In his own letter to the LA Times, the former Chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba lays out 3 reasons his heart forced him to step down. This comes as no surprise to those who have followed the careers of those responsible. Morris D. Davis is the former chief prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions. He took his job seriously. Something all too rare these days. His opening paragraph offers slap in the face to anyone who says the CRTs are or will work in any reasonably legal way.
I was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until Oct. 4, the day I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system. I resigned on that day because I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively or responsibly.
AWOL military justice
Davis has 3 reasons. Two of the reasons come from the chain of command he ended up under. His explanations should be enough to cause the closure of Gitmo, but will more than likely be ignored. We should fax copies of this article to the Justices of the Supreme Court as they ponder the Great Writ.
The first reason he lays out can't be cut and pasted because of fair use, but in a nutshell, it goes like this. It is crucial that the World see these trials as being run fair, and then some, to start the repairing of our reputation. To make sure this happens there is a Political Appointee called the "Convening Authority". Susan Crawford became that person and in doing so changed the ways things were being done. Davis shows that flaws in the appointment.
Crawford, on the other hand, had her staff assessing evidence before the filing of charges, directing the prosecution's pretrial preparation of cases (which began while I was on medical leave), drafting charges against those who were accused and assigning prosecutors to cases, among other things.
How can you direct someone to do something -- use specific evidence to bring specific charges against a specific person at a specific time, for instance -- and later make an impartial assessment of whether they behaved properly? Intermingling convening authority and prosecutor roles perpetuates the perception of a rigged process stacked against the accused.
The second reason also includes Ms Crawford and while bad is not yet the most disturbing. It consisted mainly of Crawfords desire to keep things rushed and behind closed door or as Davis put it,she would act as if, "Trust me, you would have been impressed if only you could have seen what we did in the courtroom"
Now we come to the most important reason for me, and I assume Mr. Davis also. He learned that with the recent appointment of the rejected Circut Court of Appeals nominee, William Haynes, as Defense Department General Counsel, that he came under his chain of command. This is where the end of the road was. Haynes is one of the authors of just about all the torture memos that Bush used to commit his War Crimes of torture. The timeline of his recent career at any other time in history would be a outline for a prosecution. Let's let Davis tell how he reacted to the news.
Finally, I resigned because of two memos signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England that placed the chief prosecutor -- that was me -- in a chain of command under Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes. Haynes was a controversial nominee for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, but his nomination died in January 2007, in part because of his role in authorizing the use of the aggressive interrogation techniques some call torture.
I had instructed the prosecutors in September 2005 that we would not offer any evidence derived by waterboarding, one of the aggressive interrogation techniques the administration has sanctioned. Haynes and I have different perspectives and support different agendas, and the decision to give him command over the chief prosecutor's office, in my view, cast a shadow over the integrity of military commissions. I resigned a few hours after I was informed of Haynes' place in my chain of command.
Davis goes on to describe more and I encourage you to go read the rest. When the person in charge of trying to send a man to his death or life in prison is not sure of the process, what should we or the world believe ? As I mentioned, a quick look at Haynes history speaks volumes. Let me just throw out a few dates and then tell me if anyone could consider this man as willing uphold American Values.
April 2, 2003: In a letter to the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, Haynes declared that the "United States does not condone torture." (Letter from William J. Haynes, II to Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Humans Rights Watch, Apr. 2, 2003)
April 4, 2003: Without informing top military officers who had objected to earlier drafts of the working group report, Haynes and his allies in the working group secretly issued a final report, which adopted many of the interrogation techniques previously recommended by Haynes and rescinded by Secretary Rumsfeld and, consistent with the Yoo memo, advised that laws banning torture were "inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to [the president's] Commander-in-Chief authority." (Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogation in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy, and Operational Considerations Apr. 4, 2003; Mayer, The Memo)
April 16, 2003 Unbeknownst to many military officials, including members of the working group like Mora, Haynes provided Secretary Rumsfeld the April 4 report, and Secretary Rumsfeld approved 24 of the 35 interrogation techniques the report recommended. (Memorandum, Donald Rumsfeld to Commander USSOUTHCOM re Counter-Resistance Techniques in the War on Terrorism, April 16, 2003; Dana Priest & R. Jeffrey Smith, Memo Offered Justification for Use of Torture; Justice Dept. Gave Advice in 2002, WASH. POST, June 8, 2004)
Spring 2003: Unbeknownst to many military officers, including members of the working group, Haynes either disseminated or permitted the dissemination of the working group report to the staff judge advocate at the Baghdad command in Iraq, which used the report to advise General Sanchez about permissible interrogation techniques. (Mayer, The Memo; LTG Anthony R. Jones, AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, Aug. 23, 2004)