[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 169 (Monday, November 16, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11359-S11361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRAIL OF KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to speak about the decision 
announced last Friday by the Attorney General to bring Khalid Shaikh 
Mohammed and other 9/11 coconspirators to the United States from 
Guantanamo Bay to stand trial in the Southern District of New York.
  Of course, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the self-described mastermind of 
the 9/11 tragedy where 3,000 Americans

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were killed. This is a terrible--a terrible--decision by the Attorney 
General and by the administration for any number of reasons, but I 
would like to explain why I believe this decision should be 
reconsidered by the Attorney General and the President of the United 
States--because of the risk at which it puts Americans and because this 
provides Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a self-described superterrorist--this 
gives him everything he could have ever wanted, which is a platform to 
spew his hate-filled ideology and one in which he can recruit other 
like-minded individuals all around the world who may be watching.
  One of the things I am always amazed by in our great country is how 
short our memory is. Of course, we are a nation at war after 9/11. But 
this is a war unlike any other this Nation has ever fought. We are at 
war with a murderous ideology, with ruthless killers who wear no 
uniforms and use civilians as human shields. Treating these war crimes 
like ordinary criminal events and trying these killers in an article 
III or a Federal court under the Constitution is simply reverting to a 
pre-9/11 mentality.
  What do I mean by that? Mr. President, you will recall that the 9/11 
Commission investigated the causes of what happened on September 11, 
2001. One of the things they identified was the wall separating the 
sharing of intelligence which was shared among the intelligence 
community, and what information was developed during a criminal 
investigation had to be kept separate from ordinary intelligence 
collected by our military and our intelligence community. One of the 
things the 9/11 Commission unanimously said was that we needed to tear 
down that wall and share information, as we can consistent with the 
law, in order to protect the American people.
  Simply put, the trial of the 9/11 coconspirators, not in a military 
commission at Guantanamo Bay but in a Federal district court in 
Manhattan, one of the most populous portions of our country, is simply 
forgetting the lessons we should have learned on 9/11, which the 9/11 
Commission so eloquently laid out for us and demonstrated.
  But let's focus on who Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is, lest we have 
forgotten. According to the 9/11 Commission Report:

       KSM [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed] describes a grandiose original 
     plan: a total of ten aircraft to be hijacked, 9 of which 
     would crash into targets on both coasts.
       They included those eventually hit on September 11 plus: 
     CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants, and the 
     tallest buildings in California and the State of Washington.

  Further quoting the report:

       KSM [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed] himself was to land the 10th 
     plane at a U.S. airport and--after killing all adult male 
     passengers on board and alerting the media--delivering a 
     speech excoriating U.S. support for Israel, the Philippines, 
     and repressive governments in the Arab world.

  The 9/11 Commission report concluded:

       This is theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM 
     [Khalid Shaikh Mohammed] as the self-cast star--the 
     superterrorist.

  This is whom the Attorney General announced we will be bringing from 
Guantanamo Bay to a court in Manhattan to try as a common criminal. But 
he is anything but a common criminal. He is guilty of nothing less than 
war crimes against innocent Americans. According to this decision, the 
Attorney General is going to be providing him the forum he can use in 
order to proclaim himself as the ``superterrorist'' and in order to 
attract like-minded ideologues to his sick and twisted ideas of jihad. 
A criminal trial only gives Khalid Shaikh Mohammed the platform he has 
sought for years: a platform to expound his hatred to his would-be 
followers around the world.
  The second reason this is a bad idea is because our civilian courts 
and procedures are ill-suited for terrorism trials because we cannot 
put judges in charge of national security.
  I have high regard for the men and women who serve on our judicial 
benches around the country. I myself was a judge for 13 years in Texas. 
But our experience with terrorist trials shows that civilian courts are 
an inappropriate forum for a trial of war crimes.
  As a result of information--this is one example why--as a result of 
information disclosed during the trials related to the East Africa 
Embassy bombings, Osama bin Laden became aware of cell phone 
intercepts, which prompted his organization to discontinue cell phone 
conversations. Because of the evidence disclosed in the trial, they 
simply realized they were being eavesdropped on and quit using cell 
phones, denying us that intelligence.
  During the trial of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World 
Trade bombing, terrorists became aware of a communications link that 
provided enormously valuable intelligence to U.S. officials. This link, 
too, was shut down after the disclosure in that trial.
  Then there was the trial of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Blind Sheik. 
A secret list of unindicted coconspirators in the prosecution wound up 
in the hands of Osama bin Laden in Sudan.
  During the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, 
prosecutors inadvertently leaked sensitive material to defense counsel. 
Here is what the judge had to say about that case, which she 
characterized as ``like a circus.'' She said:

