Gonzales Blames Legal Challenges For Five Year Delay In Bringing Gitmo Detainees To Trial

[underpants]

Darn that pesky Bill of Rights :grr:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/16/gonzales-gitmo/

The track record of the Guantanamo detention program “can be summed up quite simply: five years, zero convictions.” More than 770 captives have been held there and just 10 have been charged with crimes.

But in an interview today with the Associated Press, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “blamed delays in trying terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay on legal challenges filed by their lawyers“:

“It’s not for lack of trying,” Gonzales said, when asked about the legal fate of detainees who have been held at the military facility, in some cases for five years. “We are challenged every step of the way.”

“We are trying as hard as we can to bring these individuals to justice,” he said.

The administration has been challenged because they have been operating under a shadow system of justice. During past hearings, the government “called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men…were ‘enemy combatants.’” The Supreme Court rejected these tribunals because they “were neither authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity, and ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions.”

If President Bush had simply followed the law, these trials could have happened years ago.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. They would have happened, yes - but they would have been *fair* and *legal* trials

not the kangaroo-court trials ending in sentences of execution on a "we assume you are guilty since you are here" basis.

[annabanana]

2. It's true.. he would have hung them all years ago. . . . . .n/t

[TahitiNut]

9. Then they would have been hanged.

:silly:

[leesa]

3. So he's pretending the lawyers stopped him from charging the detainees

with a crime?!? Not likely.

[thunder35]

4. Look where Bush is from

What he has done to people in texas

[underpants]

6. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[Arkansas Granny]

5. So it's all the fault of those individuals who insist on holding the

government responsible for obeying the law. What kind of twisted logic is that?

[underpants]

8. It's complete BS

The "not for a lack of trying" is just sad. They are pleading effort now?

[spanone]

7. If bush* and gonzooles had their way, they hang till their heads popped off.

No trial, none of that legal mumbo jumbo from the courts.

Sadistic bastards. Watch how bush* clings to the law and the scores of lawyers he'll have to bring to court should he ever have to bear responsibility for his killing fields.