantanamo even today even though they have long been cleared for release and their innocence is widely if not universally rationale and a public way for their detention in two thousand and four two thousand and five in the wake of the supreme court decision that became the hook for doing just that and so i'm certainly happy to address any of the many the d c circuit was the first court to ever look at the evidence in any case it's not the only one to do so and every court that's ever looked at the evidence has ruled for the waiters but it was the first status review tribunals and if you indulge me for backing up a moment just to sort of frame the procedural posture here in two thousand and five when congress passed the detainees treatment act which purported to strip the federal courts of consider guantanamo cases it was found to be unlawful and the media and the court but at that time congress created a new cause of action that would allow any guantanamo detainees challenge the basis was justified by a preponderance of the evidence the evidence before the combatant status review tribunals was we think the government's best case it was certainly the just the first instance but to rationalize the detention of people who had already been in prison at that time for many many years and in the case of the week by the time they were conducted the great majority of combatant i've got a federal judge written opinion calling that term kafkaesque if you're not an enemy combatant you were never an enemy combatant these men were never enemy combatants they should never have been in guantanamo and when that disclosing this i understand that but you have reviewed these records in detail you had access to this information would you stay with us statement the four men were released to bermuda is if you read your paper yesterday you'll see a number of articles reporting statements reporting the things that they have now been able to tell the world things they have been telling me for years we have never heard of been interrupting you i'm going to ask you to just to wrap up right now because i want to give my time and and his time to the the gentleman from from california but i know he will have a number of questions to you but i did read the statement that according to these individuals they had never heard about al qaeda they had never heard of this so called  m it seems to have changed names according to according to the need of the moment but we'll get back to you let me just conclude with my friend  issues that you've addressed today i want an issue to begin suggest that the founding fathers would be shocked at the necessity of this hearing i think also this committee in the congress is responsible for the fact that it was the executive branch that was unable to unilaterally label this group as a terrorist organization without any due process of law this congress today and that you just pass a bill like a draft in ten minutes is no money to the united states can be utilized to list it as a terrorist organization it's another example of how over the years congress has forfeited obligation to police national security matters to the executive branch why did you authorize this monstrous violation of due process of law this listing in secret no one has an opportunity to defend no judicial review anywhere that's the response of this congress to take this power back and the abuse is there because you let the executive branch get away with it that's the first thing to remember all that pointin the finger at the bush and obama whatever the buck stops here the people are sovereign the second thing i want to say is we need to remember who we are as a people this hearing is about the united states of america every bit as much as  unalienable rights to life liberty and pursuit of happiness and establishing a new government in those and it says when you're subject to a long train of abuses that even a design to reduce the people to tyranny you not only have a right a duty to revolt and let's apply that standard to the we and what terminology accurately described in this could be or should be there with lexington green with those other eight who died at the battle of lexington and concord rather than listed as an association of some kind of terrorist organization we the united states people said we have a right to revolt if we're denied right to jury trial if they prolog legislators to distant places if there's a subordination of the civil authority to the military there's no independent judiciary these are trifles compared to what the we gars are suffering they don't get any trial at all not to say a jury trial they get to elect their leaders no taxation without representation was the cause of our revolution they don't get any wrote at all in any circumstances whatsoever and i think that we have come as a nation it's not just the week ours to embody the psychology of the empire instead of recognizing the root who we are as a people why are we selling these people who have the same right we have to throw off the bonds of vassalage and we are criticizing them because they may voice pro even though it's largely nonviolent we have sheila jackson lee mr ellison remember john brown at harper's ferry no that became the battle hymn of the republic you going to sit there and do nothing in consequence of this enormous oppression the fact that the united states of america refused not only the executive branch but the congress could have enacted a law that said those seventeen regards are here by permanent residents of the united states did nothing that is a disgrace we care more about the chinese buying our bonds than showing our true character that is a disgrace i am humiliated to be an american associated with that we would go to bermuda and pay a little you know we have all the power in the world to defend ourselves just to me it's an insult and the last thing it is the united states of america  our character that's at issue here that we are should not have to go through this again we should not have the executive branch being able to list these people as terrorists or anybody else without any due process of law we had that in our own experience in the united states it was called mccarthyism we used to have a list of subversive organizations that the tourney general promulgated without any due process and was held illegal by the united states supreme court joint anti fascist committee versus mcgrath and we got rid of that we should know by now when you give authority to do things in secret the danger will be inflated and it will be a myth manipulated and there will not be just i'll stop now and take questions there but i can't emphasize i'm thinking you should just keep rolling floor and the last thing is and this is the mentality the people who listen to a hammer everything looks like a nail to a counter terrorist everything looks like a terror and that's why you need checks that's what you need to process of last year just think about a comparison today we find in the streets of tehran people are raw using up and saying no their election was fraudulent the united states is condemning these people as terrorists well they don't even have elections and we admire your passion and i think you know that i too have been an advocate for recapturing if you will  the role of the first branch in the proper constitutional order as invision by our founders and i too agree that we have ceded too much to the executive and that has t hat has to come to an end we will become you know