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November 19, 2009 3:12 PM

Liz Cheney's Keep America Safe: Keep Detainees Out


Liz Cheney's organization Keep America Safe today released a mini-documentary featuring citizens of Standish, Michigan lashing out at the Obama administration's proposal to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the town's Standish Maximum Correctional Facility.

Standish is one of at least four sites being considered as potential transfer destinations for detainees, along with facilities in Montana, Colorado, and Illinois, according to the New York Times. The Detroit News reports that the Standish facility, which closed October 31st due to budget cuts, employed more than 250 people, making it the small town's largest employer. Nonetheless, some residents are reluctant to let their town play host to the 200 or so alleged terrorists facing transfer to the United States.

The video, which you can watch at left, includes interviews with citizens of Standish (which has a population just over 2,000 and is 97 percent white, according to last available census data) intercut with messages from Keep America Safe, all set to an ominous piano track.

"President Obama has ordered the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility closed," a message on the screen reads. "Hundreds of terrorists will be moved to prisons in the United States. Politicians want them placed in Standish, Michigan."

This message is followed by a woman speaking. "[Politicians] aren't listening to us little people in Standish," she says. "Because that's what we are. We're a small, small farm town. And we are not being listened to."

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Tags:
Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility ,
Keep America Safe ,
Liz Cheney ,
Michigan ,
detainees ,
terrorists
Topics:
Guantanamo
November 13, 2009 3:11 PM

Zarate: U.S. Trial For Gitmo Detainees "Appropriate"

CBS News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate said on "Washington Unplugged" Friday that trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees in U.S. civilian courts was "an important decision, and appropriate."

"I think these are defendants that can be prosecuted, will be prosecuted," he said, adding: "This is a good set of defendants to put into the criminal legal system."

Host Bob Schieffer noted that the decision is already drawing strong criticism from people like New York Republican Rep. Peter King, who says the decision to hold the trial in New York City makes it a terrorist target.

"Well, I think security is always an issue with these cases," said Zarate. "But I think New York has handled big time cases before, dating back to the '93 World Trade Center case, and I think they know how to handle it."

"New York's at the top of the list for Al-Qaeda anyway, so I'm not sure that this necessarily ups the ante that much," he added.

Watch the entire conversation above. Also on Friday's show are interviews with Maggie Mahar, author of "Money Driven Medicine," and Claire Danes, Zac Efron and Richard Linklater of the film "Me and Orson Wells."

"Washington Unplugged" appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.
Tags:
trial ,
new york ,
KSM ,
zac efron ,
Guantanamo Bay
Topics:
Washington Unplugged
November 3, 2009 3:02 PM

White House: No H1N1 Vaccine at Guantanamo

(CBS)
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs denied today that terrorism suspects in the prison at Guantanamo Bay are receiving vaccinations for the H1N1 flu.

"There is no vaccine in Guantanamo, and there's no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo," Gibbs said during his daily press briefing.

Amid a shortage of the vaccine, the Miami Herald first reported last week that the Pentagon would offer the vaccine to the Guantanamo prisoners.

A military spokesman confirmed the report. Army Maj. James Crabtree said the vaccine would arrive at the prison this month and first go to guards. It would then be offered to inmates "entirely on a voluntary basis."

"I don't know what the Pentagon said," Gibbs said today. "I know, in asking yesterday, whether or not there was any vaccine there or whether there was any vaccine that was on its way, the answer to both those questions was no."

CBSNews.com Special Report: H1N1

Gibbs added that the White House did not stop the Pentagon from shipping the vaccine to the prison -- "there wasn't any there, and there wasn't any on the way," he said.

Only 28 million doses of vaccine were available by the end of the October, rather than the expected 40 million doses, presidential adviser David Axelrod said on CBS Nrews' Face the Nation.

"We will have all the vaccine we need in very order," Axelrod said.

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Tags:
H1N1 ,
Robert Gibbs ,
flu ,
Guantanamo Bay
Topics:
H1N1
October 20, 2009 1:13 PM

New Ad Calls for GITMO Closure

Updated 5:39 p.m. ET

A former Congressman has joined with two retired generals and an Iraq war veteran in a push to pressure lawmakers to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility. The group is calling upon Congress to "ignore the scare tactics" of former vice president Dick Cheney, who they accuse of leading "a concerted right-wing smear campaign" against closure of the facility.

On Tuesday the group, called "The National Campaign to Close Guantanamo," released a 30-second ad which you can see at left. The spot will run on national television for a week at a cost of $100,000; it urges viewers to sign an open letter to Congress lobbying for the shutdown of the facility.

"President Obama said we should close it," a narrator says in the ad. "Colin Powell agrees. But Congress stands in the way, continuing to follow the failed Bush/Cheney policies."

President Obama promised to close the facility within a year of taking office, but there are questions about whether that deadline will be met amid opposition from lawmakers concerned about the transfer of detainees to prisons on U.S. soil. Though House Democrats recently blocked a Republican effort to outlaw the transfer of Gitmo detainees to the U.S., members of both parties, fearing political repercussions, have been skittish about detainees coming to their states and districts.

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Tags:
Guantanamo Bay ,
detainees ,
terrorism ,
Dick Cheney ,
Congress
Topics:
Guantanamo Bay
September 30, 2009 11:48 AM

Cheneys Offering "Nonsense" On Gitmo, Generals Say

(CBS)
A group of retired generals say that former Vice President Dick Cheney and his "acolytes," including daughter Liz Cheney (left), are trying to scare Americans over the prospect of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison facility through "nonsense" arguments, Politico reports.

