No Justice For Victims of USS Cole Bombing, ever.

We all know how the Bush Administration has failed deliver on the capture of Osama Bin Laden. What has now come to light thanks to the WaPo is that there has also been a complete failure to secure justice in the attack on the USS Cole. 17 sailors were killed in that attack on the Cole and although President Clinton promised justice it seems like neither he nor president Bush has delivered. The story told by the WaPo about the efforts surrounding the Cole is sad in many ways and should serve as a constant reminder of just how badly the War on Terror has been conducted.

While I would love to be able to all of the failure on Bush, it seems a good portion should reside with Yemen. This is not to say that he is blameless. As the article illustrates in numerous ways, many of the failures can be traced to him. Actually he has done a terrible job in this. At the very least he has failed to achieve his stated goal of,

cooperating with Yemen to prevent it from becoming "a haven for terrorists." He added: "Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive with no place to settle or organize, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind and not even a safe place to sleep."

The main issue surrounding the search for justice in the Cole attack is that all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials. What was the point in convicting them if they were just going to be let go? The post makes an example of Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole.

[Badawi] has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.
Snip...
Yemen has refused to extradite Badawi and an accomplice to the United States, where they have been indicted on murder charges. Other Cole conspirators have been freed after short prison terms. At least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.

This is so frustrating because they actually managed to catch people. That would seem to be the hard part. Instead the hard part seems to be with making sure that they stay caught and receive legitimate punishment for their crimes. The failures here though can be at least be blamed on Yemen. This is not the case for every person involved in this attack. These next two people are probably the key to indicting Bush in this failure.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.

One of these people is actually the alleged ringleader for the attack. He was captured in the UAE in 2002 and handed over to the CIA. He was held in the CIA's secret network of overseas prisons until he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006 according to the WaPo. One reason this man may not have seen the inside of the court room yet is:

In a hearing at Guantanamo last year, Nashiri said he confessed to masterminding the Cole attack only because he had been tortured.

"From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me," he said, according to a transcript. "I just said those things to make the people happy."

This is just another example of how Bush and his administration continues to desecrate the idea of justice in this country. We have the man we think did the crime in custody but we cannot actually risk trying him because we tortured him. As the WaPo explains Nashiri and his alleged co conspirator Tawfiq bin Attash, who also played an organizing role in the Sept. 11 hijackings, are left unindicted because

A decision was made not to indict them because pending criminal charges could have forced the CIA or the Pentagon to give up custody of the men, U.S. officials said in interviews.

The trial and imprisonment of those who are arrested in Yemen seems to be obstructed because of internal Yemensese politics that the US has been unable to break through. Yemen has been cutting deals with those convicted out of fear for their own governmental security threatened by Al-Qaeda. They allow the plotters to get out of jail as they see fit in return for promises they will not threaten the government. The WaPo supports this idea

"Unfortunately, we now have a stalemate," said Foreign Minister Abubaker al-Qirbi.
Qirbi said the dispute was a politically sensitive one, with many Yemenis opposed to helping the Bush administration. He defended the tactic of allowing the Cole plotters to go free in exchange for help in tracking down other terrorist suspects. "This is a normal practice," he said. "Everybody makes deals with anybody who cooperates, not just in Yemen, but in the United States."
Yemen's interior minister, Rashad al-Alimi, said the deal-cutting was necessary because al-Qaeda has rebuilt its networks in Yemen and is targeting the government.
"Our battle with al-Qaeda is a long one," he said. "It isn't our battle only. Our tragedy -- and what makes things worse -- is that al-Qaeda is united. And our coalition is divided, even though we have a common enemy."

The idea that Yemen is essentially selling out American interest over their own is not surprising. Indeed you can hardly fault their self preservation instincts. If the US is not willing or able to step up and help them with real assurances and aid then they have to make their own way. They appear to be doing so in a marginally successful manner as Hamoud al-Hitar, a former Supreme Court justice, explains

he suggested that the government had turned lenient because the Cole defendants had participated in a "dialogue and reconciliation program" designed to de-radicalize al-Qaeda members.

Hitar, who oversees the program, claimed that 98 percent of graduates have remained nonviolent. Asked about two Cole suspects who escaped and went to Iraq to become suicide bombers, Hitar shrugged. "Iraq was not part of the dialogue program," he said.

If you have any doubt about just how much Bush and Co care about this the WaPo makes sure they relieve you of that. Bush could care less.

The families have fought for years to obtain information from the State, Defense and Justice departments about their inquiries into the attack. "We never really got anyplace," said Andrew C. Hall, an attorney for the relatives.
Snip...
John P. Clodtfelter Jr. of Mechanicsville, Va., whose son Kenneth died on the Cole, said the families have tried to meet with Bush to press for more action.

"I was just flat told that he wouldn't meet with us," Clodtfelter said. "Before him, President Clinton promised we'd go out and get these people, and of course we never did. I'm sorry, but it's just like the lives of American servicemen aren't that important."

Aside from the fact that Bush does not seem to care about our country in general he cares even less when the problems were not on his watch. If it cannot be traced directly back to something he did then the effort for a halfway decent cover up is not necessary much less effort for real justice. Roger W. Cressey, a former counter terrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who helped oversee the White House's response to the Cole attack explains that

"During the first part of the Bush administration, no one was willing to take ownership of this... It didn't happen on their watch. It was the forgotten attack."

Forgotten by some but not by those families and not by those in this country who still believe in justice. Justice for the victims of the Cole attacks, yet another reason John McCain can never become president.

WaPo Cite
Whitlock, Craig. Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels Plotters Freed in Yemen; U.S. Efforts Frustrated." Washington Post 04 May 2008, Sunday: a01.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...