Former USS Cole commander slams Obama on Guantanamo

[Sea Demon]

http://dailyme.com/story/2009013000007502/

And so do I. This is a shameful act and is purely political. Somebody in Washington needs to tell Mr. Obama that this didn't play too well with the American people. Nor does this spending "stimulus" bill for that matter.......

MIAMI _ The former commander of the USS Cole, the American war ship that was struck by a suicide boat in Yemeni waters more than eight years ago, on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama's orders to close the Guantanamo detention center and reassess the prisoners being held there. "We shouldn't make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups," retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kurt Lippold said in a telephone interview. "We should consider what is best for the American people, which is not to jeopardize those who are fighting the war on terror _ or even more adversely impact the families who have already suffered losses as a result of the war."



Lippold was responding to the decision by a U.S. military judge in Guantanamo to reject a request by Pentagon lawyers to delay next week's scheduled arraignment of Abd el-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian who is charged with helping orchestrate the October 2000 suicide bombing of the Cole. The bombing killed 17 U.S. sailors.
In his ruling, the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, said a delay in Nashiri's arraignment would deny the public's interest in a speedy trial. He also said nothing that took place at the arraignment would prevent the Obama administration from deciding to deal with Nashiri in a forum other than the military commission now set to hear his case.
Soon after becoming president, Obama ordered the Pentagon to request delays in all trials pending at Guantanamo for 120 days so that his administration could study the cases against each of the 250 or so men held as suspected terrorists and decide how to proceed in each case. Obama and his appointee to be the Pentagon's top legal officer have said they favor trials in civilian courts for terrorism suspects, if possible.
Other military judges granted the delay, including in the case of five men charged with plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Family members of the 9/11 victims who were in Guantanamo to witness proceedings in that case expressed outrage at the decision.
On Thursday, Lippold called Pohl's decision "a victory for the 17 families of the sailors who lost their lives on the USS Cole over eight years ago."
The decision, however, stunned officials at the Department of Defense and White House, which had just begun to grapple with Obama's order to freeze the war court and empty the detention center within a year.
"The Department of Defense is currently reviewing Judge Pohl's ruling," said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon. "We will be in compliance with the president's orders regarding Guantanamo."
Nashiri's Pentagon-appointed defense lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes, said the prosecutor could still dismiss the charges against his client to comply with the president's request for a freeze. The charges could later be reinstated.
"The only way they can give effect to the president's order is by dismissing the charges," Reyes said. But Lippold also denounced suggestions that the Pentagon official who oversees the Guantanamo legal cases, Susan J. Crawford, could withdraw the charges, without prejudice, which would allow them to be reinstituted later, should the administration want.