"I Was Responsible For 9/11, From 'A To Z' . . . .

. . . . and at least 30 other attacks or plots," so says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a redacted transcript the Pentagon released of his closed and secret tribunal hearing being held in Guantanamo Bay.

Night at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

After four years of torture in secret CIA prisons, Mohammed confessed to it all, from plots to kill the Pope, Jimmy Carter, beheading WSJ journalist Daniel Pearl, to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby and fathering Anna Nicole Smith's baby. Okay, I made that last part up, about the babies. But he might as well have, for all the good a confession made under torture is.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad before 9/11/01

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after 9/11/01 (after his capture during a raid in Pakistan in March, 2003)

The Pentagon posted and the Associated Press reports:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a string of others during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing, and training others for bombings ranging from the 1993 attack at the World Trade Center to the attempt by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes.

In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 29 individual attacks, including many that were never executed. The comments were included in a 26-page transcript released by the Pentagon, which also blacked out some of his remarks.

The Pentagon also released transcripts of the hearings of Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi Binalshibh.

Abu Faraj al-Libi, on May 4, 2005

Binalshibh is suspected of helping Mohammed with the Sept. 11, 2001, attack plan and is also linked to a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport. Al-Libi is a Libyan who reportedly masterminded two bombings 11 days apart in Pakistan in December 2003 that targeted President Pervez Musharraf for his support of the U.S.-led war on terror.

Ramzi Binalshibh

The hearings, which began last Friday, are being conducted in secret by the military as it tries to determine whether 14 alleged terrorist leaders should be declared "enemy combatants" who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted by military tribunals.

Hearings for six of the 14 have already been held. The military is not allowing reporters to attend the sessions and is limiting the information it provides about them, arguing that it wants to prevent sensitive information from being disclosed.

The 14 were moved in September from a secret CIA prison network to the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, where about 385 men are being held on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

For the Bush administration to release any information, much less this confession from the March 10th Combatant Status Review Tribunal, indicates (among other things) that Bush-Cheney realize that the legality of these proceedings are on shaky ground - We're about to be subjected to a major spin campaign.

[CSRTs are a one-time administrative process used to determine whether detainees at Guantanamo Bay can be designated as enemy combatants. No decisions have been made about these detainees’ (Mohammed, al-Libi and Binalshibh) status.]

The quality of any confession (and the guilt or innocence of a detainee) can only be determined through an open and independent hearing.

This confession, coming after four years of torture in CIA secret prisons, the kidnapping and interrogation of children by the CIA [by the way, where are his children?], no access to counsel, should be subjected to the fiercest scrutiny. If it's let in as evidence at all.

But for the Bush administration to release redacted evidence and edited transcripts of the proceeding shows the disdain and contempt that Bush-Cheney have for democracy and the American people.

Guantanamo Defense Lawyer Forced Out of Navy

Another casualty for America, another good and true, patriotic and Constitution-loving member of our military sacrified for continuing lies of the criminal Bush-Cheney regime.

The Seattle Times reports:

The Navy lawyer who took the Guantánamo case of Osama bin Laden's driver to the U.S. Supreme Court — and won — has been passed over for promotion by the Pentagon and must soon leave the military.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, said last week he received word he had been denied a promotion to full-blown commander this summer, "about two weeks after" the Supreme Court sided against the White House and with his client, a Yemeni captive at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

Under the military's "up-or-out" promotion system, Swift will retire in March or April, closing a 20-year career of military service.

A Pentagon appointee, Swift embraced the alleged al-Qaida's sympathizer's defense with a classic defense lawyer's zeal, casting his captive client as an innocent victim in the dungeon of King George, a startling analogy for the attorney whose commander-in-chief is President (George) Bush.

"It was a pleasure to serve," said Swift, who added that he would defend Salim Hamdan again, even if he knew he would have to leave the Navy earlier than he wanted.

"All I ever wanted was to make a difference — and in that sense, I think my career and personal satisfaction has been beyond my dreams," he said.

Swift, a Seattle University Law School graduate, also said he will continue to defend Hamdan as a civilian. The Seattle law firm of Perkins Coie, which provided pro-bono legal work in Hamdan's habeas corpus petition, has agreed to support Swift's defense of Hamdan in civilian life, he said.

Hamdan, 36, who has only a fourth-grade education, was captured along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan while fleeing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, launched in reprisal for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He admits working as bin Laden's $200-a-month driver on a Kandahar farm but said he never joined al-Qaida and never fought anyone.

Still at Guantánamo as an enemy combatant, Hamdan halted his war-crimes trial by challenging the format's constitutionality through civilian courts.

The justices ruled in June that Bush overstepped his constitutional authority by creating ad hoc military tribunals for prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, sending the Pentagon back to the drawing board for the trials.

In the end, it developed a system very similar to those struck down, setting the stage for a likely new challenge this session.

In the opinion of Washington, D.C., attorney Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, Swift was "a no-brainer for promotion," given his devotion to the Navy, the law and his client.

But, he said, Swift is part of a long line of Navy defense lawyers "of tremendous distinction" who were not made full commander and "had their careers terminated prematurely."

"He brought real credit to the Navy," said Fidell. "It's too bad that it's unrequited love."

Swift's supervisor, the Pentagon's chief defense counsel for Military Commissions, said the career Navy officer had served with distinction.

"Charlie has obviously done an exceptional job, a really extraordinary job," said Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney, calling it "quite a coincidence" that the Navy promotion board passed on promoting Swift "within two weeks of the Supreme Court opinion."

In June, the prestigious National Law Journal listed Swift among the nation's top 100 lawyers, with such legal luminaries as former Bush administration Solicitor General Theodore Olson, 66; Stanford Law constitutional-law expert Kathleen Sullivan, 50; and former Bush campaign recount attorney Fred Bartlit, 73.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, Pentagon spokesman on Guantánamo topics, did not respond to a query about the up-or-out system by which Navy lieutenant commanders are retired if they aren't promoted.

Is there any doubt that had Swift not done "an exceptional job," had he thrown the case, he'd have gotten promoted?

Where do the honest and noble men and women of the U.S. military who have been forced out of service because of this president's imperial designs go to get their good names and reputations back? And what kind of a military are we left with when all that is left are those who are willing to do anything, and ignore their oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, in order to save their jobs?