By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, almost all of it from foreign companies, according to financial documents filed by his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that $4.6 million of the former president's reported $5.7 million in 2008 honoraria came from foreign sources, including Kuwait's national bank, other firms and groups in Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Portugal and a Hong Kong-based company that spent $100,000 on federal lobbying last year.
Executives at many of the firms that paid honoraria to Bill Clinton have also donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation, according to documents it released last year as part of an agreement with Congress on Hillary Clinton's nomination as secretary of state. That agreement was aimed at preventing the appearance of any conflict of interest between the ex-president's charitable organization and his wife's new job as the United States' top diplomat.
In addition to Bill Clinton's income from speaking fees, Hillary Clinton reported joint holdings of between $6.1 million and $30.3 million in a blind trust as well as cash, insurance and retirement accounts worth between $1 million and $5.2 million.
Hillary Clinton made between $50,000 and $100,000 in royalties from her 2003 memoir "Living History." Bill Clinton earned between $100,000 and $1 million in royalties for his 2004 autobiography "My Life," the documents show. The Clintons reported no liabilities.
All senior officials in the Obama administration are required to complete a detailed disclosure of their personal finances, including spouse and children, which is updated yearly.
The two men selected to serve as Hillary Clinton's deputy secretaries of state, Jacob Lew and James Steinberg, also filed financial disclosure forms.
Lew, a former Clinton administration official who recently headed Citigroup's Alternative Investments unit, reported 2008 salary income of just over $1 million along with numerous investments, including between $50,000 and $100,000 in State of Israel bonds.
Steinberg, another former Clinton administration official who recently was a professor at the University of Texas, reported receiving $35,000 in 2008 for foreign speaking engagements, including three before Japanese media firms and one before the Confederation of Indian Industries in New Delhi.
The most Bill Clinton got from a foreign source was $1.25 million for appearing at five events sponsored by the Toronto-based Power Within Inc., a company that puts on motivational and training programs around North America, according to Hillary Clinton's submission.
For one Power Within speech alone, delivered in Edmonton in June 2008, Clinton was paid $525,000, the most for any single event that year. For one event, he got $200,000 and for three others he received $175,000 each, the documents show.
The Hong Kong firm, Hybrid Kinetic Automotive Holdings, paid Clinton a $300,000 honorarium on Dec. 4, 2008. Twenty five days later, on Dec. 29, a man listed as the company's chief financial officer, Jack Xi Deng, made a $25,000 cash donation to the Virginia gubernatorial campaign of Clinton confidant Terry McAuliffe, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Hong Kong firm paid at least $100,000 in 2008 to lobbyists on immigration issues.
The other foreign honoraria Bill Clinton received in 2008 are:
• $450,000 from AWD Holding AG, a German-based international financial services company.
• $350,000 from the state-owned National Bank of Kuwait. The Kuwaiti government donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the foundation's disclosure.
• $300,000 from Value Grupo Financiero SA de CV, a Mexico-based financial holding company, whose chief executive officer, Carlos Bremer Gutierrez, is one of the Clinton Foundation's leading donors. Gutierrez donated between $250,001 to $500,000 to the foundation, according to foundation's documents.
• $250,000 from Germany's Media Control Gmbh, which bills itself as the world's leading provider of entertainment data and was founded by Karlheinz Koegel, who contributed $100,001 to $250,000 to the Clinton foundation.
• $200,000 from Malaysia's Petra Equities Management on behalf of the Sekhar Foundation run by Malaysian multimillionaire Vinod Sekhar who donated between $25,001 and $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to its documents.
In addition to the foreign earnings, Bill Clinton made just over $1 million from domestic speaking engagements, including $250,000 from MSG Entertainment, $225,000 from the National Association of Home Care and Hospice, $200,000 from the United Nations Association, $175,000 from the ING North America Insurance Corp., $125,000 from the Rodman and Renshaw Capital Group and $100,000 from the Hollywood Radio and Television Society.
Sphere: Related Content
Showing posts with label Associated Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Associated Press. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
AP: Obama reverses Bush abortion-funds policy
By MATTHEW LEE and LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information — an inflammatory policy that has bounced in and out of law for the past quarter-century.
Obama's move, the latest in an aggressive first week reversing contentious Bush policies, was warmly welcomed by liberal groups and denounced by abortion rights foes.
