Holder: Guantanamo Detainee Decision Soon
Attorney General Eric Holder (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
Attorney General Eric Holder says the Obama administration's January deadline for closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba will be tough to meet. But he tells NPR that a decision on which detainees will stand trial and what kind of court they will face will be made in the coming month.
In an interview Thursday with All Things Considered host Robert Siegel, Holder says the possibility of closing Guantanamo by Jan. 22 "still exists, but it will be difficult to meet that deadline.
"We continue to make great progress with the work we're doing, and the task forces that are looking at the people who are still housed there, and to make the determinations as to who can be transferred and who will be prosecuted," he says.
Those decisions and the decision on whether terrorism suspects would stand trial before civilian courts or military tribunals "will be made by the middle of November," Holder says.
During President George W. Bush's administration, nearly 800 prisoners were swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, and ordered held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. More than 220 are still in detention.
(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
What to do with those detainees has become a thorny problem for the White House. Other nations have been reluctant to take them in, and some lawmakers have sought to prevent their incarceration in the mainland U.S. prison system.
"Some of the concerns that have been expressed by at least some in Congress seem illogical to me," Holder says.
"We have in our prison system now people who are terrorists, people who are unbelievably bad criminals — and they are no threat to the surrounding community," he adds.
Later Thursday, House Democrats handed the administration a partial victory by beating back a Republican bid to block the transfer of any prisoners to U.S. soil for trial.
Asked whether a detainee who had been repeatedly subjected to harsh interrogation techniques — such as simulated drowning, commonly known as waterboarding — could receive a fair trial, Holder says it is possible.
"I think you can have a fair trial," he said. "We have trials that occur all the time in which police conduct is called into question, where ultimately a trial is made fair as a result of the evidentiary rules that we apply."
Although no determination has been made regarding where trials of terrorism suspects might take place, Holder says the Justice Department is "actively engaged in that process, and we hope that relatively soon we will be able to safely hold those trials."
He says that regardless of venue, the conditions for defendants would be "consistent with the Geneva Convention."
Holder also touched on the subject of the lengthy appointment process for U.S. attorneys — of 93, only 30 have been nominated and 17 confirmed so far, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Holder says accusations of politicized hiring procedures during the Bush years were one reason he was being cautious. He says he wants "to get this right" so that the attorneys will be in a position to "enforce the law in an impartial, nonpolitical way."
The attorney general says that 60 to 65 candidates had either been nominated or were being vetted, and that he hoped the process could be finished by the first part of next year.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, host
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
We begin now with my conversation with Eric Holder, the attorney general of the United States. One of the thorniest issues Holder now faces is expediting the closure of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Thorny, because President Obama promised to close the widely criticized facility by January. Holder must figure out what to do with the hundreds of detainees who remain there.
Today, the House of Representatives voted to remove one of many obstacles in the way of that goal. It voted to allow foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo to be tried in the United States. Earlier today, I spoke with Attorney General Holder in his office about that and other matters.
Attorney General Holder, welcome to the program.
Mr. ERIC HOLDER (Attorney General): Well, thanks for having me.
SIEGEL: And, first, Guantanamo. Now, you've acknowledged that it'll be difficult to make good on closing the facility by January 22nd. That's within a year of President Obama's executive order. Being realistic, is it going to be difficult or is it frankly impossible to do it by January 22nd?
Mr. HOLDER: I'd say it's difficult. We continue to make, I think, great progress with regard to the work that we're doing and the taskforces that are looking at the people who are still housed there, making determinations as to who can be transferred, who will be prosecuted. We expect to make determinations about these prosecutive decisions, whether they go into Article III courts or into military commissions by the middle of November. So, I think the possibility still exists, but I think it will be difficult to meet that deadline.
SIEGEL: You say by the middle of November you'll decide what kinds of courts people who are to be tried will go to. But have you already decided who is to be tried, who is to be released, who is to be transferred?
Mr. HOLDER: Well, that process continues. We've made a lot of progress looking at that original group of about 240 people. The number of people still - where determinations still are to be made is substantially lower than it was. And we will have all of those decisions made, I think, by the middle of November.
SIEGEL: By the middle of November. One of the questions is where detainees who are to be transferred or released are to be transferred or released to. Can you explain why other countries, why third countries should accept detainees if the United States isn't willing to accept them?
Mr. HOLDER: Well, I think that our allies, those nations who have decided to accept detainees understand that closing Guantanamo will ultimately make them safer as it will make us safer. Guantanamo is a chief recruiting tool for al-Qaida. It has put a wedge between the United States and at least some of its allies. And I think they understand that by helping us in this closure process, they will lessen the possibility that they themselves will come under attack.
