WP,pg1:Decision to Move Detainees Resolved 2-Yr Debate Among Bush Advisers

[DeepModem Mom]

Decision to Move Detainees Resolved Two-Year Debate Among Bush Advisers
By Dafna Linzer and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 8, 2006; Page A01

Shackled and hooded, 14 men in secret CIA custody were gathered one by one from locations across the world last weekend and flown to a rallying point to await one more flight. For some of the prisoners, it was their third or fourth journey to yet another unknown destination since President Bush approved a covert plan for them to disappear into CIA facilities hidden throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.

On Sunday night, the men -- three Pakistanis, two Yemenis, two Saudis, two Malaysians, a Palestinian, a Libyan, a Somali, an Indonesian and a Tanzanian -- were sedated and placed together onto a flight to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They arrived Labor Day morning, an unusually quiet time at the Pentagon-run facility.

The arrival of the prisoners, witnessed by few beyond the CIA officers accompanying them, marked the end of a five-year effort by the Bush administration to conceal as many as 100 al-Qaeda suspects from the world and to shield the agency's interrogation tactics and facilities from public scrutiny. It was also the result of nearly two years of debate within the Bush White House, touched off by a personal plea from British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the release of British citizens in U.S. custody.

The debate divided the president's key advisers and kept open the CIA's "black sites" until President Bush himself, under the advice of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ordered the facilities emptied for now, and possibly for good.

In a series of interviews, often on the condition of anonymity, key players from throughout the administration agreed to discuss events that led to the unraveling of one of the president's most controversial programs. Drawing on recollections and portions of personal notes, officials said major factors that pushed the president toward Wednesday's announcement were demands from allies to close sites down, an increased urgency from the CIA to find a longer-term solution to detentions and an appeal from Rice to Bush to consider the administration's legacy....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701582.html

[The Wielding Truth]

1. How can any of these actions be legal and /or ethical?

World court should preside if we can not.How can we distinguish ourselves from the evil, that we are trying to extinguish when laws made for this purpose are ignored? If we have no moral code, we are no better.

[Purveyor]

2. We no longer have any "moral" high ground on which to stand,.

If fate/karma engages, we people of this land called the United States have much to fear.