a parliament that is that one could describe is more in the nature of the chinese parliament as opposed to the united states congress and we have to take back that of florida and you're right about secrecy and that's why we will go if we are invited and if we can work it out we will go to bermuda and listen to what these men have to say to us and to the american people it's time that everyone be given an opportunity to speak out she crecy is secrecy promotes and totalitarianism with that i yield to my friend from california and then we'll go to any and then i want to recognize too that we've been joined by the gentle lady from texas  i think it behooves me to note that while i do agree with the chairman and most of the witnesses a large percentage of what's been said today rather significant percentage there are areas of disagreement that i have and i'd like to just mention those in passing as we go into the discussion specifically of the weavers i do know one agree with the last witness whatsoever his assessment of what's going on since three thousand of our citizens were slaughtered three thousand of our citizens were slaughtered in front of our base this is not just a criminal situation where we can give right that are guaranteed to the citizens of the united states to people who are captured in a battlefield situation across the world i believe we have not had other thousands of people slaughtered because there have been situ the situation one time has prevented that but when you agree with that as i do and that's been my position it would be one of us if i believe that we should have a very and i would say forceful policy towards towards people who are highly suspected of being involved in terrorist networks that is out americans as they already have then it also behooves me to say and all of us to say that because we have not extended the same kind of right because that wouldn't that would hinder our efforts to protect our own people we must be but how do you say we must be absolutely committed to admitting mistakes when the mistakes are made and recognize what the problem what we have here is not that we fought a war without giving constitutional rights to people who were engaged with military activities in afghanistan which serve as a basis for attack that caused so many deaths more deaths than were cause of pearl harbor but our problem is once it was recognized that there was an error that was made in terms of the wiggers our people did not admit that mistake and our and our leaders demonstrated by mr gingrich as well as other leaders showed a lack of courage and in fact showed actually worse than that by suggesting that we send these people back to not believe and i do not believe as you just suggested that we should be in any way extending constitutional rights in a wartime situation and if we did i really believe that we would there would be many many more dead americans right now  on par with our founding fathers the fact that there are people all over the world long for freedom long for democracy long to control their own destinies american people should be on their side we should never be on the side of the old we should always be on the side of the oppressed that is what we were given the challenge that we were given to us by thomas jefferson and george washington and other folks in guantanamo too it's possible other people after all we let we have freed from guantanamo hundreds of prisoners hundreds of prisoners have been there and that kind of was an admission of mistakes but we also know that a significant number of the prisoners that were freed ended up going back and killing americans on the battlefield i'm sorry my loyalty is to the people the united states but i think how we show states of america what makes us americans hopefully is a commitment to liberty and justice for all and giving them the ability to self determination in the hands of the do you believe the reports that were provided you and the administration about acts of violence were based on direct my strong impression is that it was a comprehensive view of information available information provided by the chinese was not taken at face value one of the reasons some raise the question why not these other organizations the information provided by the chinese had to be corroborated by the united states information also had to be collected independently of information provided by the chinese and by third parties as well so in the case of t do a proper investigation to corroborate what the chinese had provided or to collect an independent information on all of the two hundred cases of reported violence i suspect not but i think what the  organization and not others and i would return to the point that this was an organization that for whatever reason london itself to independent corroboration and a proper investigation i don't believe that th e coincidence of the chairman pointed out with the two hundred acts of violence and the number of deaths and injuries that seems to indicate that we had just taken those statistics from  y by the intelligence arm of the world's worst human rights abuse or by its very nature by the bigness by its bigness alone not to mention the crime is the world's worst our biggest human rights abuse or add and just from what you're saying it doesn't mean you're trying to tell us that things work a lot of cooperated but you're not saying that concept well it was based on the criteria stablished in the executive order and the assessment as to whether that criteria was met i would suggest that even from what you're saying it would be proper for us or surmise that our government was just basically being foods but in foods bad information and we were not doing that if i could respond to that there were many organizations which the chinese brought forward and and again i took office after this particular designation was made but i used to be the personal recipient of volumes and reams of information from the chinese about alleged terrorist organizations that we were not in a position to designate because we were not able to make those assessments so i respectfully would reject the notion that we were spoonfed and simply relied solely on that and  and after the designation everything was ascribed to e t a i am in other words that designation in my opinion was a signal to not an intentional  executive branch and that i would suggest it was a very dangerous you know back i would agree with the chairman are there any acts of violence civilian population aimed at the review of the organization for a variety of reasons i would not disagree with anything that's been said about secrecy in the problematic nature of making these decisions but in fact i did take an oath not reveal military occupiers let me say as i said my test my i'm confident in the decision that was made at the time based on the criteria set forth in the executive order i would certainly not have any objection to further  issues perhaps a classified briefing would certainly be appropriate i'm just asking you you don't have to break a rule about classification by simply saying whether or not you  using that in this time of terrorism when people have targeted american cities and american neighborhoods let me ask you about  yeah i think i can refer you to page twenty four of my testimony and there i give you spectrum based on my own research and other possible groups  out there and the whole spectrum there are groups on the internet the problem with looking at video or posting on