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Politics & The Nation


With judge’s blessing, prosecution and defense seal agreement


by Peter Finn


guantanamo bay, cuba — A former cook for Osama bin Lad- en’s entourage in Afghanistan has reached an agreement with the U.S. government that will allow him to serve any sentence at a minimum-security facility at Guantanamo Bay, according to statements by lawyers at a mili- tary commission on Monday. Ibrahim al-Qosi, a 50-year-old


native of Sudan who worked for bin Laden for years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and material support for terror-


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TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2010 Former cook for bin Laden reaches deal with U.S. on sentence


ism as part of a pretrial agree- ment. The case marked the first conviction at Guantanamo Bay under President Obama, whose administration promised that re- formed military commissions would offer greater due process and more transparency. But the government and the


defense, with the blessing of Judge Nancy J. Paul, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, have sealed the newly reached agreement, in- cluding the maximum sentence that Qosi can serve. A spokesman for the military commission’s prosecutors, Navy Capt. David Iglesias, refused to discuss the agreement or explain why it was kept secret, except to say the plea raises “security is- sues” and is to the benefit of both Qosi and the government. Iglesias said Qosi’s period of confinement would be made pub-


lic after military officials review the record of trial, a process that he said could take several weeks. Another military official said the process could take several months.


A military defense lawyer would not discuss the agreement. The sealing of the agreement is


“certainly a novelty to me,” said Gary Solis, a former military judge who has presided over more than 700 courts-martial. Solis, who teaches the laws of war at Georgetown University and is observing the commissions for the National Institute of Military Justice, said that there was clear- ly a quid pro quo that led both the prosecution and defense to agree to it.


Only three detainees were con-


victed at Guantanamo under the George W. Bush administration, and two of those have been re-


U.N. chief Ban says criticisms


of his leadership are ‘unfair’ Oversight official said he undermined her authority


by Colum Lynch


united nations — U.N. Secre- tary General Ban Ki-moon mounted a highly emotional de- fense of his embattled tenure Monday, telling reporters at a news conference that allegations that he sought to undercut the in- dependence of the United Na- tions’ main anti-corruption agen- cy were “unfair.” Just weeks ago, Ban came un-


der attack from his outgoing oversight chief, Inga-Britt Ahleni- us, who said that Ban, among oth- er things, had undermined her authority to make her own selec- tion for the top investigations job. At the time, Ban argued that Ahlenius had the power to pro-


pose a shortlist of three candi- dates, including one woman, but that he had the power to select the winner from the list. “I have given 100 percent inde- pendence” to the United Nations’ internal oversight body, Ban said. “I’m a very reasonable, very prac- tical man of common sense. I do not take extreme, unreasonable policies. I always do the right things, proper things.” “If anybody or if any member


states with the U.N. system, or any colleague of me within the U.N. Secretariat, accuses me on the issue of accountability or eth- ics, then that’s something I re- gard as unfair,” he said.


But Ban seemed to acknowl-


edge Monday that he is consider- ing a South African auditor for the investigations position, a move that would effectively un- dercut the authority of the in- coming U.N oversight chief to propose candidates for one of the organization’s most important


anti-corruption posts. Carman Lapointe-Young, a Canadian au- ditor who will replace Ahlenius starting next month, has not even begun recruiting a deputy. Ac- cording to Ban’s view, Lapointe- Young has the authority to select at least three candidates for the investigations post. The selection of Lapointe-


Young has fueled resentment among Third World govern- ments, which believed that the post should have gone to a candi- date from a developing country. Asked if he had already prom- ised the investigations job as a consolation to a South African auditor who had lost out to La- pointe-Young, Ban said: “No, I don’t think he has been properly cleared through the process.” But Ban’s advisers later said


that the secretary general had been confused by the question and that no South Africans were being considered for the job. lynchc@washpost.com


leased. Qosi was among the first four detainees to be charged be- fore a military commission when charges were brought against him in 2004. In a separate case, the trial of Omar Khadr, the youngest de- tainee at Guantanamo, is sched- uled to start this week. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was 15 years old when he was captured in 2002. He is accused of murder, among other war crimes, by the government, which alleges that he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic during a firefight in southern Afghani- stan. In a significant victory for the


government in the Khadr case, Judge Pat Parrish, an Army colo- nel, said the government can use as evidence a series of self- incriminating statements made by Khadr while in detention at


Bagram air base in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Khadr’s lawyers had argued that the statements were the result of tor- ture, or cruel, inhuman or de- grading treatment, and should be suppressed. The judge also ad- mitted a videotape showing Khadr among a group of men building homemade bombs. In Qosi’s case, a jury of at least


five military officers will be se- lected to hear evidence and de- termine a sentence for him. But if the jury imposes a prison sen- tence that exceeds the sentence laid out in the plea agreement, it will be moot, unless Qosi breaks the agreement. Al-Arabiya, a 24-hour Arab


news network based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, cited anonymous sources to report last month that the plea agreement calls for a two-year sentence.


