PrairiePundit

Sharyl Attkisson interviews doctor who got Khalid Sheik Mohammad to tell about mass murder plots al Qaeda was planning.

AP/Miami Herald: A new book says Justice Department prosecutors were stunned to learn three years ago that the U.S. military had secretly recorded incriminating comments by alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed to fellow detainees during daily prison yard conversations but was not planning to use them at military tribunals. In “Kill or Capture: The War On Terror And The Soul Of The Obama Presidency,” journalist Daniel Klaidman says Mohammed was caught on tape boasting to other detainees about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States. According to the book, Mohammed mentioned specific pieces of evidence, documents and computer files that could be tied directly to him through his voluntary statements to other detainees at the military detention facility in Guantánamo Bay. Justice prosecutors were surprised because civilian prosecutors regularly use the jailhouse statements of inmates against them at trial and because the statements, voluntarily uttered, w...

NY Post: In the end, it was the prospect of a nap that made 9/11 terror mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed sing like a canary.  “Even with waterboarding, he was counting on his fingers, because he knew we would stop at 10, so he wasn’t terribly intimidated by that,” ex-CIA official José Rodriguez Jr., told The Post.  “It was the sleep deprivation that finally got him.”  Still, the man described as the Hannibal Lecter of al Qaeda wasn’t easy to crack. It took two weeks to break him after he was nabbed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003 and quickly squirreled away to a secret CIA prison called a “black site.”  CIA officers started on him slowly, asking the Kuwaiti-born terrorist if he planned to cooperate.  He chanted Koranic verses in defiance.  He was asked about Osama bin Laden.  No answer.  He was asked about future terror plots.  “Soon you will know.” The answer cast a pall on the room....

The Daily Mail reports on a book that claims to be the inside story on the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.  The story does have at least one factual error.  It claims that Mohammad was water boarded at Gitmo, but the enhanced interrogation happened well before he was shipped to the island prison.

Image via Wikipedia Washington Times: The Obama administration, under fire for saying it would bring the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington to trial in federal court, has changed its mind and will take the suspected terrorist before a military tribunal. The retreat was reluctantly announced Monday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., who started the controversy in November 2009 when he said Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four cohorts — Waleed bin Attash , Ramzi Binalshibh , Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali — would be tried in civilian court in New York as part of administration efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “Had this case proceeded in Manhattan or in an alternative venue in the United States, as I seriously explored in the past year, I am confident our justice system would have performed with the same distinction that has been its hallmark for over two hundred years,” Mr. Holder said Monday. ...

BBC: A message said to be from Osama Bin Laden threatens to kill Americans if the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks is executed by the US. Al-Jazeera news channel broadcast an audiotape reportedly from the al-Qaeda leader talking about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects. The tape said that if the US made the decision to execute, al-Qaeda would also "execute" anyone it captured. ... The taped message said: "The White House has declared its wish to execute (Mr Mohammed and the other suspects). The day the United States takes such a decision, it would be also taking the decision that any of you falling into our hands will be executed." ... Isn't that what al Qaeda already does. Don't they like to have videos of their grisly executions? In fact didn't KSM kill a Wall Street Journal reporter by beheading him on video. That reporter has killed no one, but KSM has engaged in mass murder of Americans already. The threat is therefore ...

Washington Times: Civil liberties groups are reacting angrily to reports that President Obama could reverse his administration's stance and try the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in a military tribunal -- a move that would leave many of his staunchest allies out on a limb. Top supporters like Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Richard Durbin of Illinois -- both of whom have vehemently defended Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.s decision to try suspected al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal court -- said they would wait for an official announcement from the White House before weighing in. But advocacy groups are fuming over a report in the Washington Post that advisers to Mr. Obama want him to do an about-face and prosecute Mohammed in a military commission. America's enemies "certainly should be delighted with what appears to be great confusion, great ambiguity and inability to address the issue, so they should feel they are making progress if ...