the internet you don't know how many people are leading role in the world we go to congress prior to that there was a lot of the we were nationalists were actually in the soviet union and the soviet union was supporting ideas of ethnic autonomy in china largely as a ploy in the sino soviet split and then later in the ninety's most of the central asian states kind of start restrict any more nationalist groups in on their territory in part at the request of the chinese government so i guess the short answer is i think that right now is the time where we  islam i feel very strongly as you noted noted that what we tried to do in guantanamo is is aimed at protecting the people the united states has every war that's ever happened mistakes are made and people innocent people are hurt what makes us a moral people is not that we don't make mistakes during times of war what makes us an honorable people is in guantanamo trying to protect our people trying to prevent another nine eleven something wrong happened i am ashamed of the leadership of my party has not stepped up and done the with that said i want to thank you for the hearing and i will be looking forward to look into this issue more because what we've got here is the worst type of situation where communist china mass abuser of human rights is manipulating our government and our own leaders for their benefit we can't let that stand thank you very much m brought to the subcommittee's attention in a matter of a couple of months this has been going on for almost two years now and i do want to say for the record i commend you and the gentleman from california for pursuing this unfortunately two years and  common thread with all the testimony has been provided here the fact that the riggers are totally innocent of anything that seem to have brought them to this stage of transfer them to a good tunnel and now we got into more complications because of the problems that we did i'd like to ask the panel what would be your recommendation to resolve this issue once and for all but my recommendation congress and act give by which organizations are designated as terrorist organizations there is no due process at all you it's a classic example where you don't have a right to know the charges against you that is not a system that's going to get anything that's reliable whatsoever we need to remember as well there's always the back up of the criminal law if people conspired to do things that are bad you can prosecute them and conspiracy get them before they even taken a single step towards execution but at least in a prosecution you have stuck to the decision made by mr armitage or for that matter by the bush administration that these people should be classified as terrorists and i was curious what is the independent evidence that that decision was based upon which is something outside of what the chinese intelligence shared with us or something that none of us know at this point and i think the chairman made that very point critical does this require  well i would i would encourage that i would i don't know that there's a need for me to repeat what i said earlier but one of the reasons this organization was designated and not the many others that the chinese brought forward to us is that we had a process where we could either corroborate information provided independently gather and collect information or with the gentleman you know you know what happens mr schreiber and every member here has attended classified briefings we go into these classified briefings and we leave with very little information and what we discover is that we had then prohibited from discussing classified information that in our opinion ought to be out in the public domain there is a great tool and i think mystifying understands this there's a great tool that the executive has we will have a classified briefing that means that the members who attend that briefing and i don't attend those kind of briefings i never able to discuss it yet among ourselves and this is commonplace among republicans and democrats what was that all about and it was totally on the satisfactory and it didn't even meet minimal standards in terms of in our opinion being appropriately classified that's the problem that m passionately meaning to our attention because what we the mistake that we make is to confer upon the executive whether that be a democratic or a republican administration the ability to play dope again and that's what it comes down to we clearly share the concern about threats to our national security we all do but we also know what's real and what's pretend and what is meant to deal with embarrassment the ranking member is correct and sometimes easy to say you made a mistake there's no one on this side of the of the diocese that hasn't that doesn't make multiple multiple mistakes daily and but what we seem to do and we get here in washington it's classified it's super secret and the american people are never told what the truth is here's my problem with the t i a m how big is it is it too is it dozens is it hundreds whitted this military training took place was it an installation the size of fort bragg what were the weapons that were involved reports that i read in the media indicate that there was one hundred fifty seven and by the way there's no reference disease twenty two individuals that were detained as a result of a bounty system that they were involved in that training what is the relationship with al qaida other than you know double triple quadruple kind of connection that i'm sure if on the planet that knows the community both inside and outside of china like the gentle lady who is with us here today never heard  upon a secret process that has consequences because that was the hook as susan baker manning says that was the whole arc that kept these twenty two we incarcerated for almost seven years and yet i think it was professor gladney in his testimony indicated that someone from the state department personally told him that it was a mistake mischaracterizing ms the secretary was there debate over this designation with in the department of state you know we're all human beings we're all subject to different views was there some dissension as to the designation if there was not terms of admitting mistakes myself others in the administration i hope are big enough to step up to that challenge and i think in my own testimony i've acknowledged that guantanamo was a tragic error in the circumstances they find themselves under and i respect i would be i would be prepared it might be an awfully boring hearing but to go through all the mistakes i've made in there are plenty but the issue is whether or not  this particular designation at that particular time was an appropriate designation provided based on the evidence and based on the criteria of the executive order my belief is that it was but i would i respect your beliefs was a consideration the place i am on the foreign terrorist listed on the as a foreign terrorist organization which my understanding is of a significant a a higher degree of significance than under the executive order i would confess is false but out of my expertise but my understanding is it's not only sort of an precedents in a higher precedence as as you suggest but it's also based on different criteria and relies on information related to activities outside the country and we did have some of that information but i think people felt the case wasn't as strong to go to that second designat independent countries as a