The ban has been a political football between Democratic and Republican administrations since GOP President Ronald Reagan first adopted it 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.
"For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate."
He said the ban was unnecessarily broad and undermined family planning in developing countries.
"In the coming weeks, my administration will initiate a fresh conversation on family planning, working to find areas of common ground to best meet the needs of women and families at home and around the world," the president said.
Obama issued the presidential memorandum rescinding the Bush policy without coverage by the media, late Friday afternoon. The abortion measure is a highly emotional one for many people, and the quiet signing was in contrast to the televised coverage of Obama's announcement Wednesday on ethics rules and Thursday's signing of orders on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and banning torture in the questioning of terror suspects.
His action came one day after the 36th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.
The Bush policy had banned U.S. taxpayer money, usually in the form of Agency for International Development funds, from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion as a family planning method.
Critics have long held that the rule unfairly discriminates against the world's poor by denying U.S. aid to groups that may be involved in abortion but also work on other aspects of reproductive health care and HIV/AIDS, leading to the closure of free and low-cost rural clinics.
Supporters of the ban say that the United States still provides millions of dollars in family planning assistance around the world and that the rule prevents anti-abortion taxpayers from backing something they believe is morally wrong.
The ban has been known as the "Mexico City policy" for the city a U.S. delegation first announced it at a U.N. International Conference on Population.
Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will oversee foreign aid, had promised to do away with the rule during the presidential campaign.
Clinton said Friday evening that for seven years Bush's policy made it more difficult for women around the world to gain access to essential information and health care services. "Rather than limiting women's ability to receive reproductive health services, we should be supporting programs that help women and their partners make decisions to ensure their health and the health of their families," Clinton said.
In a related move, Obama also said he would restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). Both he and Clinton had pledged to reverse a Bush administration determination that assistance to the organization violated U.S. law known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment.
Obama, in his statement, said he looked forward to working with Congress to fulfill that promise: "By resuming funding to UNFPA, the U.S. will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries."
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, said: "The president's actions send a strong message about his leadership and his desire to support causes that will promote peace and dignity, equality for women and girls and economic development in the poorest regions of the world."
"We are confident that under the new president's direction, the U.S. will resume its leadership in promoting and protecting women's reproductive health and rights worldwide," Obaid said in a statement issued at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The Bush administration had barred U.S. money from the fund, contending that its work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. UNFPA has vehemently denied that it does.
Congress had appropriated $40 million to the UNFPA in the past budget year, but the administration had withheld the money as it had done every year since 2002.
Organizations and lawmakers that had pressed Obama to rescind the Mexico City policy were jubilant.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the move "will help save lives and empower the poorest women and families to improve their quality of life and their future."
"Today's announcement is a very powerful signal to our neighbors around the world that the United States is once again back in the business of good public policy and ideology no longer blunts our ability to save lives around the globe," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Population Action International, an advocacy group, said that the policy had "severely impacted" women's health and that the step "will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don't have access to family planning."
Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers condemned Obama's decision.
"I have long supported the Mexico City Policy and believe this administration's decision to be counter to our nation's interests," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
"Coming just one day after the 36th anniversary of the tragic Roe v. Wade decision, this presidential directive forces taxpayers to subsidize abortions overseas — something no American should be required by government to do," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., called it "morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans to promote abortion around the world."
"President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. Sphere: Related Content
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration's ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information — an inflammatory policy that has bounced in and out of law for the past quarter-century.
Obama's move, the latest in an aggressive first week reversing contentious Bush policies, was warmly welcomed by liberal groups and denounced by abortion rights foes.
The ban has been a political football between Democratic and Republican administrations since GOP President Ronald Reagan first adopted it 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.
"For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate."
He said the ban was unnecessarily broad and undermined family planning in developing countries.
"In the coming weeks, my administration will initiate a fresh conversation on family planning, working to find areas of common ground to best meet the needs of women and families at home and around the world," the president said.
Obama issued the presidential memorandum rescinding the Bush policy without coverage by the media, late Friday afternoon. The abortion measure is a highly emotional one for many people, and the quiet signing was in contrast to the televised coverage of Obama's announcement Wednesday on ethics rules and Thursday's signing of orders on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and banning torture in the questioning of terror suspects.
His action came one day after the 36th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion.