"It's up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they're doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed," retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen told Politico.

Added retired Gen. David Maddox: "Some of the fear issues that are being raised in this are really unfortunate. It gets people excited about things they shouldn't be excited about and impedes doing what is critical to this country…We take a setback every time somebody, whether it's the vice president or his daughter comes out and says the things that they say."

In June, Liz Cheney said on CNN that "it's clear that al-Quaeda operatives and terrorists have spent a lot of time and have expended a lot of effort to get into the United States. So I think it's impossible to argue that when our government actually helps them get into the United States, as we would do in this case, that it doesn't make us less safe. Of course that makes us less safe."

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Tags:
Dick Cheney ,
Liz Cheney ,
Gitmo ,
Guantanamo Bay
Topics:
Guantanamo
August 6, 2009 3:33 PM

W.H. Striving to Meet Gitmo Goal, But Challenges Remain

(CSIS)
In a rare public speech, President Obama's top adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism said that fulfilling the President's promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is the one of the "most challenging issues" that the administration is dealing with.

"Because there are so many different dimensions to this. In terms of prosecutions, whether it's under article three or military commission or transfers or releases or preventative detentions or whatever," John Brennan said in response to a question at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It is our full intention to close down Guantanamo Bay per the president's direction. And we are doing everything possible that we are able to meet that directive and meet that deadline."

When pressed about the difficulty in meeting the January 2010 deadline for closing the prison, Brennan seemed to suggest that the meeting that goal could come down to the wire.

"I don't have a crystal ball that I can say with certainty because at this point, it is unknowable exactly how many people will be transferred in the next week, month, several months and what the conditions on the ground will be on 1 January and 21 January," said Brennan. "What I'm saying to you as a fact, is that everybody is doing everything possible within the administration to realize the president's goal."

He added that he hopes Congress will work with the administration to bring justice to the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and that those responsible for the attacks will be brought to trial.

Robert Hendin is a CBS News White House producer. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here.
Tags:
Guantanamo ,
John Brennan
Topics:
Guantanamo Bay
July 20, 2009 9:05 PM

Task Forces on Gitmo Detainees: We Need More Time

(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
The task force created by President Obama to establish a way forward for the detainees at the U.S.'s military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba issued a preliminary report Monday night and asked the president for another six months in which to complete its work.

The Detention Policy Task Force is co-chaired by the attorney general and the secretary of defense and includes high-level representatives from the State Department, CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It's essentially charged with deciding whether to transfer the prisoners to countries willing to accept them or to prosecute them, although the Obama administration has complicated matters by proposing alternative pathways of prosecution (U.S. courts for some, military tribunals for others) and has kept open the option of continuing to detain those it doesn't feel it can convict.

White House officials briefed reporters on the developments Monday evening. According to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, officials said that of the 240 detainees at Guantanamo as of Jan. 22, "substantially more than 50” decisions have been made to transfer detainees to other countries.

Officials said that a “significant number of decisions” have been made to subject other detainees to prosecution, Knoller reported, but officials would not provide more specific numbers.

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Tags:
guantanamo ,
gitmo ,
detainees ,
torture ,
terrorism
Topics:
Guantanamo Bay
June 26, 2009 2:08 PM

Washington Unplugged: German Ally Looks To Europe Before U.S.

Germany has maintained strong relations with the United States, an expert said today on Washington Unplugged, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel will likely put the priorities of the European Union ahead of the United States on issues like dealing with prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and climate change.

Merkel made a great effort with former President George W. Bush to maintain good relations, said Gerry Livingston of the American Institute For Contemporary Germany Studies. President Obama's great popularity in Germany, however, makes that a lot easier.

While Merkel and Mr. Obama were largely in agreement on issues they discussed today at the White House, Livingston said Merkel will not have the final say on whether Germany will accept any Guantanamo Bay prisoners within its boundaries.

"The (German) executive branch does not have as much power relative in foreign policy as the American president does," he says. "Every troop increase in Afghanistan -- the parliament has to approve that."

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Tags:
Washington Unplugged ,
Angela Merkel ,
Barack Obama ,
Germany ,
Guantanamo ,
climate change
Topics:
Washington Unplugged
June 21, 2009 11:50 AM

Arizona Senator: No Detainees In My Backyard, Either

Sen. John McCain said that although the harsh treatment of detainees has ended at Guantanamo Bay, the American military prison has become a symbol regardless of how detainees are currently treated. "The harsh treatment stopped a long time ago, but it is still a symbol," he said on Face the Nation.

McCain said that, having set a target date during his earliest days in office to close the prison, President Obama has failed to formulate a comprehensive policy for dealing with those held there.

"Because of the damage that's been done by 'We didn't have a comprehensive package,' you have quite a selling job," he said. "Right now without a policy, I would not support sending them to the United States, either."

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Tags:
Face The Nation ,
Guantanamo ,
John McCain
Topics:
Face The Nation
June 18, 2009 12:26 PM

Bush Defends Gitmo, Knocks Health Care Plans

(AP/Keith Srakocic)
Former President George W. Bush on Wednesday took aim at President Obama's health care goals and economic agenda, praising the free market, according to reports. The former president, speaking at a local business meeting in Pennsylvania, also defended his administration's controversial interrogation policies.

"The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again," Mr. Bush said, according to the Washington Times.

The former president said he would not directly criticize Mr. Obama -- an assertion he has made before -- but he had some choice words with respect to Mr. Obama's plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

"I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor," he said. "I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that -- persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind."

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Tags:
George Bush ,
Barack Obama ,
Guantanamo ,
health care
Topics:
George Bush

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