The 1st time weve seen it and its an actual foreign dignitary come and meet, officially and meet members of the interim taliban government. We understand that culture foreign minister met with the interim prime minister molar hassan acount as well as interesting lee the former president , how many calls i am abolla. Abdullah, of course, was the former chief executive officer of afghanistan and somebody who played such a vital role in those peace negotiations over the last couple of years. Iran is eating some restrictions on the worlds nuclear watchdog following talks into on the international atomic energy agency. Will be allowed to replace memory cards and monitoring equipment. A key sites to women have kicked off their campaigns to be francis. First female president William Penn. From the far right national Rally Party Address supporters in the city of phasers odysseyware, im hidalgo, is favorite to win the socialist Party Nomination for next years election. The 1st secret document of the f. B is investigation into the September 11th attacks has been released after a long campaign by the victims, families in nearly declassified papers come on the 20th anniversary of the attacks and describe contacts between the hijackers. Im study associates in the u. S. The 16 Page Report of is no evidence that the saudi government was involved in the plot. Trinity, as president says, he want to push through changes to the constitution case. I took control of the government and dismissed the prime minister in july. And it is powerful Labor Union and the biggest party in parliament oppose any attempt by the president to suspend. The constitution are called for aid in sudan after floods destroyed more than 50 villages. This is rainy season has effected nearly 90000 people, ruining homes and farmland. And those are the headlines. The news continues here on august after inside story. Goodbye. News. News. News. News. News. Its the story of the united States War on terror. Guantanamo bay is where prisoners were tortured and denied their rights most released without charge. Why is it still open . 20 is off that the September 11th attacks. This is an eyesore ah, ah hello and welcome to the program. Im in, ron con. Guantanamo bay opened in the shadow. The 911 attacks 20 years ago was meant to be a temporary Detention Center for the biggest threats to us national security, as part of the so called war on terror. But the place soon became notorious for human rights abuses. At its peak, it held a 780. 00 detainees, most without charge, somewhat tortured it using techniques such as water boarding. They had no protection on the u. S. Or international law, and no access to a fair trial. 39 prisoners is still there, including the alleged mastermind of the September 11th attacks. President Joe Biden has promised to close it by 2024, but his administration faces many legal and political challenges. I dont have a timeline for you, as you know. Theres a process, there are different layers of the process, but that remains our goal and we are considering all available avenues to responsibly transfer detainees. And of course, close one time. Ok. The prism was established at the us base in guantanamo bay, southeast of cuba. In january, 2002 former president Brock Obama failed to shut it down after congress imposed limits on the transfer of its detainees. And donald trump pledged to keep the prison open and loaded up with those he called bad dudes. President Joe Biden is being challenged by some republicans who see the release of detainees as a threat to us security. Is it ministration is trying to secure guarantees that the detainees will get humane treatment in the Home Country, or that 3rd countries will resettled them. For a 5 terabyte members released in 2014, in exchange for american soldier. And now members of the new taliban government and up on the, on the lets bring it, i guess in belgrade, mansell at a fee, a former guantanamo detainees at guantanamo. Busy coordinator for kj human rights advocacy organization. And i saw mo, jasmine l, got our senior managers at the institute for strategic dialogue and a former pentagon, middle East Adviser and in york. Kenneth ross, executive director of human rights watch. Welcome to the program. Lets begin in New York with you kind of throw off the roof and possibly the most obvious question. Why is Guantanamo Base still open . Well, there are various reasons. Part of it is that a number of the people that are a minority have been charged criminal re, they have not been brought before regular court. Theyre being tried before these Make Shift military commission that the u. S. Government established basically to cover up its torch. They felt it contrived to control the trial proceedings better, but these military commissions and prevent evidence of the torture for coming out. But these commissions dont pretend to provide real Justice And Theyve been subject to all kinds of challenges and problems. And as a result, theyre going nowhere. I remember going to guantanamo in 2012. So 9 years ago, for the opening charges, the range against the 5 Reading Mastermind suspects for 911. 