The Bush policy had banned U.S. taxpayer money, usually in the form of Agency for International Development funds, from going to international family planning groups that either offer abortions or provide information, counseling or referrals about abortion as a family planning method.
Critics have long held that the rule unfairly discriminates against the world's poor by denying U.S. aid to groups that may be involved in abortion but also work on other aspects of reproductive health care and HIV/AIDS, leading to the closure of free and low-cost rural clinics.
Supporters of the ban say that the United States still provides millions of dollars in family planning assistance around the world and that the rule prevents anti-abortion taxpayers from backing something they believe is morally wrong.
The ban has been known as the "Mexico City policy" for the city a U.S. delegation first announced it at a U.N. International Conference on Population.
Both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will oversee foreign aid, had promised to do away with the rule during the presidential campaign.
Clinton said Friday evening that for seven years Bush's policy made it more difficult for women around the world to gain access to essential information and health care services. "Rather than limiting women's ability to receive reproductive health services, we should be supporting programs that help women and their partners make decisions to ensure their health and the health of their families," Clinton said.
In a related move, Obama also said he would restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). Both he and Clinton had pledged to reverse a Bush administration determination that assistance to the organization violated U.S. law known as the Kemp-Kasten amendment.
Obama, in his statement, said he looked forward to working with Congress to fulfill that promise: "By resuming funding to UNFPA, the U.S. will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries."
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, said: "The president's actions send a strong message about his leadership and his desire to support causes that will promote peace and dignity, equality for women and girls and economic development in the poorest regions of the world."
"We are confident that under the new president's direction, the U.S. will resume its leadership in promoting and protecting women's reproductive health and rights worldwide," Obaid said in a statement issued at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The Bush administration had barred U.S. money from the fund, contending that its work in China supported a Chinese family planning policy of coercive abortion and involuntary sterilization. UNFPA has vehemently denied that it does.
Congress had appropriated $40 million to the UNFPA in the past budget year, but the administration had withheld the money as it had done every year since 2002.
Organizations and lawmakers that had pressed Obama to rescind the Mexico City policy were jubilant.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the move "will help save lives and empower the poorest women and families to improve their quality of life and their future."
"Today's announcement is a very powerful signal to our neighbors around the world that the United States is once again back in the business of good public policy and ideology no longer blunts our ability to save lives around the globe," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Population Action International, an advocacy group, said that the policy had "severely impacted" women's health and that the step "will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don't have access to family planning."
Anti-abortion groups and lawmakers condemned Obama's decision.
"I have long supported the Mexico City Policy and believe this administration's decision to be counter to our nation's interests," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
"Coming just one day after the 36th anniversary of the tragic Roe v. Wade decision, this presidential directive forces taxpayers to subsidize abortions overseas — something no American should be required by government to do," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., called it "morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans to promote abortion around the world."
"President Obama not long ago told the American people that he would support policies to reduce abortions, but today he is effectively guaranteeing more abortions by funding groups that promote abortion as a method of population control," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. Sphere: Related Content
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Obama to spend 2nd full day on foreign affairs
By PHILIP ELLIOTT,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is making good on his promise to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and appears ready to name a veteran politician to guide his new administration in the Middle East conflict.
A senior Obama administration official said the president would sign an order Thursday to shutter the Guantanamo prison within one year. The U.S. naval facility has been a major sore point for critics around the world who say it violates domestic and international detainee rights. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the order has not yet been issued.
The executive order was one of three expected on how to interrogate and prosecute al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters believed to threaten the United States. The administration already has suspended trials for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo for 120 days pending a review of the military tribunals.
Obama also had in hand executive orders to review military trials of terror suspects and end harsh interrogations, a key part of aides' plans that had been assembled even before Obama won the election on Nov. 4.
"In view of the significant concerns raised by these detentions, both within the United States and internationally, prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantanamo and closure of the facility would further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice," said the draft executive order that would close Guantanamo. The draft was obtained by The Associated Press.
On Thursday, Obama was visiting the State Department to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and his top national security advisers.
White House aides announced that the president would meet with retired military officers to discuss the executive orders in the morning, but would not confirm that Obama planned to sign them immediately.
The Obama-Clinton meeting also was to include Vice President Joe Biden and national security adviser Jim Jones and his deputy. It was to be followed by an address by Obama and Clinton to State Department employees.
