toll continues to rise as they find bodies many believe to be migrants, while searching for any survivors. bombardment this week by the saudi led coalition follows a brazen attack by the hu thies, using drones on the capital of the united arab emirates, abu dhabi on monday, which killed 3 people in new york at the un. the security council met behind closed doors to discuss that attack, but not the attacks on who the controlled areas. the current president of the council is no way i asked. it's ambassador mona jewel for her countries reaction to the scale of the death toll in sedar. it's, it's, it's not acceptable, andy, absolutely, and call for ask for a strength on all sides. me. after the meeting, the ambassador of the united arab emirates flanked by representatives of 6 other council members, including the permanent members, the u. k. france, and the u. s. gave a statement that this egregious aggression by the, her thies as well as the proliferation of missile and other technology that enable the terrorist attack. she made no mention of the saddam attack by the coalition of which the u. a is one of the 2 main members. so i pressed the ambassadors, your defense under law has to be proportionate. does it not? and the president of the council away speaking in a national catholic capacity, said the attack that took place in saddam was on accept what you have heard today. and you will know following the work of the council that this is rare. what you have heard today is the unanimous condemnation by the security council against the terrorist attack against the united arab emirates on monday, the 17th of january middle school, that i'm asking about your response, and whether it was proportionate, given that at least 60 people have died maybe as many as i'd like to refer you to the coalition statement on that matter. but i also like to affirm here that the coalition undertakes to abide by international law and proportionate response in all its military operations. human rights groups have criticize the security council's approach as one sided. the council did issue a statement, but again, only on the drone attack, on abu dhabi, the secretary general of the united nations, antonio terrace, has addressed the cottage and saddam and other attacks and who controlled areas. he's called for prompt, effective and transparent investigations. james bays al jazeera at the united nations of headlines. u. s. military 8 is a rived in ukraine's capital key as the 1st shipment of a $200000000.00 package, which washington approved last month has been growing. concern is russia. mobilizes troops near ukraine border. i've got this dance, interior minister says employees of the previous government are not being targeted by the taliban. sit are getting how connie has told odyssey or the new administration is keeping its word on the issue of fire in a high rise residential building in mom by has killed at least 7 people. hundreds of other people rescued. police say an electrical fault may have been the cause of the fire. 250000 pieces of drinking water delivered by the navy is being distributed across toner, the largest delivery of fresh water to the islands. a week after of all kind of corruption and synonymy and energy giants, chevron and total have pulled out of a major gas project in me and now they are concerned about human rights abuses after last year qu, the energy sector has been the army biggest source of foreign income and flooding in line sides in pairs of cut off access to the ancient city of much peach you. railroads and bridges have been washed away around the unesco world. heritage site and tourist stranded in the area are being moved out with that you up to date with the headlines on out 0. the bottom line with state clements is coming up next. oh ok. hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. 20 years after opening the off the grid military prison in guantanamo. why is it still open and came in? i say it's ever really shut it down. let's get to the bottom line. ah, it's considered one of america's most historic and problematic national security decisions. running a military prison outside the american legal system. but in the wake of the attacks of $911.00 us forces were scooping up hundreds of prisoners in afghanistan with no idea whether they posed a threat or not, or what to do with them. the us military describe the prisoners then at guantanamo bay, cuba as the worst of the worst. but guess what? soon it became obvious that the vast majority had nothing to do with 911 or at least couldn't be convicted, and hundreds of them were sent home. today, 39 prisoners remain in military detention with many just waiting for any country to take them. and the bigger question remains out there at the united states would resort to such tactics when it felt threatened. why shouldn't authoritarian regimes around the world do the same thing? it's still a sort medical subject in the united states. so is the military president guantanamo morally unacceptable? and can it be shut down for good? today we're talking to john bellenger, the 3rd, who served as legal adviser to the national security council, and senior associate council to president george w bush during the establishment of the detention facility in guantanamo. and he was a leader, chief legal advisor, the secretary of state kinda leads arise. and he also helped draft legislation that created the office of the director of national intelligence. he's now a lawyer in private practice with a law firm arnold in port porter in washington d. c and karen greenberg, director of the center on national security at fordham university school of law. she's the author of several books on the ways that the war on terror impacted justice in law inside america, including the least worst