White House Splits Over Closing Gitmo

Australian who trained with al Quaeda has spent five years in custody

(NEWSER) - David Hicks became the first person convicted under President Bush's much-maligned military tribunal system after entering a surprise guilty plea to charges of providing material support to terrorists. The contentious proceedings may prove a new source of controversy, however, as the judge excluded Hicks' stwo civilian lawyers from court and shot down questions about his impartiality. More»

New defense secretary butted heads with Cheney, Gonzales

(NEWSER) - Newly appointed Defense Secretary Robert Gates pushed hard for shutting down the controversial detention center at Guantanamo Bay, but was blocked by Cheney and Gonzales, until Bush pulled the plug on the argument. Gates at least succeeded in halting a $100 million expansion of the prison he felt had become emblematic of War-on-Terror excess. More»

She recalls clashes with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush

(NEWSER) - It's time for Dick Cheney to take a little return fire from Condi Rice. Less than 2 months after his memoir described her as turning tearful during a political discussion , Condoleezza Rice has written her own book, No Higher Honor, which comes out next month, the New York Times reports. Rice recalls White House clashes and encounters with creepy foreign leaders:

• Rice argued with "ultra-hawkish" Cheney that terrorism suspects can't just be "disappeared"; President Bush agreed, and moved several from secret prisons to Guantanamo Bay.
• Rice opposed increasing troop levels in Iraq, telling Bush, "If they want to have a civil war we're going to have to let them." The president appeared pained over a war going badly, she writes.

'Enhanced' interrogation may have led to terror mastermind

(NEWSER) - Did waterboarding finally nail Osama bin Laden? Intelligence leading to the killing of the terror mastermind gleaned from prisoners, possibly during "enhanced" interrogation techniques, is reigniting debate about waterboarding. US officials learned the identity of bin Laden's key courrier from Guantanamo Bay inmates, and tracking that courrier led to bin Laden's hideout. Attorney General Eric Holder said he "didn't know" if harsh tactics were used to obtain the intelligence, notes ABC News . But former Vice President Dick Cheney said he "wouldn't be surprised" if the "enhanced interrogation" program "produced results that ultimately contributed to the success" of tracking down bin Laden. More»

New document claims releasing them was seen as 'politically impossible'

(NEWSER) - The Bush White House knew that hundreds of early Gitmo detainees were innocent, but refused to release them because the admission would weaken support for the war in Iraq, according to a new document obtained by the Times of London . The charge, by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, was made in a declaration in support of a lawsuit for a Gitmo detainee. Wilkerson claims that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees had been picked up, not by the US military, but by Afghans and Pakistanis for a bounty, and there was no evidence against them. But they saw it as "politically impossible to release them." More»