Mea
Culpa Minimus
By William Fisher
19 January, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The
senior defense department official who suggested that major corporations
should stop doing business with large law firms who represent Guantanamo
Bay detainees without charge has apologized for his remarks –
but his apology has failed to satisfy some legal and human rights advocates.
The remarks were made on
a Washington, D.C. radio program on Tuesday by Charles D. “Cully”
Stimson, a deputy assistant secretary of defense and a former Navy defense
lawyer. They drew an avalanche of anger from lawyers, legal ethics specialists,
and bar association officials, who said they found his comments repellent
and displayed an ignorance of the duties of lawyers to represent people
in legal trouble.
Lawyers expressed outrage
at that, asserting that they are not being paid and that Mr. Stimson
had tried to suggest they were by innuendo. Of the approximately 500
lawyers coordinated by the Center for Constitutional Rights, no one
is being paid. One Washington law firm, Shearman & Sterling, which
has represented Kuwaiti detainees, has received money from the families
of the prisoners, but Thomas Wilner, a lawyer there, said they had donated
all of it to charities related to the September 2001 terrorist attacks.”
The Pentagon disowned Stimson’s
remarks and said they did not represent DOD policy.
Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales also disowned Stimson’s remarks. "Good lawyers representing
the detainees is the best way to ensure that justice is done in these
cases," he said.
But in a speech in Washington
on Wednesday, he said Guantanamo defense lawyers were responsible for
much of the delay in charging detainees and putting them on trial.
He was apparently referring
to the delays caused by a lawsuit brought by a Guananamo detainee, Salim
Ahmed Hamdan, against then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in
which some of the lawyers referenced by Stimson participated.
That suit resulted in the
U.S. Supreme Court last summer striking down the military commissions
President Bush established to try suspected members of al-Qaeda, emphatically
rejecting a signature Bush anti-terrorism measure and the broad assertion
of executive power upon which the president had based it. The court
ruled that the commissions, which were outlined by Bush in a military
order on Nov. 13, 2001, were neither authorized by federal law nor required
by military necessity, and ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions.
Congress then passed the
Military Commissions Act (MCA), which is also being challenged in the
courts.
Yesterday, Stimson issued
an apology, published in the Washington Post newspaper.
It said, “Regrettably,
my comments left the impression that I question the integrity of those
engaged in the zealous defense of detainees in Guantanamo. I do not,"
Stimpson wrote in response to the furor over his remarks. "I apologize
for what I said and to those lawyers and law firms who are representing
clients at Guantanamo. I hope that my record of public service makes
clear that those comments do not reflect my core beliefs," he wrote.
Stimson also said he supports
pro bono work and believes the legal system works best when both sides
have competent legal counsel.
But his apology failed to
satisfy some legal and human rights advocates.
Mary Shaw of Amnesty International
USA, told us, “Stimson's apology illustrates that he recognizes
the grave unfairness of his earlier attempts to discredit the attorneys
who represent Guantanamo detainees. Everyone is entitled to due process,
including legal representation, and the prisoners at Guantanamo are
no exception. This is especially important considering that many detainees
have already been released when it was determined that they had been
wrongly imprisoned. Supposedly, one is presumed innocent until proven
guilty. Discrediting those who work to ensure justice for our prisoners
is akin to discounting the very concept of justice.”
And Michael Ratner, President
of the Center for Constitutional Rights – an advocacy group that
has been responsible for organizing much of the legal representation
for Guantanamo detainees -- told us, “After the outcry, what could
Stimson do except apologize? But, sadly, his remarks were part of a
policy that was approved at the highest levels. This is demonstrated
by Gonzales’s fallacious claim that the Guantanamo lawyers are
responsible for delaying the trials of Guantanamo detainees and by his
attacks on judges who have said Guantanamo detainees have rights. The
apology may quiet the waters for a moment, but the denial of fundamental
rights to detainees is still at the heart of the administration’s
practices.”
The controversy appears to
have been triggered when a conservative radio talk show host, Monica
Crowley, filed a request under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act for
the names of all law firms representing Guantanamo detainees. The information
she received contained the names of 14 prominent law firms, 12 of which
were named by Stimson in his radio interview.
Stimson said, "I think
the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the
next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA request through
a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers
around this country representing detainees down there?’ and you
know what, it’s shocking."
He then went on to say, “I
think, quite honestly, when corporate C.E.O.’s see that those
firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line
back in 2001, those C.E.O.’s are going to make those law firms
choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms,
and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks.
And we want to watch that play out.”
When asked in the radio interview
who was paying for the legal representation, Stimson replied: “It’s
not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the
goodness of their heart, that they’re doing it pro bono, and I
suspect they are; others are receiving moneys from who knows where,
and I’d be curious to have them explain that.”
The outcry from legal experts
and civil and human rights organizations was swift. Four law organizations
said in a letter to president Bush that Stimson should be fired for
remarks that were aimed at "chilling the willingness" of lawyers
to represent Guantanamo detainees.
"The threats by Mr.
Stimson are not subtle. They imply these pro bono lawyers are terrorists,"
read the letter signed by the American Association of Jurists, the International
Association of Democratic Lawyers, the National Lawyers Guild and the
Society of American Law Teachers.
Stimson's remarks were aimed
at "chilling the willingness" of lawyers to represent Guantanamo
detainees and were contrary to the "bedrock principles" of
the right to counsel and the presumption on innocence, the letter read.
Secretary Stimson should
be fired immediately, said George Washington University law school Prof.
Jonathan Turley, appearing on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown”
TV show. He asked rhetorically, “What does it take to get someone
fired in the Bush Administration?”
But Stimson’s remarks
were supported in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. In a editorial
by Robert L. Pollock, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board,
quoted an unnamed “senior U.S. official” as saying, “Corporate
C.E.O.’s seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative
retainers and representing terrorists.”
This is not the first time
US military officials have criticized Guantanano defense lawyers. In
March of last year, Col. Moe Davis, chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo
tribunals, told journalists that several major law firms that have defense
contractors as paying clients are providing pro bono lawyers to defend
Guantanamo detainees in habeas petitions.
"It's somewhat ironic
that the weaponry that we use in the war on terrorism is helping fund
the defense of the alleged terrorists," Davis said at the time.
About 50 U.S. federal public
defenders are also representing Guantanamo detainees, pro bono, in habeas
corpus petitions.
About 395 prisoners remain
at the Guantanamo prison camp, suspected of al Qaeda and Taliban links.
More than 770 captives have been held at the facility which opened five
years ago, soon after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in response
to the September 11 attacks. Only 10 detainees have charged with crimes.
In the environment created
by fear of further terrorist attacks, the question of whether Secretary
Stimson’s apology is sufficient is academic. His point of view
continues to reflect the Bush Administration’s attitude toward
the rule of law and the centrality of due process – even for accused
terrorists.
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