00. And there still has not been a trial. So one of the problems is, you know, how do you move toward a fair system of justice for the hand, for people who are being charged. As for the rest, the us government has actually impose legislation, prohibiting the spending of money has send people back to the United States. So the government needs to find other places to take them, which is done for, you know, most of what, at one point with 780 people at one time. There are 39. 00 last, still a majority of never been charged. And some of them the u. S government is, is moving toward trying to put someplace else, but theres relative handful that it believes still are dangerous. But they Cant Charge them. They dont really have any crime that they can take that they committed. And, you know, thats the problem. And frankly, i think its a made up problem because if you look around the world, there are many, many people who wish the United States har if they had the Opportunity Microsoft to cares a tiny handful in guantanamo, but the reason now the, by the ministration to frankly, this is true for the earlier ones as well. Doesnt want to release them as they dont want critical responsibility from what, what happened to this handful of people. You mentioned in the opening that, you know, some of the 100 detainees, farmer detainees are now in the taliban government. And thats the kind of political problem the us government doesnt like. Obviously the taliban has many, many abusive people. That can feel that the government where, you know, the fights have been chosen really, i think just kind of, you know, hope the United States. But you know, that said the biden administrations afraid of what in the us, all the really important that is, you know, if you release somebody who commits a crime, then youre politically responsible for it. And so i think its really politics more than anything else that at this stage is standing in the way of actually closing. Well lets bring one of those so called problems into the conversation, months or a day, see you a problem for the us government. You are for the tiny i think i have, you know, sorry. I asked that question for the last 15 years. I spent that one to try to find out what was, what was the problem being there. First of all, i was a 2 year old and 9 of its either. So historically i was the 2nd year on history after like sender. After 15 years or almost like 15 years, i was told it was a Mistake And Identity and it is unclear or joint. I dont know, not as a guy, you know, the guy, the guy that told me we cannot get a we depend on innocent medical, 15 years. I would love to say something about that. One thing with a big mess up like we know be what youre seeing, that dont get Adversity Or None of it, which im actually trying to find out. What led to that . And i love it since once. And i asked everyone what the reason that they wanted to not have been to happen. One time, im the i didnt of outside of the law that is newly legal basis for that place. So it will be hard for the next day to skid, the skid. Those brothers there, at the same time, we were brought there, the worst of the worst tourist and the planet that would be promoted, proposed to get them up to the world. So over and over again, last month or 2 months ago. The thing when 6 really concerned the letter to buy the and asked him to close 110 because the remain detainees. Part of the was that the worst there have been getting during the didnt go, but im restriction. When congress displayed may, i want to say, i want to know that i go to the because it told the worst, the worst thirst, as you know, according to the illegal with that 86 percent of the details of what that where either a mistaken identity or so for Bond Money now lets bring in Jasmine Alga Mall and its tumble jasmine. This is a political problem and it very much seems to me that the republicans, the language using and often blocking any attempts to close down one center is very simple. These are bad guys, and if we release them, theyre going to come and get us. Now, is there any truck with that argument . Is there any honesty in the argument you know, the short answer is no, and im not a political person at all. So this is, this is not a political answer your question. The sad fact is that from the very beginning, one Tunnel Bay was an extremely political. C political topic and the creation of one continental bay was based on here based policy. Is that the Bush Administration in response to 911. 