The Politics of Gitmo
A federal judge's ruling last week threw a potential new curveball into the campaign debate over the War on Terror. Democratic appointed Judge James Robertson gave the Pentagon a green light to start the first-ever military-commission trial of a Gitmo detainee this week—that of Salim Hamdan, an alleged Qaeda member who served as Osama bin Laden's driver. (Robertson said that if defense lawyers see the trial as unfair, they can challenge the results later in federal court.) But the ramifications of the ruling go beyond that one case. Pentagon officials say it allows them to proceed with a series of military-commission trials, hearings and new charges that (coincidentally or not) will play out in the middle of the election campaign. Among them are hearings, if not the actual trial, in the conspiracy case involving 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. "We are moving forward," said J. D. Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon, noting that the next round of KSM hearings are slated for August and another commission trial, involving Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, is due to begin Oct. 8.
Aside from producing new testimony on Al Qaeda and terror plots, the proceedings could sharpen the debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. While both have said they want to shut down Gitmo, McCain backs the military commissions; Obama voted against the bill that created the panels in 2006. When the Pentagon announced its charges against KSM and five co-conspirators, Obama argued that the men should be tried either in a civilian court or by a military court-martial. But would he call a halt to trials already underway? Spokesman Bill Burton told NEWSWEEK Obama will "review any pending cases and make a judgment about how to go forward based on the best interest of the country." But the established "court systems … are capable of convicting terrorists."
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Michael Isikoff has been an award-winning investigative correspondent for Newsweek since 2004. He has written extensively on the U.S. government's war on terrorism, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, presidential politics and other national issues. His book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," co-written with David Corn, was an instant New York Times best-seller when it was published in September, 2006. The book was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "fascinating reading" and "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations" in the run up to the war in Iraq. Since January 2009, Isikoff has been an MSNBC contributor, making regular appearances on the Rachel Maddow Show and Hardball w/ Chris Matthews.
Ever since the events of September 11, Isikoff has broken repeated stories about the U.S. government's war on terror and won numerous journalism awards. His blog "DeClassified: Investigative Reporting in Real Time," which appears regularly on Newsweek's Web site and is written with MarkHosenball, has become a must-read for senior U.S. intelligence officials. Isikoff and Hosenball won the 2005 award from the Society of Professional Journalists for best investigative reporting online.
Isikoff's June 2002 Newsweek cover story on U.S. intelligence failures that preceded the 9-11 terror attacks, along with a series of related articles, was honored with the Investigative Reporters and Editors top prize for investigative reporting in magazine journalism. He was honored, along with a team of Newsweek reporters, by the Society of Professional Journalists for coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal. For that coverage, Isikoff obtained exclusive internal White House, Justice Department and State Department memos showing how decisions made at the highest levels of the Bush administration led to abuses in the interrogation of terror suspects. Isikoff was also part of a reporting team that earned Newsweek the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2002, the highest award in magazine journalism, for their coverage of the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.
Isikoff's exclusive reporting on the Monica Lewinsky scandal gained him national attention in 1998, including profiles in The New York Times and The Washington Post and a guest appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman." His coverage of the events that lead to President Bill Clinton's impeachment earned Newsweek the prestigious National Magazine Award in the Reporting category in 1999. Isikoff's reporting also won the National Headliner Award, the Edgar A. Poe Award presented by the White House Correspondents Association and the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. In 2001, Isikoff was named on a list of "most influential journalists" in the nation's capital by Washingtonian magazine.
Isikoff is the author of "Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story," a book that chronicled his own reporting of the Lewinsky story and was hailed by a critic for The Washington Post-Los Angeles Times news service as "the absolutely essential narrative of the scandal with revelations that no one would have thought possible." The book, also a New York Times bestseller, was named Best Non-Fiction Book of 1999 by the Book of the Month Club.
Isikoff came to Newsweek from The Washington Post, where he had been a reporter since September 1981. There he covered the Justice Department and the Persian Gulf War, reported on international drug operations in Latin America and worked on the Post's financial news desk. Isikoff graduated from Washington University with a B.A. in 1974 and received a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1976.
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