place. guantanamo the 1st $100.00 days. it's really great to be with you both, john bellenger. let me ask you, you were there at the creation and you've written very compellingly in the law fare blog. i would highly recommend to our readers to go read your very articulate explanation of why guantanamo was established. in your support for it, but take us back to that time and tell us what you thought. the compelling reasons were for guantanamo to be established back. steven size to be with you and also with my old friend karen greenberg, who i've talked about one time or wait for a number of years. so, i mean just same right at the outset before i answer your question, see that i have long been a one time, a skeptic and from probably my 3rd year in the government. i have supported the closure a long time ago because i've thought that it does this more harm than good. and i advocated for that for much of the time that i was in government. but let me go back to the beginning because that is important. and i think that actually has been mischaracterized by critics. so as you pointed out, after the invasion of afghanistan, r u. s. forces had captured hundreds. if not thousands of suspected taliban are outside members, people are trained in training camps or people who had been turned over to us forces. the war was still going on and afghan, a stand and the military commanders said to those of us in washington in december, we can't hold all these people here. if you want us to question them, there's still a hot war going on. you need to find a place to hold them where they can be questions so that we can actually determine who is responsible for 911 and whether there are going to be more attacks coming. because that really was the worry in the fall of 2001 beginning of 2002 that there would be more attacks. so policy makers in washington considered a number of places to hold these detained, suspected taliban and al qaeda members outside are back in a stand where the commanders didn't want them. we looked at different places around the world and in the united states and ultimately settled on want hanuman bay cuba, which was a naval base just off the coast of florida that the clinton administration had used to house something like 10000 patients and cuban refugees during the ministration, so there was infrastructure there, there was a navy base there, there was housing there. people had been previously held there, but it was not in afghanistan, and it was not in the united states where we would have been bringing a bunch of terror suspects. so that's why guantanamo was originally created. not so much to try to put people outside the law, but to have a secure place to hold them. that was not in afghanistan. well, before i jump to karen, let me just follow up john and ask, you know, on one level that sounds pragmatic. it even sounds innocent. but we saw, as you said, you know, the development of enhanced interrogation techniques and then, and then behavior is not just about guantanamo, but other black fights. we've heard stories about rendition of these prisoners at different places, humiliation, abuse, etc. i guess my question to you is something that seem pragmatic at the time became something that became very much of a dark spot later. what happened is it, is it just the nature of governments and power and trying to deal with the, the passion and fear at that moment that led to those behaviors? what's your sense of it? because you are in the middle, and i know i'll just tell our audience, you had a lot of moral problems with, with what it evolved. but how did that happen? how did that become part of that story? well, i think it was a pragmatic solution at the time that then ultimately went off base. now i think a lot of guantanamo critics suggest that while they had been in office that that would have been some perfect solution. but there was not a perfect solution in december 2001 commander's nap ghana. stan were clamoring for a place to hold the people because there was a hot water still going on on afghanistan. nobody wanted to bring hundreds, potentially a 1000 that taliban and i just checked to the united states. and so bottom channel had been a place that had been used before to house people. it was very close to the united states. but over time you're absolutely right. and this is one of the reasons why i long supported that closure one time. and while i was still in government, is that it did become a real moral block on the united states as a country that is committed to the rule of law. number of the other things that you mentioned really had nothing to do with on time. oh, enhanced interrogation techniques or renditions or you know, the abu ghraib. those were a whole lot of other detention problems that were get much together with one time, one time most certainly had its own problems including that there were mis treatment and abuses at guantanamo, but guantanamo was not abu gray one time or what not to see a black sites, people were not rendered to one time tomorrow, but it all became sort of caught up in an overall image of abuse of detainees. and of course, there are the famous, famous pictures of the people in the army jump suit, guantanamo that ultimately became a recruiting tool for terrorists around the world. so again, starting as early as 2003 or 4 when i was still in the white house, i began to argue that while i'm talking about might have served up necessary purpose in the beginning of 2002. but it was becoming a albatross for the united states not to be closed down and that the people bear should be moved by either to their own countries who want to take responsibility for them or to presence in the united states or in. thank you, karen, i'm listening carefully to john and the early rationale for