[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2006, Book II)]
[October 17, 2006]
[Pages 1857-1860]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks on Signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006
October 17, 2006
Please be seated. Welcome to the White House on an historic day. It
is a rare occasion when a President can sign a bill he knows will save
American lives; I have that privilege this morning.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is one of the most important
pieces of legislation in the war on terror. This bill will allow the
Central Intelligence Agency to continue its program for questioning key
terrorist leaders and operatives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man believed to be the mastermind of the
September the 11th, 2001, attacks on our country. This program has been
one of the most successful intelligence efforts in American history. It
has helped prevent attacks on our country. And the bill I sign today
will ensure that we can continue using this vital tool to protect the
American people for years to come. The Military Commissions Act will
also allow us to prosecute captured terrorists for war crimes through a
full and fair trial.
Last month, on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I stood with Americans
who lost family members in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania. I
listened to their stories of loved ones they still miss. I told them
America would never forget their loss. Today I can tell them something
else: With the bill I'm about to sign, the men our intelligence
officials believe orchestrated the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent
people will face justice.
I want to thank the Vice President for
joining me today. Mr. Vice President, appreciate you. Secretary Don
Rumsfeld, I
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appreciate your service to our country. I want to thank Attorney General
Al Gonzales; General Mike
Hayden, Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency; General Pete Pace, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I appreciate very much Senator John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and
Congressman Duncan Hunter, chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee, for joining us today. I want to thank
both of these men for their leadership. I appreciate Senator Lindsey
Graham from South Carolina joining us.
Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner,
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; Congressman Steve
Buyer of Indiana; Congressman Chris
Cannon of Utah--thank you all for
coming.
The bill I sign today helps secure this country, and it sends a
clear message: This Nation is patient and decent and fair, and we will
never back down from the threats to our freedom.
One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks said
he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America. He
didn't get his wish. We are as determined today as we were on the
morning of September the 12th, 2001. We'll meet our obligation to
protect our people, and no matter how long it takes, justice will be
done.
When I proposed this legislation, I explained that I would have one
test for the bill Congress produced: Will it allow the CIA program to
continue? This bill meets that test. It allows for the clarity our
intelligence professionals need to continue questioning terrorists and
saving lives. This bill provides legal protections that ensure our
military and intelligence personnel will not have to fear lawsuits filed
by terrorists simply for doing their jobs.
This bill spells out specific, recognizable offenses that would be
considered crimes in the handling of detainees so that our men and women
who question captured terrorists can perform their duties to the fullest
extent of the law. And this bill complies with both the spirit and the
letter of our international obligations. As I've said before, the United
States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our
values.
By allowing the CIA program to go forward, this bill is preserving a
tool that has saved American lives. The CIA program helped us gain vital
intelligence from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh,
two of the men believed to have helped plan and facilitate the 9/11
attacks. The CIA program helped break up a cell of 17 southeastern Asian
terrorist operatives who were being groomed for attacks inside the
United States. The CIA program helped us uncover key operatives in Al
Qaida's biological weapons program, including a cell developing anthrax
to be used in terrorist attacks.
The CIA program helped us identify terrorists who were sent to case
targets inside the United States, including financial buildings in major
cities on the east coast. And the CIA program helped us stop the planned
strike on U.S. marines in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S.
consulate in Karachi, and a plot to hijack airplanes and fly them into
Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf in London.
Altogether, information from terrorists in CIA custody has played a
role in the capture or questioning of nearly every senior Al Qaida
member or associate detained by the United States and its allies since
this program began. Put simply, this program has been one of the most
vital tools in our war against the terrorists. It's been invaluable both
to America and our allies. Were it not for this program, our
intelligence community believes that Al Qaida and its allies would have
succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. By
allowing our intelligence professionals to continue this vital program,
this bill will save American lives. And I look forward to signing it
into law.
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The bill I'm about to sign also provides a way to deliver justice to
the terrorists we have captured. In the months after 9/11, I authorized
a system of military commissions to try foreign terrorists accused of
war crimes. These commissions were similar to those used for trying
enemy combatants in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War and World
War II. Yet the legality of the system I established was challenged in
the court, and the Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions
needed to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress.
And so I asked Congress for that authority, and they have provided
it. With the Military Commission Act, the legislative and executive
branches have agreed on a system that meets our national security needs.
These military commissions will provide a fair trial, in which the
accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney, and can hear
all the evidence against them. These military commissions are lawful,
they are fair, and they are necessary.
When I sign this bill into law, we will use these commissions to
bring justice to the men believed to have planned the attacks of
September the 11th, 2001. We'll also seek to prosecute those believed
responsible for the attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 American
sailors 6 years ago last week. We will seek to prosecute an operative
believed to have been involved in the bombings of the American Embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 innocent people and
wounded 5,000 more. With our actions, we will send a clear message to
those who kill Americans: We will find you, and we will bring you to
justice.
Over the past few months, the debate over this bill has been heated,
and the questions raised can seem complex. Yet, with the distance of
history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of
Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to
defeat that threat? Every Member of Congress who voted for this bill has
helped our Nation rise to the task that history has given us. Some voted
to support this bill even when the majority of their party voted the
other way. I thank the legislators who brought this bill to my desk for
their conviction, for their vision, and for their resolve.
There is nothing we can do to bring back the men and women lost on
September the 11th, 2001. Yet we'll always honor their memory, and we
will never forget the way they were taken from us. This Nation will call
evil by its name. We will answer brutal murder with patient justice.
Those who kill the innocent will be held to account.
With this bill, America reaffirms our determination to win the war
on terror. The passage of time will not dull our memory or sap our
nerve. We will fight this war with confidence and with clear purpose. We
will protect our country and our people. We will work with our friends
and allies across the world to defend our way of life. We will leave
behind a freer, safer, and more peaceful world for those who follow us.
And now, in memory of the victims of September the 11th, it is my
honor to sign the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.
Note: The President spoke at 9:35 a.m. in the East Room at the White
House. S. 3930, approved October 17, was assigned Public Law No. 109-
366. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language
transcript of these remarks.
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