The address could provide an opening for Obama to enter the daunting thicket of Middle East diplomacy, long dodged by deferring to President George W. Bush, who left office Tuesday. It could also be the time he announces George Mitchell, the former Senate Democratic leader, as his special envoy to the region.
During his two-month stint as the president-elect, Obama promised he would have plenty to say on the conflict as soon as he was in office, but the country could only have one foreign policy voice at a time.
Some of Obama's other promises, though, have already been attended to. On Wednesday, he signed executive orders to limit his staff's ability to leave the administration to lobby their former colleagues. He also limited pay raises for his senior aides making more than $100,000 a year — a nod to a flailing economy and voters' frustrations.
He also opened the doors to the White House to visitors on Wednesday, meeting with guests in the White House's Blue Room.
"Enjoy yourself, roam around," a smiling Obama told one guest as he shuffled through the room. "Don't break anything."
Obama was starting his day Thursday with a private meeting on the nation's struggling economy, a signal to the millions of Americans struggling with tighter credit, increasing home foreclosures and the dollar's shrinking value. Sphere: Related Content
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is making good on his promise to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and appears ready to name a veteran politician to guide his new administration in the Middle East conflict.
A senior Obama administration official said the president would sign an order Thursday to shutter the Guantanamo prison within one year. The U.S. naval facility has been a major sore point for critics around the world who say it violates domestic and international detainee rights. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the order has not yet been issued.
The executive order was one of three expected on how to interrogate and prosecute al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters believed to threaten the United States. The administration already has suspended trials for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo for 120 days pending a review of the military tribunals.
Obama also had in hand executive orders to review military trials of terror suspects and end harsh interrogations, a key part of aides' plans that had been assembled even before Obama won the election on Nov. 4.
"In view of the significant concerns raised by these detentions, both within the United States and internationally, prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantanamo and closure of the facility would further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice," said the draft executive order that would close Guantanamo. The draft was obtained by The Associated Press.
On Thursday, Obama was visiting the State Department to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and his top national security advisers.
White House aides announced that the president would meet with retired military officers to discuss the executive orders in the morning, but would not confirm that Obama planned to sign them immediately.
The Obama-Clinton meeting also was to include Vice President Joe Biden and national security adviser Jim Jones and his deputy. It was to be followed by an address by Obama and Clinton to State Department employees.
The address could provide an opening for Obama to enter the daunting thicket of Middle East diplomacy, long dodged by deferring to President George W. Bush, who left office Tuesday. It could also be the time he announces George Mitchell, the former Senate Democratic leader, as his special envoy to the region.
During his two-month stint as the president-elect, Obama promised he would have plenty to say on the conflict as soon as he was in office, but the country could only have one foreign policy voice at a time.
Some of Obama's other promises, though, have already been attended to. On Wednesday, he signed executive orders to limit his staff's ability to leave the administration to lobby their former colleagues. He also limited pay raises for his senior aides making more than $100,000 a year — a nod to a flailing economy and voters' frustrations.
He also opened the doors to the White House to visitors on Wednesday, meeting with guests in the White House's Blue Room.
"Enjoy yourself, roam around," a smiling Obama told one guest as he shuffled through the room. "Don't break anything."
Obama was starting his day Thursday with a private meeting on the nation's struggling economy, a signal to the millions of Americans struggling with tighter credit, increasing home foreclosures and the dollar's shrinking value. Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Obama to sign order shutting Gitmo in a year
By LARA JAKES and DAVID ESPO,
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year and halt military trials of terror suspects held there, a senior administration official said. The executive order was one of three expected imminently on how to interrogate and prosecute al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters believed to threaten the United States.
The official said the president would sign the order Thursday, fulfilling his campaign promise to shut down a facility that critics around the world say violates domestic and international detainee rights. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the event has not yet been announced.
An estimated 245 men are being held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, and 600 others at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Most have been detained for years without being charged with a crime. The administration already has received permission to suspend the trials at Guantanamo for 120 days pending a review of the military tribunals.
A copy of a draft of the order, obtained Wednesday by the AP, dealt only with the Guantanamo prison.
"In view of the significant concerns raised by these detentions, both within the United States and internationally, prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantanamo and closure of the facility would further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice," the draft order said.