result of the demise of the former soviet union was there ever a discussion historically about having erg was stand as another republic it seems to me is a time when this was going on there was a fear of balkanization of the different countries and i suspect that this is probably one of the biggest concerns that the people's republic of china was having the fear of breakout among the different groups  you know china's trying to herd in bringing taiwan into the fold hong kong macau all these bases of where china is claiming sovereignty over all but i just wanted to ask the panel was there ever any movement or  of course there would not have been a discussion of that possibility because she job has never been a part of the former soviet union but in my testimony i do say that there were certainly some hope among  street and interestingly enough that it wasn't in ninety one ninety two when the central asian states were established the demise of the former soviet union it was really in the ninety's and ninety seven with the reincorporation of hong kong that hope was enlivened and i was frequently travelling to the region at that time and there were a lot of discussions that that reintegration of hong kong if it were not to go well then there would be more opportunities for those kinds of imagined situations but clearly from the china side it was much more fear of that possibility and of course many people when they focus on  tibet and independence issues they forget that really the jewel in the crown that china sees as part of all this issue of separatism is really taiwan so you can't really distinguish these about china's desire to maintain a country in my chest my also i go into the historical establishment of an corporation as part of the people's republic of china and there were prior to that and prior to that nine hundred forty nine there were two separate states turkistan republics established in the thirty's and in the forty's and those were legally bonafide nation states they were recognized they were democratic one was quite secular supported by the soviets the other in the south was more islamic league inspired but nevertheless the league was look to those two independently recognised states as in that respect and to be free but not totally independent they are not seeking total independence from china all they want is more of an autonomous relationship i suppose realistic outcome and one that gives very concrete objectives that can be pursued defining what genuine autonomy would mean as the tibetans have and then pursue it through negotiation with china that kind of outcome so i think  mistake is this the best way that we can correct the mistake that we've made i think the answer is yes and of course this president as well mr rohrabacher mentioned the killings in member pearl harbor and five months after pearl harbor we had concentration camps  very well remember how and when we did make amends in that same circumstance in the civil liberties act in one nine hundred eighty eight same thing we can do today and there's a what we did to the square i think also another thing that needs to be done that was obvious in the exchange between congressman rohrabacher and assistant secretary shriver is that we need to define what we're talking about we're talking about statues do define and the executive orders define the criteria they can vary but it isn't just humpty dumpty i make it mean whatever i wanted to me on a current day but that's what rule of law means you have to write down standards so you can apply them even handedly and i do agree with that suggestion you have that we should review what the standards are and see whether or not the distinctions you've made we can put in words in the statute so it prevents for example the immigration authority holding people in burma because they're fighting against the oppressive mr secretary there was a report that was done by mystifying who's the inspector general of the department of justice that confirmed that the detainees were interviewed that a common practice to allow intelligence agents from foreign countries into guantanamo  and abusive redmayne interrogations that happen in guantanamo with the complicity of us soldiers that that is a remarkable series of events into our great shame mr secretary can you tell us how the decision was made to allow chinese communist intelligence agents into guantanamo to interview these detainees i was the department of state and they read their own human rights reports not only was it ill advised but i would say that it was morally repugnant where with a human rights report that describes in great detail the persecution and the gross violation of human rights perpetrated on the week is in china to allow communist chinese agents security agents into guantanamo is beyond unacceptable and it's my intention at some point in time to determine how that decision was made because the attorney baker manning is correct this isn't going to be satisfied simply by saying it was ill advised with all due respect and then ash forward to now and we have a former speaker of the house of representatives is suggesting that these individuals be sent back to china i'm sure you reject that suggestion but it is most disturbing do you know if the decision to allow these intelligence of the security agents into guantanamo was made by state by justice by defen i'm not sure i can answer with precision but my memory is that it was not the state department it seems to me i would have been aware of that decision and again i'm my language suggested sort of an off handed view of this was absolutely inappropriate and unacceptable to have been treated in that manner and at guantanamo as a lot of the other activities that attention facility in my view if you know i'm always interested in in housed these decisions are implemented did if you know did we provide the transportation for the communist security agents to come to guantanamo  i'm sorry can i do not know i mean i just have this rather disgusting vision of putting up communist homeland they would be tortured and most likely  that is disturbing when i think of the american taxpayer supporting this activity i'm sure maybe you can tell me i'm wrong but i'm sure that it wasn't communist chinese aircraft military aircraft that landed at guantanamo if you know i don't know the when hu jintao as a part of maybe three or four issues he chose to raise with president bush during a summit meeting said we want them returned to china president bush there is certainly recognition based on everything we know about their  tragic as i said in my testimony it bears close scrutiny from this committee and others and anyone is free to respond i'm directing some of these questions to  that there were various groups involved in bile and demonstrations whatever they were and then subsequently we come such has happened and it is pretty nicely those kinds of weasel words in gentleman's phrase that among other things causes the circuit to reject this is not even worth classified briefing in ways that enable you to get access to genuine information that you can discuss not just conduct a little quiz with yourself i think the constitutional law is very clear in established that senator gravelle could declassify forty seven volumes of the pentagon papers that allegedly were going to cause all sorts of calamity that never did and under the speech or debate clause in the congressional oversight part of the court held that  shielded from any retaliation any