NY Times: The Bloomberg administration has placed the price for security operations for the trials of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other terrorism suspects connected to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, at more than $200 million a year, which would make it by far the costliest security operation for a single event in the city in recent memory. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg outlined the city’s projected security expenses in a two-page letter that was sent on Tuesday to Peter R. Orszag , the director of the federal Office of Management and Budget . The letter, which seeks federal reimbursement for the full costs of providing security for the trials, was released by City Hall officials on Wednesday. In the letter, the mayor said the cost for security operations would be $216 million for the first year and $206 million per year in subsequent years. Much of the expense — about $200 million each year — would be for personnel, the mayor wrote. ... Talk about an Obama scre...

Gallup: By 59% to 36%, more Americans believe accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in a military court, rather than in a civilian criminal court. Most Republicans and independents favor holding the trial in a military court, while the slight majority of Democrats disagree. ... This is yet another issue on which the Democrats are on the wrong side. If this trial actually starts in 2010 it will be another remainder to voters of how out of touch liberal Democrats are.

AFP: Almost two-thirds of Americans disagree with the decision by President Barack Obama's administration to try the suspected 9/11 mastermind in a civilian court, a poll showed Monday. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in a military court, while only 34 percent agreed with Obama that the civilian judicial system was the best way forward, the CNN poll said. ... Seventy-eight percent of those polled said they thought he should be executed if found guilty, almost a quarter of whom said they didn't normally support capital punishment. ... I could not find any mention of this poll on the CNN web site as of the time of this posting. That seems strange to me since it covers such a hot topic. I don't think they asked if the move was double dog dumb, but they got the kind of results I would have expected anyway. The Obama administration's return to the failed lawfare policies of the past was a huge mistake and it will become eve...

William McGurn: When it comes to terrorists, you would think that an al Qaeda operative who targets an American mom sitting in her office or a child on a flight back home is many degrees worse than a Taliban soldier picked up after a firefight with U.S. Army troops. Your instinct would be correct, because at the heart of terrorism is the monstrous idea that the former is as legitimate a target as the latter. Unfortunately, by dispatching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda leaders to federal criminal court for trial, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be undermining this distinction. And the perverse message that decision will send to terrorists all over this dangerous world is this: If you kill civilians on American soil you will have greater protections than if you attack our military overseas. "A fundamental purpose of rules such as the Geneva Conventions is to give those at war an incentive for more civilized behavior—and not targeting civilians is arguably the mos...

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: As he flew to Asia on Saturday, President Obama told the media in Alaska that he opposes a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood massacre, saying that we must "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into political theater." Yet, even as he was posturing against political theatrics, he had just decided that the prosecution of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would proceed on the greatest of public stages -- New York City. With the strict evidentiary rules in force in federal civilian courts, it is easy to see how the prosecution of Mohammed could morph into an indictment of the Bush administration's interrogation techniques and waterboarding. As in rape trials, the magnitude of the underlying crime (masterminding the 9/11 attacks) might well be lost as the defense puts the victim (in this case, the government) on trial. It is not political theater itself to which Obama objects -- but theater that highlights issues...

John Yoo: 'This is a prosecutorial decision as well as a national security decision," President Barack Obama said last week about the attorney general's announcement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other al Qaeda operatives will be put on trial in New York City federal court. No, it is not. It is a presidential decision—one about the hard, ever-present trade-off between civil liberties and national security. Trying KSM in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda and the hostile nations that will view the U.S. intelligence methods and sources that such a trial will reveal. The proceedings will tie up judges for years on issues best left to the president and Congress. Whether a jury ultimately convicts KSM and his fellows, or sentences them to death, is beside the point. The treatment of the 9/11 attacks as a criminal matter rather than as an act of war will cripple American efforts to fight terrorism. It is in effect a declaration that this nation is n...

NY Times: Not long after he was rousted from bed and seized in a predawn raid in Pakistan in March 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed gave his captors two demands: He wanted a lawyer, and he wanted to be taken to New York. ... He will be the most senior leader of Al Qaeda to date held to account for the mass murder of nearly 3,000 Americans, facing trial in Manhattan while his boss, Osama bin Laden , continues to elude a worldwide dragnet. Yet the boastful, calculating and fiercely independent Mr. Mohammed has never neatly fit the mold of Qaeda chieftain. He has little use for the high-minded moralizing of some of his associates, and for years before the Sept. 11 attacks, he refused to swear an oath of loyalty to Mr. bin Laden — figuring that if the Qaeda leader canceled the Sept. 11 plot, he would not have to obey the order. ... He may use it as a forum to preach his weird beliefs. But what is really weird is that this administration turned down his guilty plea in the military commission...