       [Lawyers] are talking about the contents of sealed hearings 
     [to the media], if I see any more [of] what I think are 
     inappropriate leaks, I'm going to ask the FBI to start an 
     investigation.

  But that trial never even made it to a jury. Moussaoui's lawyers tied 
the court up in knots so he could use the trial as a platform to air 
his anti-American tirades. The only reason the trial ultimately ended 
was because at the last minute Moussaoui decided to plead guilty. That 
plea relieved the government of the choice between allowing a fishing 
expedition into its intelligence files or dismissing the charges 
altogether.
  One thing we can see with great confidence is that the trial of 
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in a Federal district court in Manhattan will 
become the same kind of media circus times 10. It will give Khalid 
Shaikh Mohammed a platform to inspire his fellow terrorists.

  Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on Khalid 
Shaikh Mohammed, the methods and sources for acquiring that 
information, and his relationships with fellow al-Qaida operatives 
around the world. That information will allow al-Qaida to develop more 
effective plots and to alert operatives whose cover is blown. This 
information will enable al-Qaida to detect our means of intelligence 
gathering and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.
  Congress has made clear that U.S. civilian courts are not the 
appropriate venue to bring terrorists to justice. That is why we 
passed, in 2006, the Military Commissions Act. The military commissions 
were specifically designed to prevent sensitive disclosures and to 
protect classified information and sensitive sources and methods. Of 
course, we know from our work on these military commissions that they 
have a long history in our Republic--dating back from the Revolutionary 
War, to the Civil War, and to World War II--and they are an appropriate 
forum for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other terrorists.
  As a matter of fact, the Attorney General made the baffling decision 
to try some of the worst of the worst--a superterrorist such as Khalid 
Shaikh Mohammed--in a Federal district court in Manhattan and to leave 
other terrorists for trial in Guantanamo Bay before military 
commissions. And I say, if Guantanamo Bay and military commissions are 
good enough for these other terrorists in the opinion of the Attorney 
General, they ought to be good enough for terrorists such as Khalid 
Shaikh Mohammed and his fellow 9/11 coconspirators.
  Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other terrorists, simply put, should not 
be brought to the United States. They should not be granted the same 
rights and privileges as American criminal defendants. They should stay 
at Guantanamo Bay and be prosecuted through the military commissions 
established by Congress under the terms circumscribed by the U.S. 
Supreme Court.
  I ask my colleagues to remember that on July 19, 2007, we had a vote 
on this sense-of-the-Senate resolution: It is the sense of the Senate 
that detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including senior members 
of al-Qaida, should not be released into American society, nor should 
they be transferred

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stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods. 
That sense-of-the-Senate resolution passed 94 to 3. Rarely do we see 
such unanimous, bipartisan opposition for the very acts the Attorney 
General announced last Friday, and it is with good reasons, some of 
which I have had the opportunity to discuss today. But there are other 
reasons that I will look for opportunities to come back and talk about 
to my colleagues.
  I would ask the President of the United States to overrule the 
decision of his Attorney General because it is ill-advised. It will 
make America a more dangerous place, and it will allow terrorists such 
as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed--it will provide them the platform to spew 
their hateful ideology and encourage others to join them in killing 
innocent Americans and other individuals.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in 
morning business for up to 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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