regulation by the executive branch or the judicial branches and the effort to try to indict him with my view of the law is clear if congress wishes you can demand through  provision of the appropriations power no information shall be collected and classified by the united states of america with the use of u s funds that can be withheld from committees of congress exercising oversight function and i believe that would be constitutional it would be enable you to go and say you can't tell me to keep quiet this is what the law is you can't spend money if you're going to conceal that from us we have to have oversight power so this can be a real oversight i think the church committee hearings show what happens when it's just a game out there and you don't know church committee got into the real details here and had some real reforms that were enacted afterwards but without that we may solve the wig our issue will be another case five ten years it'll be the same reason it will be accurate holding hearings you're viability and the health of our democracy and that's why i think and i said this in my opening statement not only is this about twenty two individuals and injustice to them but it's also about remedying the serious issues that i think need to be addressed because of what we're learning as a result  lawyers in the with that word there that but dissipated describe it as a sham you know i don't know how we provoke and again it's not those kind of issues that you know that people are going to follow with you know as i said you asleep they're just not going to do it but this is so fundamental because you're right mystifying today is the weakest you know a year from now it's irish americans and that would make me very nervous but it's about our democracy from the executive branch we know where where what you know what cause the odds have to be put in there and that's not what ideas say american democracy is about do we know what happened by the way to the families of the detainees that were incarcerated in guantanamo do have any information  certainly not above that kind of heavy hand with with others because once we once i understand from the from a newspaper report that they were one of them was other the four who were in bermuda now were using pseudonyms in an effort to protect their families back in northwest china you know i mean let's put this on a very very you know human level here  and by the way i'll pose to the panel as well as you how mrs kid do all of the experts have hardly ever heard of them yet our government very much at all about it and it's interesting i've been part of some other panels in the last couple of years particularly right around the olympics where i encountered some terrorist experts quote unquote who  o contract work for the u s government and they would go through the charts with the organizational structure of the group and provide all this definitive information and then soon as they were questioned by somebody who actually was a specialist in the region and in the week or people they actually stepped down which to me was very suspicious my assumption is that this group is professor that there's a cottage industry of terrorist experts out there that are common you know appear on cable news shows and when necessary  and not only that i think also i think some of them are doing contractual work for the defense department and other agencies in the u s government and my impression of the people i encounter was that they didn't really have  much more substantive information then was available on the internet and is dr gladney said we can't always trust everything that's on the internet i think that as i said in my testimony i think that it's highly that i am was a group of a handful of people in afghanistan in the late ninety's but i also i also have encountered lots of information from the late ninety's when the chinese government was engaging the taleban on the issue of week or separatists and i think that one of the questions that arises when you look at the week or situation why wasn't there  a separatist movement based in afghanistan and i think that there's in all likelihood the taleban strongly discouraged or if not tried to prevent anything like that happening i think that i am after the purported leader's death may not have existed at all what is interesting is now these videos that were on you tube i think are something that raised some interesting questions i said in my written testimony i think that the those videos could be either chinese government origin they or they could be perhaps as dr glavine said you know one terrorists because they obviously have not had much success with political attempts to get attention or finally they could be finally attempts by transnational terrorist groups to recruit  are large groups of leaguers involved with al qaida but i think the evidence is against it there may be one or two people associated with al qaeda but it is also interesting that we have not seen a lot of information about we gores in  pakistan's northwest province right now we hear about but we don't hear about week or so i think that's another another point that questions whether whether we're talking about one or two people who may be or the taliban and the court although it was based on classified evidence that although i'm not for obvious reasons comment on the evidence including the evidence on this point three days after we received that evidence for the very first there about links to al qaeda and it gets amplified every time there's a discussion and it becomes an accepted fact and that's what's really disturbing you know if there's evidence let's listen to it but again it's that that that veil of secrecy i mean up until recently the vice pres of the form of ice present continued to maintain there was some relationship between al qaeda and saddam hussein when just a review of the history of the region would indicate that osama bin laden conceded saddam hussein defiler of islam i mean we have to be more careful as you know as a people and as policymakers and in in terms of what we say and we are prone oftentimes to throw away a comment that has very little and she has very very little has very little validity i mean you know maybe we will have to have a classified briefing but i've attended classified briefings and i can remember weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds and operational relationships i can remember being told that there was you know that al qaeda camps existed in iraq it was false do we know where this village or this camp existed in afghanistan oh we're making it up that's what the rest of the world is thinking and now we find ourselves in this very difficult barrison situation and and dr gladney what i found remarkable and you pointed out in your testimony is that our own military the u s military had never heard of e t i m according to reports at the end of two thousand and one and yet again with all due respect we're designating less than a year later through an executive order as a terrorist published which they extensively examined the special report we were muslim separatists virtual information center dated twenty eight september two thousand and one at time was not even mentioned what conclusion can we reach mr secretary i mean you see the predicament that you know serious people have about the designation of the existence of e t i and even if we grant you that it existed you know be you know this a leader acknowledges this and who's this guy hock and by