[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 42, Number 42 (Monday, October 23, 2006)]
[Pages 1831-1833]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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.

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    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 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.

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    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.
    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.