guantanamo. but i also remember something a political science professor taught me a long time ago. said, steve, you never really know the norms of a political system until you observe it under stress. and under stress, you'll see, you know, not an, a good day when a bad day what it says really do. and i, and i guess from you, what does the guantanamo detention facility in this story mean in terms of america story out in the world and how it is seen? well 1st, thank you so much for having me. and for doing this show on the 20th anniversary of guantanamo opening, and it's so nice to be in conversation with john, who's mentored me through so many of the questions about guantanamo so you know what the guantanamo mean, what it means and the time of dress as you just said was the, the united states willingness to push aside many of the many of the rules and regulations and norms that would have governed prisoners in a war time situation. and i would say more than it was the to, to john bellenger's point, the, it was the perpetuation of that, as much as the original fed up that has led us to the quagmire that we're in today . also just want to tag on to something else that you said before you raised about the black sites and the torture of individuals in custody and black sites. in many countries around the world, those prisoners are brought to the united states in the fall of 2006. after the time john was talking about that there was some consideration including his that it was the right thing to do to close guantanamo bay. rather than close it, they did bring these black site individuals that we referred to, mostly as high value detainees to guantanamo. and that in a way change the nature of guantanamo for ever. it made it look like it was actually the worst of the worst that were there. and not just people that have been rounded up as sort of as, as in afghanistan and elsewhere, to try to just get whoever they could, that they thought might want to do ill to the united states. and so that piece of guantanamo actually changed and has changed it to this day. you know, now we're 20 years out. we still have 39 prisoners over half of almost half of them have been cleared for release, many by the, by ministration. we have military commissions that if you are a betting person and you wanted to say, will they ever start, you might say yes and whether or not you would say, will they ever come to conclusion, that would be a whole other a bit. so i would say we're stuck in limbo, we've been in this limbo as a country for nearly all of these 20 years. and although we nip and tuck at it here and there it, it seems that the end is forever out of our reach, forever elusive. what about the arguments that some others have made? and recently there was on the 20th anniversary of the opening of guantanamo detention facility testimony before the phil you can you participate in this and, and even major general michael leonard, who is the marine corps major general who established and set up one time that was his order, he sort of step back and he's among other military officials are saying, look, we need to close this, that it, that the, it's doing much more harm to american national security than it is doing good. but you also cite in a piece that ran in the american prospect. karen greenberg, a comment by, by someone who said we still need to do at george mason university is jemila jaffer . and you quote him saying, we know that our enemies continue to target us. we know that the war on terror continues. the question then is what to do about these detainees. we know all these detainees currently remaining at guantanamo bay. some of them represent the most hardcore, the most committed of the terrorists. we've captured in this conflict, but, but what about the argument that jameel jaffer makes karen? so a couple of things. first, just about major general mike letter. he's a large part of that book that i wrote the least worth plays about, the opening of guantanamo. and so many of the issues that john bellenger just raised, and that i referred to, were parents in those 1st 100 days, which is sort of a sorry, state of affairs. consider its continued this law. the same arguments that were made then are being made. now, as you just referred to, and what about that argument is, and i would love to hear john bellenger, talk about this is a couple of things. first, we can resolve the military commissions cases. there are a number of ways to do that. you can do it to have b s in the federal court. you can do it through the plea deal of potentially there are ways to do it and not to have this process draw out even longer than it. and it is. and there's an assumption that it just need to draw out that is not the case. the 2nd thing is that not 11 did catch us off guard in terms of our national security defenses and offences. we have spent 20 years as a country building up and intelligence infrastructure, military infrastructure, military intelligence, infrastructure, a law enforcement infrastructure. up, my understanding is the united states has made itself a safer nation, have made itself understanding what the threats against us are in the world when it comes to the area of terrorism. why are we so afraid of being able to, could take care of ourselves when it comes to these $39.00 individuals? what is it that's holding us back? the recidivism rate, despite many reports that have come out, do not seem to be anywhere near what they were once thought to be. it's a 5 percent recidivism rate among those that obama left out. i think more than that for who bush had left out. it's been a long time and coming, and let me just say one other thing, the detainees, those that could be cleared for release. now not the military commissions, one, there old. many of