the way has anybody heard from him in the last four  taking any responsibility for any act any violent act the only ones that seem to be giving them any credibility is the communist chinese government  will anyone comment because here in september post nine eleven instead timber of two thousand and one united states military does an in depth study secretary what would you think again if you look at sort of the comprehensive approach the administration has just analytically on sound that this was simply to try to engage the chinese on counterterrorism cooperation because there's so much other efforts that would run contrary to that in fact this is a data point that is inconsistent with our overall approach to she and john and to the to the community which i don't know with all due respect i don't i don't i don't agree i th i'm and the chinese are really important they're a major they are a superpower we know that if i can just feed the beast a little bit give them a  dollop if you will of we know you've got a problem we know that you're concerned not so much about islamic jihad these but a growing sense of you know a possible independence movement demands for more autonomy demands for basic human rights ok give us what you have and you gave us some stuff to give us some statistics and you know all right rather than having a whole bunch of because the testimony from these experts are there are there were groups out there that were some groups that existed that were of more consequence then i am or my misstating you know absolutely i wouldn't say that i've never really encountered a group that has any militant capabilities though and but there's no doubt that in the way your community i was in kazakhstan for much of the one nine hundred ninety s spent most of that time in weaker communities knew all of the political leaders and i never once encountered the eastern churches on islamic movement and i lived in we were neighborhoods where i encountered all kinds of visitors from organizations in  organization mr chairman make a couple of observations one what this hearing shows is sunshine is the best disinfectant we still have all the shrouded in secrecy and if we think of the history of all the leaks of classified information none of them have been shown to be greatly detrimental to the united states of america including the pentagon papers there's a risk any time you have a totally open society but the consequences of this discussion today was just illustrates it's not limited to the weaker as they've been injustices in many other groups as well that's why they have corpus and are being released it shows that all the claims that if you do this in the public you let it out all these calamities will happen history just doesn't bear that out that was said before the church committee hearings as well you can have hearings will never have anyone who will ever do a covert operation again it didn't happen that way and to the extent that there is some kind of inhibition so what the benefits to democracy to getting it right are so much better to have members like you know what's going on the same questions that you're asking mr stryver been asked of those people in congress who are actually the ones who are making those decisions and you were headed right to get the answers to them and if you did they would have been listed on the spine get in the mix of it and it's appropriate that you have done so and i do appreciate it i'm going to be somewhat redundant because i like making the record very very clear because we have seen the denounce the ation of bermuda  that representation on the public stage of all kinds of things and it's always the last word that someone hears is what they go off with and so i imagine that the public has already been i will use the term painted meaning american public and they've got their attitude about the waiters and they believe that we've released some major terrorists who are floating in the in the sea and bermuda and that we are reckless and uncaring so let me try to first of all say coming of sweetness on iran even in light of the atrocious public scenes that we've seen and the clarity of understanding that elections that seemed to come out one way were  that seventy percent of the people might have voted the other way and again i don't pretend to select iranian leaders but i will say that that certainly brings a question to me i'll add the backdrop to the  sugaring and pampering that we've done about the friends in china and let me make it very clear i am a friend of mainland china we have a wonderful counsellor they have been always so very gracious but it always amazes me how we're able to use a lot of sugar when we talk to people who have some extreme failings that don't allow us to speak openly and forthrightly not only we deal with the leaguers but we're dealing with the tibetans i've been in  mountains to the extent that i've even been thrown off a yacht not while i was drinking yok milk but i literally that is one of my famous acts here in the united states congress and for the panel that was called cultural exchange but obviously  he was not interested in too much dialogue so i've been in the temples i've seen and discussed with with those individuals about their prices i have met with the represent lama as well as the dalai lama but particularly with his representative and spoke extensively about these issues so let me try to ask the question to susan baker manning at once and for all question how do you know th girls and those gentlemen that are now bermuda are not associated with al qaida i know that because it is undisputed it is they have never been accused of being associated in any way shape or form with either al qaida or the taliban the government has conceded this repeatedly it is in a number of military documents it is undisputed and the d c circuit has noted that is undisputed they have no association whatsoever with al qaida the taliban they never took our of arms against the u s an members of the coalition they have never been accused of taking up arms against anyone so if we were to seek a written affirmation or an affirmation we could go to federal judiciary court papers yes ma'am would we have access to these military documents that you have suggested have you had access them there is a classified and unclassified portion of the record to which i have access i could certainly provide the unclassified portions of that to the committee we've had some discussion about access to classified information i have encouraged the executive branch to share with this committee in correspondence with attorney general holder i have encouraged them to share the relevant classified information with the weavers because it's critical that congress understand who we're really talking about here there's a great deal of misinformation on the menu classes on the in class and i might add i'm grateful for the chairman's yielding i just i'm just going to go point question on the unclassified well i if you not sort of supporting the chairman if he's asked what i'd like to ask for then on the unclassified would we find written language that says that what you will find is you will find that in the parking lot the gate opinion issued by the d c circuit it is actually it's attached to my written testimony today i can point you to the specific passage in there the court notes upon after review of both the classified and the unclassified evidence in that case and all the waiters are the same evidence of the same as the