At least three military prisons — at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Camp Pendleton, Calif., and Charleston, S.C. — could house some of the Guantanamo detainees, an administration official said. Also under consideration, the official said, is the Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., which houses convicted 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph.
A senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that 60 to 120 Guantanamo prisoners may be considered low-threat detainees and transferred to other countries, either for rehabilitation or release. Only Portugal so far has agreed to take some of those detainees, this official said, although diplomatic discussions are ongoing.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the executive orders have not been issued yet. A State Department spokesman did not immediately know which nations had been asked to accept some prisoners.
Other detainees could be imprisoned in their home nations. And the rest likely will be transferred to prisons in the United States — a plan that many members of Congress oppose.
Public interest and human rights groups that long have wanted the facility shuttered were quick to urge Obama to be more aggressive than the draft order's proposals.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which provides many of the Guantanamo detainees with legal representation, said the draft doesn't give specific steps for closing the facility.
"It only took days to put these men in Guantanamo. It shouldn't take a year to get them out," said Vincent Warren, the center's executive director.
The draft requires a review of each Guantanamo case to decide whether the detainees should be returned to their home countries, released, transferred elsewhere or sent to another U.S. prison.
House Republican leader John Boehner said he's open to options, "but most local communities around America don't want dangerous terrorists imported into their neighborhoods, and I can't blame them."
"The key question is where do you put these terrorists," Boehner said Wednesday. "Do you bring them inside our borders? Do you release them back into the battlefield? If there is a better solution, we're open to hearing it."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has long contended the U.S. can handle relocating the detainees "just as it has handled the worst criminals and other terrorists before," spokesman David Carle said.
It's also unclear how the detainees would be prosecuted.
At the request of the White House, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday night ordered military trials at Guantanamo to be frozen for 120 days during an Obama administration review. Military judges on Wednesday agreed to halt the cases of five men charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, along with the case of a Canadian accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan.
"The president has clearly made his intentions well known," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday. "And he has taken the first steps with respect to his direction to order a pause to military commission proceedings."
The second administration official said the 120-day suspension could be extended indefinitely if the review concludes that current military trial system, devised by advisers to former President George W. Bush, should end.
If that happens, the cases likely will be heard by federal courts under long-standing military or civilian criminal law.
It's also possible the Obama administration could call for a new national security court system — a hybrid of the two — although the official described that as "a last resort."
John D. Altenburg Jr., a retired Army general who oversaw the military commissions until November 2006, says Guantanamo should stay open and the tribunals should continue.
Trying detainees in federal courts is problematic, he says, because the evidence was collected "on a battlefield" and may be inadmissible outside the commissions, although "it doesn't mean the evidence is tainted."
Two more executive orders are expected in coming days, according to two Obama officials.
Those will deal with what methods will be allowed to interrogate terror suspects.
One official said the first interrogation order will require all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual while questioning detainees. The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and waterboarding, a technique that creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics.
At the same time, the second order will demand a study of interrogation methods that could be added to the Army manual. It was unknown Wednesday what those methods could include, but officials have said they would be more aggressive than what is currently allowed. Sphere: Related Content
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order Thursday to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center within a year and halt military trials of terror suspects held there, a senior administration official said. The executive order was one of three expected imminently on how to interrogate and prosecute al-Qaida, Taliban or other foreign fighters believed to threaten the United States.
The official said the president would sign the order Thursday, fulfilling his campaign promise to shut down a facility that critics around the world say violates domestic and international detainee rights. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the event has not yet been announced.
An estimated 245 men are being held at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, and 600 others at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Most have been detained for years without being charged with a crime. The administration already has received permission to suspend the trials at Guantanamo for 120 days pending a review of the military tribunals.
A copy of a draft of the order, obtained Wednesday by the AP, dealt only with the Guantanamo prison.
"In view of the significant concerns raised by these detentions, both within the United States and internationally, prompt and appropriate disposition of the individuals currently detained at Guantanamo and closure of the facility would further the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice," the draft order said.
At least three military prisons — at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Camp Pendleton, Calif., and Charleston, S.C. — could house some of the Guantanamo detainees, an administration official said. Also under consideration, the official said, is the Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., which houses convicted 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph.
A senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that 60 to 120 Guantanamo prisoners may be considered low-threat detainees and transferred to other countries, either for rehabilitation or release. Only Portugal so far has agreed to take some of those detainees, this official said, although diplomatic discussions are ongoing.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the executive orders have not been issued yet. A State Department spokesman did not immediately know which nations had been asked to accept some prisoners.
Other detainees could be imprisoned in their home nations. And the rest likely will be transferred to prisons in the United States — a plan that many members of Congress oppose.
Public interest and human rights groups that long have wanted the facility shuttered were quick to urge Obama to be more aggressive than the draft order's proposals.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which provides many of the Guantanamo detainees with legal representation, said the draft doesn't give specific steps for closing the facility.
"It only took days to put these men in Guantanamo. It shouldn't take a year to get them out," said Vincent Warren, the center's executive director.
The draft requires a review of each Guantanamo case to decide whether the detainees should be returned to their home countries, released, transferred elsewhere or sent to another U.S. prison.
House Republican leader John Boehner said he's open to options, "but most local communities around America don't want dangerous terrorists imported into their neighborhoods, and I can't blame them."
"The key question is where do you put these terrorists," Boehner said Wednesday. "Do you bring them inside our borders? Do you release them back into the battlefield? If there is a better solution, we're open to hearing it."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has long contended the U.S. can handle relocating the detainees "just as it has handled the worst criminals and other terrorists before," spokesman David Carle said.
It's also unclear how the detainees would be prosecuted.
At the request of the White House, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday night ordered military trials at Guantanamo to be frozen for 120 days during an Obama administration review. Military judges on Wednesday agreed to halt the cases of five men charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, along with the case of a Canadian accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan.
"The president has clearly made his intentions well known," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday. "And he has taken the first steps with respect to his direction to order a pause to military commission proceedings."
The second administration official said the 120-day suspension could be extended indefinitely if the review concludes that current military trial system, devised by advisers to former President George W. Bush, should end.
If that happens, the cases likely will be heard by federal courts under long-standing military or civilian criminal law.
It's also possible the Obama administration could call for a new national security court system — a hybrid of the two — although the official described that as "a last resort."
John D. Altenburg Jr., a retired Army general who oversaw the military commissions until November 2006, says Guantanamo should stay open and the tribunals should continue.
Trying detainees in federal courts is problematic, he says, because the evidence was collected "on a battlefield" and may be inadmissible outside the commissions, although "it doesn't mean the evidence is tainted."
Two more executive orders are expected in coming days, according to two Obama officials.
Those will deal with what methods will be allowed to interrogate terror suspects.
One official said the first interrogation order will require all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual while questioning detainees. The manual explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse and waterboarding, a technique that creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics.
At the same time, the second order will demand a study of interrogation methods that could be added to the Army manual. It was unknown Wednesday what those methods could include, but officials have said they would be more aggressive than what is currently allowed. Sphere: Related Content
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
AP: Sen. Kennedy OK after seizure at Obama's luncheon
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ill with a brain tumor, was hospitalized Tuesday but quickly reported feeling well after suffering a seizure at a post-inauguration luncheon for President Barack Obama. "After testing, we believe the incident was brought on by simple fatigue," Dr. Edward Aulisi, chairman of neurosurgery at Washington Hospital Center said in a statement released by the senator's office.
"He will remain ... overnight for observation, and will be released in the morning."
The statement said the 76-year-old senator "is awake, talking with family and friends, and feeling well."
The statement did not disclose the tests that were performed on Kennedy, whose seizure was witnessed by several fellow senators seated with him at lunch.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told reporters he and Kennedy's wife, Vicki, grabbed the senator as he became ill.
Added Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., "It took a lot out of him. Seizures are exhausting."
Even so, Dodd quoted Kennedy as saying, "I'll be OK, I'll see you later" as he was put into an ambulance.
"The good news is he's gonna be fine," Dodd added.
Kennedy had appeared in good health and spirits a few hours earlier when he stepped out of the Capitol and onto the inauguration platform where Obama took the oath of office. His endorsement of the former Illinois senator had come at a pivotal point in the Democratic presidential race, and the older man campaigned energetically for the younger one.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters that Obama noticed when Kennedy became ill, and rushed over to his table.
"There was a call for silence throughout the room," he said. "The president went over immediately. The lights went down, just to reduce the heat, I think."
In his remarks, Obama said his prayers were with the stricken senator, his family and wife.