00, we were afraid we made a lot of bad choices and a lot of wrong choices. And one on that day was one of them, and my, your other guest on the show that was there, unfortunately, at the of the detainees made a very good point. And he said that over 80 percent of the detainees were released at some point that we were asking for. We were offering money to anyone who would offer us forces an arab who was living in a stand because we thought that all arabs living in a stand must be Al Qaeda and must be out to get us. So there were all of these problems like structural problems at the beginning. Once we got these detainees, animal bay, i arrived in the summer, 2004. And i started working on something called b administrative review boards that basically looked at every detainees, forey, and, and was able to determine whether they were in fact there wrongly or rightly. And most of them were sorry, jasmine, we seem to have lost you that im gonna come back to mind, but i want to bring in Kenneth Ross here in New York. You want jasmine was saying that this is a very much a political, its a structural problem, but theres a bigger problem when it comes to actually trying to shut it down because there is no real legal framework that the United States can rely on to put them on trial, because these are 3rd party nationals. Is that right . No, thats not right, right. In other words, if somebody commits terrorism against the United States that its easy to prosecute, and indeed, you dont had the alleged masterminds of 911 been brought to a regular federal court, you know, in downtown manhattan, their trial would have been completed years ago. In fact, there had been hundreds of terrorism trials completed, including, you know, frankly, of the so called 20th hijacker, who was convicted in federal court. So theres, there would have been no problem with trying people. But the u. S. Government didnt want to go before the regular shot records, you know, totally. First, the logical reasons had said these people are not criminals, their Enemy Combatants. Now, i dont know why being called an Enemy Combat is worse than being called into a terrace criminal. Indeed it almost to be seen as a badge of honor. But there was, you know, that was one line of thinking. And then the other line of thinking, as i mentioned is you know, we know that many of the suspects for torture. Khalid shaikh mohammed, the legit, you know . She mastermind the 911, was said there was been water boarded at least 183 times. The u. S. Government doesnt want the evidence of that coming out. Indeed, it wants to somehow find ways to be able to use the fruits of the interrogation they brought in so called in a clean interrogation team. So, you know, after hes been tortured and tortured, tortured, then they bring in somebody new and say ok. Now to give us here at the same statement, voluntary, you know, and now that, you know, may survive. You know, the Make Shift a military commission. Its very unlikely that survive scrutiny and irregular federal court. So these are the problems, you know, its a d ology. Its the torture that stand in the way of criminal prosecutions. But ordinarily, federal courts are there and can be used for criminal prosecution of terrorist. Now the other thing its worth mentioning is that reading aside the issue of prosecution, as johnson said, most of the people in guantanamo, you know, a lot of them are just fair because they were picked up because of counties. They will never really found have done anything but the theory that the u. S. Government used to detain people without charges that represents the vast, vast majority of the 780 or so people who have been through montana. If terry, they used to said these are the Enemy Combatants in a global war on terror, that was the Bush Administration. And, you know, under international law, if you are at war classic state to State War with a battle field. If you capture combat and on the other side, you can detain the combat without charges until the end of the war, the Bush Administration, and stretch that theory to make it a global concepts. You know, even though there is, if there was, you know, there was a battlefield in afghan sam, but there was no global battlefield. But they said, look at this is a global war. Anybody picked up who was had to have been involved in terrorism without even charges, can be held with an Enemy Combatant until the end of that global war on terror, which may be an endless war. And they never come. In fact, theory has never been formally repudiated. You know, the Obama Administration Stop using it and buying doesnt like it. But theyve never declared an end to the so called global war on terror. Safe, you know, from now on, were going to use classic long foresman techniques. Were going to arrest people. Were going to prosecute them. Were not gonna just attain them forever as Enemy Combatants or worse. You know, were not going to use drones to summarily show them in places like yemen, when they dont pose an imminent fraction where theres been no attempts to try to detain that philosophy. Because i went ahead to answer a couple of points. Im sure we will come to you very shortly. Jasmine, you are an advisor to the pentagon. At the department of defense, you were part of those discussions about whether it should be closed or not, but that seems to be pushed back on closing one time a bay down, it was seen as a necessity, wasnt it . Yeah, so i actually worked under the Obama Administration. I was not a political appointee. I was civil servants, but i my, my spans both firms of the Obama Administration. And so i can tell you 1st county that President Obama definitely tried to close down one day. He appointed 2 people, one of the state departments and one of the Defense Department who are in charge of reviewing cases and bringing them to the highest levels of the, of the