SIEGEL: But you're saying it makes them safer just as it makes us safer. What about us? I mean, is the United States willing to accept these people? Why have you run into so much opposition to resettling these people in the United States, reincarcerating them somewhere in the United States?
Mr. HOLDER: Yeah, I mean, we have to deal with these restrictions that Congress has placed on our supplemental budgets. There are restrictions that are at least being considered now. Some of the concerns that have been expressed by at least some in Congress seem illogical to me, a concern that we will not, for instance, have an ability to bring people to this country, detain them so that they can be tried. We have in our prison system now people who are terrorists, people who are unbelievably bad criminals, who we have had an ability to keep in prison, to try, and with no threats to the communities that surround the places where those trials have occurred.
SIEGEL: But do you regard that as now a restriction on what you can do? As you understand it, could you actually not bring people into the U.S. to be detained for trial because of congressional restrictions? Or would it merely provoke criticism in Congress if you did that?
Mr. HOLDER: Well, I think it's an ongoing process. I think there are some in Congress who probably do not want us to be able to bring them into the United States. I think that once we have made our case and we've had a full discussion about this issue that we will ultimately be in a position that the administration is comfortable with.
SIEGEL: Have you chosen a facility yet where if there's to be a trial or multiple trials in U.S. criminal courts, where those trials will be held in the U.S.?
Mr. HOLDER: No. That determination has not been made yet, but we are actively engaged in that process and our hope would be that relatively soon, in a relatively short period of time we'll be able to announce where we think we can safely hold those trials, safely detain people pending trials, whether they be military commissions or Article III courts.
SIEGEL: Did you assume it would be under special security circumstances and different from an ordinary federal courthouse?
Mr. HOLDER: Well, we're going to have to obviously make sure that the place where these people are detained is consistent with the Geneva Convention and that's different from the way in which ordinary prisoners are housed. We also have safety concerns that we will obviously follow. We're going to do whatever it is that we have to do to protect the American people, protect the communities in which these proceedings might occur and also do it in a way that's consistent with our international obligations.
SIEGEL: In the case of, say, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, perhaps the most notorious of the detainees, can you imagine a trial that is fair of someone who was waterboarded 183 times during his interrogation? Can there be a fair criminal proceeding of a person who's been treated that way in custody?
Mr. HOLDER: Oh, sure, I think you can have a fair trial. A judge will have to look at - a military commissioner would have to look at the way in which he has been treated during the course of his confinement. Decisions can be made to exclude evidence if that were something a judge thought was appropriate. We have trials that occur all the time in which police conduct is called into question, where ultimately a trial is made fair as a result of the evidentiary rules that we apply.
SIEGEL: But can you think of any criminal trial you're familiar with where the abusive police behavior was comparable to 183 waterboardings of a suspect?
Mr. HOLDER: Well, waterboarding is not something I was necessarily familiar with until, you know, I became attorney general shortly before - sometime before that. So I'm not familiar with that technique. But I am familiar with a variety of things over time — practices, perhaps, that have been outlawed now that were used. The question will ultimately be, you know, can we produce a trial that is fair, use evidence that was reliably obtained? And it may be that there are things other than the words of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or some other defendant that will be ultimately dispositive in the determination of guilt or innocence.
SIEGEL: I want to take you back for a moment to a speech that you gave when you described the U.S. as a nation of cowards when it comes to talking about race. This generated many, many blogs, some of them very critical. A lot of people said, yeah, there are other countries that are not cowardly when it comes to talking about race, on the other hand, they haven't elected a black president or had black secretaries of State, black attorneys general, black supervisors at the office. Maybe you were selling the U.S. short. Any regrets?
Mr. HOLDER: No, not really. I mean, I think people need to look at that speech in its entirety. It was a very hopeful speech. It talked about some deficiencies that I noted in our country. I might've chosen different words.
SIEGEL: You mean on the coward? Coward was the word you might rethink?
Mr. HOLDER: Yeah, I might've said, you know, we were reluctant to, as opposed to cowards. But I stand by what I said in the speech. And that is that, you know, this is a country that has been afflicted with racial issues for much of its history. We have a coming demographic change that's going to make us more diverse than we ever have been. And unless we are willing to talk with one another in an open way about these kinds of issues, this coming diversity might be a negative when it should be a very positive thing for our nation.
SIEGEL: But so if you had to choose that one phrase again, you think that we are reluctant when it comes to talking about race might have been a word you would go with today?
Mr. HOLDER: Yeah, I might've changed that word and saved the bloggers a lot of ink.
SIEGEL: Well, Attorney General Eric Holder, thank you very much for talking with us today.
Mr. HOLDER: Thanks for having me.
SIEGEL: And yes, we know blogs do not consume ink, unless of course your staff prints them out. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