them are sick. many of them are and very much reduce capacity. and when you talk to those who or out or you read what they've read, or you listen to interviews, you know what they say. they say i want to get all my life. i want to see my wife. i want to see my children. i want to participate in the world. they're not talking about terrorism, which is why they're being clear. and one of the reasons they're being cleared for release. so that's a partial answer i think, to what you're raising. well, let me ask john ballenger, you know, how can these cases be dispatched? these people moved elsewhere when one criticizes that in almost anything in government, one also has to think of sort of what was the alternative? the alternative to setting up guantanamo was either the whole people in afghan to stand, which would require to sending probably thousands of more troops and f. b. i. agents to afghanistan to hold the people there. question people there that were not saved and sanitary secured conditions. they would have had to send people to afghanistan. they are now maybe that was the answer, candidly, because people got move too quickly out of afghanistan, the screening was badly done. and so a lot of people got sent to guantanamo who really didn't need to be l. because the initial screening was not well done, but the alternative would have been and we've just gone through a great national debate about whether we should be sending people into words out, is to have sent thousands of people to afghanistan to hold them and question them there but in case they are one, honda mo, over for presidents now, starting with george bush and then brock obama and then donald trump. and now joe biden. well, over 750 people have been transferred to other countries. the detainees came from something like 30 different countries, so it all on to afghanistan. and i can tell you that, you know, despite, although i think some of the people in guantanamo really were entirely innocent. when you hear their lawyers say, you know that, that they were all in the wrong place at the wrong time. i don't think all of those people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. you know, some of them were in fact, up to no good. they could not be charged under us criminal laws because us criminal laws at the time in 2001 did not apply to the conduct of non us nationals in afghanistan. it wasn't a crime for humanity or a saudi to simply train in a training camp, an afghan, a stand. so when you hear their lawyers are advocates say, well, they've been charged with not thing they've been charged with no crime. you know, the assumption is, well therefore they've done nothing wrong and are innocent. and in some cases i think there were mistakes and people were innocent. but not every single person who was released to not charged with the crime. you know, had been simply a tourist in afghanistan. so over success to presidents, we did get most countries to take their nationals back so that we wouldn't be responsible for them. that leaves us now to the remaining $39.00. some, as kind of said, have been cleared for lease, they'll have to go back to their own countries. we have to make sure they'll be treated well in their own countries. there are about a dozen who have been charged with crimes and military commissions. people like collegiate mohammad who has been a jo personally admitted to cutting off the head of the wall street journal reporter danny pearl. so there are some bad people there and then there are another dozen roughly can, can give me the exact number of people who have not been charged but have not been cleared for release. now let me bring in something that we haven't mentioned yet, which is critical. is that the reason that a key reason the guantanamo has not closed and certainly was not closed within a year after brock obama wanted to do so? wanted it done if the congress in 2011 pass laws that are still on the books that prohibit the transfer of one time of detainees to the united states. so there is a congressional law that is been supported by both republicans and democrats saying detainees can't be moved into the united states. now. i think that is a mistake. when i was still in the bush administration, i supported transferring as many people out of one, find them out to their home countries. so we wouldn't have to be responsible for them. and the remainder who we that we wanted to prosecute, or we felt were too dangerous to transfer, right? united states. and i think those who argue that it's not safe to transfer the united into the united states is that is just hogwash. you know, we have maximum security presence, either a military presence or civilian prisons. and i think if we were to transfer the remaining number of these detainees at guantanamo to either a military facility or, or a civilian facility, they are not going to be walking out the back door. i have confidence in that. well, thank you john. karen, i know, i know both you and john, you know, live this story and been working on these issues so deeply which is why we are talking to you. but as you go out and take the temperature, as you talk with senator dick durbin, who chaired and held these her hearings earlier on, potentially closing, want on a mo, do you sense that there's any shift in this time of biden, the biden era, to actually doing things that other presidents couldn't do. the article that you wrote sounded pessimistic yet funny. i started out very optimistic at the beginning of the by an administration because a number of things were done to clear individuals who transferred to, to move ahead with the military commissions. in terms i think there is much more sentiment for closing. guantanamo. then there has been in the past, i've seen statements by a number of