court notes after review of both the classified and the unclassified evidence that there is no allegation that these that part was in any way a part of either the taliban or al qaeda and the court also notes that there is no evidence that he was a member of the time so and the reason why i just continue to focus in on this and i thank you for that is that  the spoken word sometimes is loose and light but we have court affirmation having the court having reviewed the classified documents and the other aspect of it is we're on foreign affairs some of us are on armed services some of us on homeland security all part of the synergism of protecting america and the first front liners of blame rightly so is a government for saying i tell you so these are in fact errors but we have investigated documented documents that were the result of investigation that says that they were not associated let me then ask you why were they in the afghan camps as it has been alleged well as we've seen from discussions of the four men released to bermuda have had with the press over the last few days the first time they've ever been able to tell the story themselves the same stories they've been telling me these men end up in afghanistan because afghanistan is at the time a place that has no reciprocity with china every single one of them leaves china because of the oppression of the weaker people  the gentleman in this picture right there china in part because that little girl sitting on his lap his sister was about to be forced to abort that child under china's one child policy the sister escaped at about the same time they are fleeing the remarkable persecution of their people within china every single one of the twenty two we are men who ended up in guantanamo was leaving to escape that kind of oppression every single one of them is  philosophically opposed to the communist chinese regime and to its remarkable and well documented oppression of human rights and of their people specifically but not one of them has ever sought to take up arms against china or anyone else do we have a court order that allows the release i'm sorry of these individuals are they able to see their families or families coming to bermuda or how is that working the four gentlemen who are now in bermuda are free they are not able to travel because  their chinese passports were long ago lost and the remittance of indicated that they are willing to move them toward citizenship that is a somewhat time consuming process it probably won't happen within the year but  upon their naturalization as citizens of bermuda and therefore the commonwealth they would be able to travel some restrictions not whether they're able to travel to the united states but they would be able to travel abroad they will be able to see their families but have families be able to come to bermuda yes ma'am the difficulty is that most of their family members are still in line up and there is there are enormous concerns with the treatment of their families by the chinese government there certainly they're just enormous concerns about that so the difficulty is not whether the or mutants would allow the family members to come visit them the britons have made it quite clear to me that they're that they're more than welcome  the difficulty is getting out of china let me thank you very much a gentle lady yield for a moment i want to inform her that it's the intention of the committee to go to and i wanted that was my next point i would like to join you and i think that is an excellent suggestion and its chairman and i've discussed that with the ranking member we would hope and clearly there are logistical issues and this is a matter that would have to be discussed with our speaker  and chairman berman but it would be my hope that we could conduct a hearing in bermuda and have these four individuals testify because as i said earlier i think it's very important that we and not we but the american people hear from them directly without the  of pundits and talking heads and those that may or may not have a particular bias and i think it would be very very instructive and very very informative and hopefully accelerate  the process of closing down guantanamo as promised by president obama and sought actually by by president bush defense secretary gates secretary powell and others because what has happened and i'm sure you've noted it congresswoman is that there have been many statements such as send them back to china by people who are it's in farm misinform but who are people who are perceived to be leaders in this country and they have created such a hostile environment  that the actions of our our government are not necessarily welcoming to those who were hoping to resettle here in the united states instead hopefully contribute to whatever society they end up in it's my current intention to to do to take a trip probably this weekend and speak to the venue to individuals come before us so that we can put to rest whatever the facts are their views and if anybody wants to refute them now's the time for them to stand up after they testif that is the intention of the committee and that's my my own short term plan but i would anticipate some time after the the july just work  chairman is also on the judiciary committee and this is perfectly in sync with those issues i will have just two brief questions and then i will conclude my remarks and that is to mr fine how do we fix this going forward and i have a question for professor who is traveling but how do we fix this going for you announce the ated that i left because i in fact i'm going back to homeland security committee hearing a committee that i chair dealing with securing the critical infrastructure dealing with issues of chemical security and my my you know over there we're  trying to be the face of securing america but you mentioned some about our values civil liberties i almost think if i could refresh people's memory about the japanese camps in world war two and i asked them would we still want to have those camps today even if they existed and there was no one in them always said well we're holding them because we may have to do it again don't people understand that's what guantanamo bay equalizes because it was no less serious when the japanese bombed pearl harbor it was it was like the world had come to an end what it was like the world come to an end on nine eleven but we got ourselves back together we realize that that was a hideous thing to do and so no one voted to say why don't we keep these in here because  may hear about so and so maybe might have been with the japanese on that but we close them and i guess our shame is to never do that again why is it that we are in this complex situation with guantanamo bay and we seem to fail in our remembrance of history well there are a whole host of reasons one of those that is most unpleasant to mention is at present congresswoman the names of the victims are difficult to pronounce to marry and harm done whatever doesn't sound like smith than joe and whatever that we heard about during watergate so people think it's not going to happen to me a second reason is because i think the government and the the executive branch try to inflate the fear five million fold calling the the challenge the equivalent of fighting stalin hitler mussolini hero he to lenin combined it's clearly a danger out there that's why we have criminal justice systems that's why we have covert actions and therefore the became this idea remember the worst of