"He was there when the Voting Rights Act passed, along with John Lewis, who was a warrior for justice," the newly inaugurated president said.
"And so I would be lying to you if I did not say that right now a part of me is with him. And I think that's true for all of us," Obama said.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, 91, also left the luncheon early, but his office and others said his health was not the reason.
Byrd "is currently in his own office ... and is doing fine, though he remains very concerned about his close friend, Ted Kennedy," said Mark Ferrell, a spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat.
Kennedy was diagnosed last May with a particularly aggressive type of brain tumor, called a malignant glioma, after suffering a seizure at his Massachusetts home. He had what his doctor described as successful surgery to remove as much as possible of the tumor in his left parietal lobe. Kennedy then underwent radiation and chemotherapy, necessary because doctors know that even if they remove all of the visible tumor, stray cells almost certainly remain.
One doctor not connected with the senator's care said it's not unusual for patients recovering from brain tumors to suffer seizures.
If so, "it does not necessarily mean the tumor's growing back," said Dr. Matthew Ewend, neurosurgery chief at the University of North Carolina, noting that Kennedy already would have been receiving MRI scans of his brain every few months to check for that possibility.
Patients recovering from a brain tumor almost always are prescribed anti-seizure drugs, and something as common as a change in schedule could cause a dip in blood levels of that medication and produce a seizure, he said. Fatigue could also cause illness. Sphere: Related Content
WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, ill with a brain tumor, was hospitalized Tuesday but quickly reported feeling well after suffering a seizure at a post-inauguration luncheon for President Barack Obama. "After testing, we believe the incident was brought on by simple fatigue," Dr. Edward Aulisi, chairman of neurosurgery at Washington Hospital Center said in a statement released by the senator's office.
"He will remain ... overnight for observation, and will be released in the morning."
The statement said the 76-year-old senator "is awake, talking with family and friends, and feeling well."
The statement did not disclose the tests that were performed on Kennedy, whose seizure was witnessed by several fellow senators seated with him at lunch.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., told reporters he and Kennedy's wife, Vicki, grabbed the senator as he became ill.
Added Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., "It took a lot out of him. Seizures are exhausting."
Even so, Dodd quoted Kennedy as saying, "I'll be OK, I'll see you later" as he was put into an ambulance.
"The good news is he's gonna be fine," Dodd added.
Kennedy had appeared in good health and spirits a few hours earlier when he stepped out of the Capitol and onto the inauguration platform where Obama took the oath of office. His endorsement of the former Illinois senator had come at a pivotal point in the Democratic presidential race, and the older man campaigned energetically for the younger one.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., told reporters that Obama noticed when Kennedy became ill, and rushed over to his table.
"There was a call for silence throughout the room," he said. "The president went over immediately. The lights went down, just to reduce the heat, I think."
In his remarks, Obama said his prayers were with the stricken senator, his family and wife.
"He was there when the Voting Rights Act passed, along with John Lewis, who was a warrior for justice," the newly inaugurated president said.
"And so I would be lying to you if I did not say that right now a part of me is with him. And I think that's true for all of us," Obama said.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, 91, also left the luncheon early, but his office and others said his health was not the reason.
Byrd "is currently in his own office ... and is doing fine, though he remains very concerned about his close friend, Ted Kennedy," said Mark Ferrell, a spokesman for the West Virginia Democrat.
Kennedy was diagnosed last May with a particularly aggressive type of brain tumor, called a malignant glioma, after suffering a seizure at his Massachusetts home. He had what his doctor described as successful surgery to remove as much as possible of the tumor in his left parietal lobe. Kennedy then underwent radiation and chemotherapy, necessary because doctors know that even if they remove all of the visible tumor, stray cells almost certainly remain.
One doctor not connected with the senator's care said it's not unusual for patients recovering from brain tumors to suffer seizures.
If so, "it does not necessarily mean the tumor's growing back," said Dr. Matthew Ewend, neurosurgery chief at the University of North Carolina, noting that Kennedy already would have been receiving MRI scans of his brain every few months to check for that possibility.
Patients recovering from a brain tumor almost always are prescribed anti-seizure drugs, and something as common as a change in schedule could cause a dip in blood levels of that medication and produce a seizure, he said. Fatigue could also cause illness. Sphere: Related Content
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