senators and others representatives about trusting american in the world. and it's come up in a couple of hearings lately. i also think there are a lot of people who just aren't aware of guantanamo who aren't thinking about it. and the idea that there would be some kind of tremendous pushback. yeah. if politicians wanted to really inflame it and get them to talk about it, i think that's fine. i think one of that may, 1 of the things that may be going on is, and i course hope this is that there is some kind of behind the scenes work going on. but there has not been a special envoy appointed as there was under obama cancelled to under trump, to take these individuals that have been released and to find countries that will take them because most of them are not going to be released to their home country. many come from yemen and other war torn areas where they, where the united states feel that it would be too dangerous to put them both for terms of our security should they want to re engage and their own security in terms of human rights issues. but the thing you can't lose sight of here is that it's 39 people. we should, we as a country to be able to say, we haven't been able to close guantanamo, we can't find a judicial system either federally or in, in guantanamo, in the military commissions that knows how to adjudicate these cases. this is such an insult to the way we like to think of our institutions there. robustness, their ability to handle things are called and tried to bring these cases to the united states when he 1st came into office. that is when congress, after that trial congress passed the law saying that no dean 18 a could be come here for any reason whatsoever, not health, not trial, not anything else. it would be great if that could change, but i don't think plans going ahead are going to be dependent on that. let me just do a quick check with both of you 10 years from today. if we invited back to, i'll talk about this again. will we still have a guantanamo detention facility? likely still open jon bellenger. i think there's a real possibility, although i hope that joe biden will actually figure a way to get it close to. as karen said, there are only 39 people laugh 18 cleared for release. that's only about 20 left. right. lawyers argue that the president could simply use his executive powers to move people to the united states, right? some to be held without charge, unfortunately, and some who would be prosecuted either in a military system or judicial system. so i hope that he will actually figure out a way to get it closed during his presidency. but i certainly wouldn't bet money that 10 years from now that it will still be open. karen greenberg real quick, and we're going to be talking about this in 10 years. now. i, i have to believe what i want to believe, which is we're going to figure out how to close this finally once and for all. well, listen, thank you to you both for your candor and your insights into this john bellenger, former advisor to the state department and national security council, and karen greenberg, director of the center on national security at fordham university school of law. thanks so much for joining us. today, thank you. so what's the bottom line? groups like the islamic state appropriated the iconic orange jumpsuits warned by guantanamo prisoners as part of their story that they were murdering and killing because of the unjust ways that their comrades detained in cuba were being treated with guantanamo where america abandoned the rule of law. and treated prisoners, inhumanely tortured them. america gave its enemies a gift that has helped them recruit tens of thousands of young men and women to join their ranks. i would like to say that what we've seen in these last decades at guantanamo is not the real america. but the truth is that it is in part who and what america is. there is a dark side just there is also a system of justice for most and wrestling candidly and honestly with this dark episode is the only way america can once again prove to a new generation around the world. that the rule of law and democracy are worth aspiring to want on. emma, whether it remains open, longer or it closes, must never be forgot. remembering it, knowing that americans were not their best selves, there is the only way to move beyond it. and that's the bottom line. ah, for quite a few decades, i've been dealing with political and economic turmoil. and it's people struggle to access essential needs, like adequate quantities of potable water, a sufficient number of beds for pregnant mothers, and limited access to up to date information for students. and in the ha that groundwater is not sufficient to meet a daily needs of all of its residents. this led to the development of the new water treatment facility and hun, eunice slowing down for their pollution. the extension, as, as chief as medical facilities was accomplished to provide expected mothers with a safe and reliable opportunity to get the care they needed. the kuwait library at the university college, a science and technology is not only a repository of knowledge but an access point to the world beyond. ah, and come out santa maria, back with another look at the headlines on al jazeera aid agencies of said more than 70 people have been killed in an air strike in yemen. the saudi military coalition hit a detention center holding migrants new and secretary journal. he's condemned the killing of civilians and called for an investigation or from bahama de la tub with the pretty reaction in santa they condemned at such a tag on prisoners on unmade, so while still waiting for their sentences and the condemned such a drag and those will have called on the international community to add to.

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