John Ashcroft in State of Denial, by Bob Woodward

On Homeland Security: Advocated Guantanamo tribunals to test the court system

The hundreds of suspected terrorists who were detainees at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were unlawful combatants who could be tried in military tribunals and denied access to the US federal court system. This meant that they had been turned over to the Defense Department, but Rumsfeld would not start the tribunal process.

Attorney General John Ashcroft had become a strong internal advocate for starting tribunals. One way or another, the detainee cases were going to wind up reviewed by the federal courts. If they didn't have a credible tribunal process up and running, Ashcroft said, the Justice Department would be dead in the water when they tried to defend the system at the federal appeals courts.

At an NSC meeting with the president, Bush asked Rumsfeld, "Don, what do you think about this?"

"They are bad guys," Rumsfeld said.

It was as if the NSC had one serious, formal process going on while the president and Rumsfeld had another one--informal, chatty and dominant.

Source: State of Denial, by Bob Woodward, p.276 Oct 1, 2006

The above quotations are from State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, by Bob Woodward. Click here for other excerpts from State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, by Bob Woodward. Click here for other excerpts by John Ashcroft. Click here for a profile of John Ashcroft.
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