national Security Council to review review those cases and recommending a release or otherwise. So i definitely will push back on can kind of point that, that the us does not want to close down one final day. So 1st of all, President Obama was making a concerted effort to do so pointing to envoys of the state and Defense Departments to do so. But another, something that has not been mentioned that and that has been part of the difficulty in closing down guantanamo bay, is that when we decided to release somebody one final day, we have to release them either to their Home Country or to a 3rd country. If their Home Country wouldnt take them, and in many to in all cases, we have to, we have to receive assurances from that country that we were sending them through, that they would not be tortured or detained or unfairly treated once they got back. And in many cases, we actually were not able to receive those assurances from the home countries. We would start looking for 3rd countries, but it was really difficult to find any country not want to take them because they were so keen that unfortunately by the one animal, browns take the case of the week or for example, all of the leaders that were in guantanamo bay, where theyre completely erroneous. We, we thought they were fighting the last, but it turns out they were training counts. And again, us down, learning how to fight, whether they can go back and, and protect themselves against the chinese, just somebody we couldnt find anywhere. Well, lets Break Somebody who is behind. We couldnt find any country. Right. Right in months or here. You go ahead. We months or day you are in belgrade. Youre in a 3rd country. We you sold to bill. Great. Effectively. Is that what happened to you . Yeah, this is a deal actually basically do those countries. You see also funny as you know, i not a fair deal from the said its not like a did or didnt get woman restriction. She mentioned that he wanted to go to do the detention. But when he found out that he couldnt do it because the solution that the congress imposed. So he tried to free as many will as he caught because those we were many of us were clear in 2009 or 20141450. So it, you tell me whether an agreement, Resettlement Agreement is telling me and youre not state of those countries. Some kind of like Attention Integration Program when the package is also a budget for this program. But the money in the, in the black hole and the 3rd country, let us talk about it to them, as they said, like they might be afraid something would. But if you look in europe here, for example, i mean if we got there is more rates are pretty recent than because for the last year i had been conducting the research of Rehabilitation Or Integration with former ones. And i wanted to needs as part of my bus degree, so i have to keep track of money a problem. The problem is, is that the, in the little country, there is a lack of Rehabilitation Or Integration program, harassment, negative status needed can really kind of program that can help the teeny, the lead detainees to fit and decided and become productive number. If you see an example in germany, you know, man in pop out or in day the detainees, that the chinese and so i t, their movement that lives, they get married jobs and so on. So basically in my case, particularly, i was forced to come to serbia, they told me you have no choice in the rough rough want, and im only i was forced to leave sit in the chair and shipped to serbia in my case. Now kenneth, whats the human Rights Position here under international law month, who was forced to go to serbia . He wasnt given a choice, is a violation of human rights. I mean, i think as jasmine noted, the Obama Administration did make sincere efforts to resettle people. They appointed a special envoy, the fate department, and you know, they right for, we insisted on finding countries that would not torture people. But they also were looking for countries that would, you know, maintain some degree of Security Surveillance on, you know, the original unfairness, frankly, is being detained and on time on the business. No due process at all. But if i could let me just put a bit of a qualification on jacksons point that obama wanted to for one time. I mean, in principle, yes, im in reality, she wouldnt take 2 steps. But to this day, are the main impediments for the by the administration. That is, you know, 1st he made an initial effort to move the trial from the sub standard military commissions to federal court in New York. There was political opposition and he caved in. And so now there is actually legislation against doing that, which obama, a lot of it goes through the 2nd. I mean, i remember speaking with obama directly, and i said, you know, would you abide by the principle of either prosecuting people before a legitimate federal court or releasing them . And he said, no i, there is a 3rd category. People who we dont have the evidence to prosecute, you know, either because a torture or whatever and who remained too dangerous to release. And that is the, by the Ministrations Position to this day as well. And you know, undoubtedly there are a handful people in one how