Kris Kobach: ... The five main problems: * Military commissions are the appropriate venue for trials of unlawful combatant. The US military seized these terrorists on foreign battlefields -- and so didn't read them Miranda rights. The evidence against them was collected by soldiers under war-fighting conditions -- not with sterile gloves and clear plastic bags. And much of the best evidence against them is classified, because making it public would compromise the sources and methods of US intelligence gathering. In short, these cases do not fit the mold of a typical murder trial in a civilian court. Military commissions were designed for this purpose. They provide a secure environment that allows for the introduction of classified evidence without making it public. Yet the accused still enjoys the right to an attorney, the right to make his case in full and all of the fundamental rights of due process. The commissions are also the ideal forum for trying unlawful combatants-b...

Washington Post: After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials." In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture. Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group's plans, ideology and operatives," said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified. "He'd even use a chalkboard...

Houston Chronicle: Rep. Michael McCaul called the moment chilling and eerie. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said she froze in place. And Rep. Pete Olson stared through the one-way glass, thinking, “My God, that’s the man who planned the attacks.” There he was in a stark cell at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, kneeling on a prayer rug, head bowed, wearing the white cap of faithful Muslim men worldwide. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 44, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 al-Qaida attacks on the United States, appeared thinner than in the photos taken the 2003 night of his capture in Pakistan. But from what three members of Houston’s congressional delegation observed and were told during a one-day tour of the Guantanamo Bay facility, Mohammed appeared every bit as bent on America’s destruction as the day he orchestrated the synchronized suicide attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. The lawmakers said they did not speak with Mohammed after they observ...

J.R. Dunn: The Left has developed no end of tricks to manipulate debates without the trouble of making a case or putting together an argument. Many of them have been in wide use for decades without ever being identified, much less counteracted. One example widely seen in recent weeks is a technique closely related to what the PR industry calls "rebranding": taking a group that is loathed for any number of good reasons - terrorists, criminals, druggies, what have you - and subtly reworking their image over time to present them instead as victims. One group that benefited from this style of makeover was the American criminal class. During the 1950s, research carried out by criminologists and psychologists was misinterpreted by the liberal elite to mean that criminals were not responsible for their actions, that they had been coerced into violating the law by forces beyond their control, such as poverty, lack of education, mental disorders and so on. "It's not their fau...

Edward Jay Epstein: ... According to the CIA, for example, KSM had maintained that "Yousef never divulged to him the target of the attack." The 1993 WTC bombing, therefore, appeared unrelated to the 9/11 attack--and so the 9/11 Commission had no need to investigate it, or the conspirators involved in it. In his confession, however, KSM says that he was responsible for the WTC bombing. If so, both it and 9/11 are the work of the same mastermind--and the planning, financing and support network that KSM used in the 1993 attack may be relevant to the 9/11 attack. Of especial interest are the escape routes used by Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ramzi Yousef, both of whom helped prepare the bomb and then fled America. Yasin (who is not even mentioned in the 9/11 report) came to the U.S. from Iraq in 1992, at about the same time as Yousef, and then returned to Iraq via Jordan. Despite being indicted for the World Trade Center bombing, and put on the FBI's list of the most-wanted terrori...

David Rivkin and Rich Lowry: ... U NDOUBTEDLY, the media's ideol ogical bias prompts it to be dubious about KSM's confession - for his statements powerfully rebut a favored media narrative, the notion that the Guantanamo-based detainee population is mostly comprised of "innocent shepards" wrongly swept up by the United States and its allies. This notion is pivotal to the critics' efforts to delegitimize the military-justice system that features CSRTs, military commissions and the detention in Guantanamo of captured enemy fighters for the duration of this war and their interrogation - all of which have been in play in the case of Sheik Mohammed. The news of the confession, perversely, has even become an opportunity to renew calls for the closing of Guantanamo and the use of the criminal-justice system as the exclusive venue for dealing with KSM and his al Qaeda colleagues. This is foolishness. Take the argument that, even if Sheik Mohammed is telling the truth,...