the worst red guantanamo bay that was we believe that because we were twelve and refighting world war two and there are all these allusions to munich and things of that sort until people get frightened and they trusted their governments that ok that's what we have to do and it took finally the supreme court and you know the right to apply their corpus pleasure and that's why we have the hearings on the weaker reestablish in my judgment an entire different culture that recognizes yes be an open society create some risk we are as a people and prevent a lot more injustice than risk that it creates how do you go forward in addressing these issues i think when we think about the listing of organizations as terrorists some kind of stigma building upon what we learn from our own interest we had a list of subversive organizations that we had around for about four decades as well i was an office of legal counsel we got we abolished the damn thing finally under president nixon we need to have a set of hearings what are the criterion the due process that ought to go for if we're going to list anybody at all without an actual trial how much do we get from these listing organizations other than being able to make people frightened there's never been any systematic study of that how much judicial review can we have because at present you're listed that you don't know what the charges are against you don't even know how to refute it standing issues well if you're an organization abroad you don't have standing in the united states to bring a lawsuit we're going to hire a lawyer a whole examination of how we go about the process of listing how many different lists we have executive order list under the economic emergency powers act it should be a what you might call a mini church committee hearings on all of these different ways you get listed individuals or organizations no due process at all how accurate are they is there any examination after the fact should these people be on the list at all or not and that's what i think is critical that could come out of this hearing because we guards are just a microcosm of this much much larger issue of secrecy and arbitrariness and just listing people it's it reminds me of a little bit of the pope's index a for been booked or you just thrown off the list ok now only can read it anymore you need process out there that perhaps the most important idea in the history of civilization has been to work due process always come back that due process the most important idea that we've ever contributed to civilization well you have given us a roadmap we've lost a dear professor looks like we've talked him into a libyan but we appreciate what he was able to put on the record and i will prove the record mr chairman but what i want to just point out and i want to questioning of these practices that we utilize to in essence secure ourselves and really probe into the criteria for examine the chairman i hope we can look into what has been called the iranian resistance movement they are located in paris france i'm sure you receive many invitations we've been castigated some of us for trying to listen to them i just want to find out what what what they are they they indicate their their resistance they've been labeled as terrorists we've had some comings and goings but there are a number of groups like this that i think are crucial the whole issue of due process is crucial and we have had moments in our culture we we have had moments with mccarthyism i was on the  cointelpro subcommittee dealing with the investigation of the king and kennedy assassination the one that they all the knives in the late one nine hundred seventy eight made me to say that i was there when i was about two years old but i was a staffer and we had what we call which is the surveillance of dr martin luther king and we thought that was securing america and we had all kinds of allusions or suggestions that he was a communist and taking over america and tragically we lost him in a tragic  assassination that was successful we don't know whether you know the creation of that or contributed to the missed a lot of individuals just as the tragedy that happened in the hole cards museum so we have got to find the terrorists yes we've got to know whether they're domestic or foreign yes but we've got to find a way to frame our fight in their work or in the mindset of due process i concluded the beginning of the constitution says that we the people have to create a more perfect union we never said it could be perfectly hundred percent but we said more perfect and i think that goes to the founding fathers leaving in this instance great britain and found that it was not perfect and so i'm hoping that we can work texan who had an interest in this but i also think it is extremely important that we look at guantanamo bay and ask the question would we want the japanese camps here today as a symbol of america than do we want to have one time as a continuing symbol you know i was just thinking prior to nine eleven and you can respond to mr secretary was there ever any reference anywhere which would have link classified or in classes of code red a code blue or whatever i figure that's or i think even more interesting is that al qaeda themselves whether bin ladin or his spokespersons have never raised that we cause as of interest to them there is one reference to one of tenet and one statement but bin lot of himself has never mentioned that we causes a lot of theories about that but he has mentioned specifically other so called muslim liberation causes whether it was in chechnya or in mindanao or wherever al qaeda is interested in supporting the other incident and the other aspect of this whole situation that should be made clear is that wiggers traditionally have not been interested in radical islam they have a strong sufi tradition so these are heavily persecuted by the taleban and qaida there is somewhat hobby influence in the region it may be growing but traditionally we've all called attention the fact that we grew a culture is long history of celebrating  intelligence i would also suggest that sources from places like kazakhstan and pakistan are also i would not see them as credible third party while not having directly participate participate in this decision my recollection is there were different views but the controversy was mostly surrounding the very issues we're talking about today controversy mostly rested in believing that was the right designation but would it be the appropriate thing to do in light of some of the possible consequences  think i'm not aware that anyone from the bush administration who participated in this decision would object to a new administration reviewing that decision or saying that things have changed from the time fall of two thousand to when the decision was made  it's highly appropriate of the nature of the organization has changed or just no longer even exists but the government should take a fresh review of that and i don't i would object to that i don't think my boss would object to that who made the original at least it has some element of sunset to it and you are able under the statute after two years ago and petition the administration to take a new look now maybe it's pro forma but there isn't even that opportunity just bureaucratic inertia in the when you're as a case study if you will for i think some very serious issues that have been raised today thank you professor roberts we appreciate your employer and to all of you again