to know who have not half the Security Review were deemed to still pose a threat. But i think you have to look at that in the perspective of the world, you know, are, do they pose a greater threat than the gazillion of other people out there who might want to do the united States Harm and use that threat . A handful of individuals in fact, really outweigh the threat caused by the existence of guantanamo which continues to the state to be around and try for terrorist recruiters who love to cite guantanamo as evidence of the injustice of the us efforts to fight in the way that it, dest terrorist. So i think that there is, you know, that the problems that the set, the obama ministrations are still problems facing the, by the ministration. And i hope that they can find a way to move beyond that to either. You know, they basically to bring the candidates, lets get into, lets get into that. Lets get into the future. Jasmine, i mean kenneth is right, the problem that the problems that a Bama Hadnt shutting down still remained to, to stay with this new administration. Are they going to be any more successful . You know, listen, its hard to say, but i wanted to just make a quick point that is related to your question, but just to kind of point about, you know, bringing these detainees to the u. S. To be tried. I think that we have to remember, and we have to also pay respect and an honor. The victims of these terrorist attacks that really, really felt incredible Pain And Anguish at the thought of these detainees. Im talking about the very high level ones, the ones that we know were responses all not, im not talking about the ones that were, you know, wrong. We did pain at the sight of them coming to New York to the u. S. To the very, for oil, the day a half, you know, when and changed the country forever. And how much of a huge Narrative Booth than how much of a huge P R to that would have been to these terrorists company, york city. And to basically stand in front of these victims. All you know, this would have been a victory for Al Qaeda to be tried. Would have been one of the for the family, no 911 victims. They would not convey a Court Case with conviction, which i understand. So you and i may think that right, but thats obviously not what the familys thought and its not what if you look at and this is like a slightly tangential topic. But if you, 1st of all, i think we should respect what the families wanted, not what you. And i think even though i might agree with the families, did not want these people coming to us foil and talking about their ideology and their victory against the United States in a us court room. And i think we should respect that. And i think that the end of the day President Obama respected that, that, that feeling and that we, but also if you look the way that these organizations recruit this actually bring to today because i know that part of the program you want to talk about the implications for whats happening today. If you look at the way that our Height And Weight of the war against the west and against their enemies, the p. R. Aspect, with a huge aspect of it, every single thing mattered. Everything was a part of that battle. Coming to New York would have been a huge victory for them because they would have said, look, i have a platform to speak about what the things that ive done to this country. Theyre giving me a platform after i have them really running handle running out of time. Kenneth, i understand that you do want to say, but we have actually run out of time G Process is something that we need to get into it. Another program, sadly, but i do want to thank all our guests months, who are a de fee, jasmine, elko, and Kenneth Ross. Im thank you to watch it. You can see the program again anytime by this thing, a website out there at Dot Com. And for further discussion goes, well facebook page at facebook Dot Com forward slash ha inside story. And you can also join the conversation on twitter. We are at asia inside story for me, iran con, and the whole team hit by for now. The news news, news, news, news, willing russia elementary election take place in september, but as Opposition Leader alexia found the remains in prison. And just as a band from taking part could do to the kremlin, be wide open for another clean sweet fruit. 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On wednesday, it was the largest fire in California History when people need to be heard, any people who are arriving even know what i am with exclusive interviews. For 4th, ill just be around teens on the ground with intensifying rain. People here appear that these are temporary solutions to bring you more award winning documentaries and live need. Ah, this is Al Jazeera ah, hello, im about this and this is the news i live from doha. Coming out of the next 16 minutes, cutout foreign minister visits us again. Us done for talks with the you taliban leadership and the former president comments cause Side Iran eases restrictions. It imposed on international nuclear inspectors. Following crucial talks in tech on the 1st documents related to the F B I investigation into the 911 attacks are de classified as the us