In court Monday, Judge Paul said the relevant officials at the Defense Department should en- sure that Qosi serves any time he receives at Camp 4 — a mini- mum-security facility at Guanta- namo Bay where detainees live in communal quarters — unless the military detention center at Guantanamo is closed. If that happens, and it appears unlikely as the Obama administration’s ef- forts to close Guantanamo have stalled, Qosi will be moved to a similar prison facility that also of- fers communal living. If the government fails to live up to the deal, Paul said, she will invalidate the guilty plea. In the past, defense officials


have said that the Geneva Con- ventions do not allow detainees to be held in the same facility as convicts.


finnp@washpost.com Defense secretary announces job reductions defense from A1


ued overall growth in the Penta- gon’s budget. After a decade in which its


budget has nearly doubled, the Defense Department confronts its most significant fiscal constraints since the end of the Cold War. These constraints are pressing the military to accept major changes in the way it operates, especially as it tries to end long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The initiatives Gates detailed are part of his previously an- nounced effort to save $100 bil- lion over five years by trimming overhead and shrinking bureauc- racy so that more money can be spent on troops and weapons. That bureaucracy includes the


U.S. Joint Forces Command, which was established in 1999 to coordinate training and military doctrine among the branches of the armed services. The com- mand is also involved in organiz- ing the deployment of armed forces around the world. On Monday, the defense secre-


tary emphasized that he is not seeking to cut the Pentagon’s overall budget. Rather, he said, of- ficials need to demonstrate a new- found thriftiness to keep deficit hawks elsewhere in the govern- ment at bay. “The culture of end- less money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of savings and restraint,” he said. In a statement, Obama said he


Rememberto...


supports Gates’s plans, saying they would “help us sustain the current force structure and make needed investments in modern- ization in a fiscally responsible way.”


Despite soaring federal budget


deficits, the Obama administra- tion has asked Congress to in- crease defense spending next year from $535 billion to $549 billion, not counting the cost of the wars in Iran and Afghanistan. Lawmakers from both parties


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have questioned how long the Pentagon’s budget can avoid the ax as Washington confronts its mounting debts. Analysts said


MANUEL BALCE CENETA/ASSOCIATED PRESS


“The culture of endless money . . . must be replaced by a culture of savings and restraint,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said.


Gates’s preemptive strategy has played well on Capitol Hill, but might go only so far. “It’s a very smart and anticipa-


tory set of actions Gates is taking, and it will definitely help,” said Maren Leed, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Interna- tional Studies and a former staff member of the Senate Armed Ser- vices Committee. “Will it be enough? Probably not.” Some stalwarts of the defense establishment have urged Gates to make deeper cuts. The Defense Business Board, an advisory group at the Penta- gon, recommended to Gates last month that he shutter the Joint Forces Command. It also urged the Defense Department to shed more than 100,000 civilian jobs overall, returning its workforce to the size it was in 2003, when it numbered about 650,000. Gates noted that the number of people working directly for him — in the Office of the Secretary of Defense — has swelled by 1,000 employees over the past decade, an increase of about 50 percent. He said he would freeze the num- ber of personnel in his office, as well as those working for defense agencies and the military’s 10 combatant commands, for the next three years. The reduction in money for


contractors alone would mark a major shift in the way the Defense Department has conducted busi- ness over the past decade, as it sought to limit the size of the fed- eral workforce by hiring private firms instead. The Pentagon did not specify how much it hopes to save by clos- ing the Joint Forces Command or by reducing the number of con- tractors. Nor did it say how many of those positions would be trans- ferred to the rest of the Defense Department’s civilian workforce. Indeed, the military isn’t even sure how many contractors are on its payroll. One Pentagon report recently estimated that it relies on about 766,000 contractors, at a cost of about $155 billion. In com- parison, the Defense Depart- ment’s civil-service workforce consists of 745,000 people. A Washington Post analysis


conducted as part of the “Top Se- cret America” investigation, how- ever, found a significantly higher number: an estimated 1.2 million contractors overall being paid by the Defense Department, includ- ing the armed services and mili- tary intelligence agencies. whitlockc@washpost.com


Staff writer Rosalind S. Helderman in Richmond and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.


Defense cuts could be most painful in Virginia virginia from A1 our Achilles’ heel.” Virginia received $35 billion in


defense contracts, supporting more than 530,000 contracting and associated jobs in fiscal 2008, Fuller said. About 70 percent of those dollars flowed to Northern Virginia. He said three years of 10 per-


cent cuts to military contracting, as announced by Gates, could swallow up as much as half of the economic growth projected for Northern Virginia in coming years. “This is big stuff, and it’s going to disproportionately affect Northern Virginia,” he said. Sharon Bulova (D), chairman


of the Fairfax County Board of Su- pervisors, said the decision “would definitely have an im- pact” on her contractor-rich county. “I wouldn’t say this would halt our recovery, but it’s not go- ing to help,” she said. In Norfolk, Gov. Robert F. Mc- Donnell (R) hastily called a news conference with two congression- al Democrats, two congressional Republicans and the Democratic mayors of Norfolk and Suffolk, designed to show bipartisan op- position to the proposed closure of the U.S. Joint Forces Com- mand, one of the Pentagon’s 10 combat installations. McDonnell and others insisted


that their opposition was not just about retaining local jobs but about maintaining national secu- rity. They said the installation plays a key role in training mili- tary personnel to work together, boosting efficiency.


“To take and dismantle the


Joint Forces Command — an ef- fective, efficient, low-cost joint command between all of our ser- vices — I believe is extremely shortsighted and not in the inter- ests of the United States, our na- tional security or Virginia,” Mc- Donnell said. McDonnell signed an executive order on Monday establishing a commission designed to save Vir- ginia military’s installations and find ways to attract new military spending to the state. Despite the angry words, there appears to be little recourse for Virginia leaders. The cuts, part of a broad effort to reduce military spending underway since 2008, do not need congressional ap- proval, Pentagon officials said. At a news conference, Gates noted that Virginia lawmakers might be more willing to stomach the loss of the Joint Forces Com- mand if they consider a possible silver lining of his restructuring: his desire to redirect the savings to other defense programs that could benefit the state. “If I can add a billion or two to


the Navy’s shipbuilding budget,” he said, “Virginia might come out ahead with more than it loses.” But opposition to the closure


nevertheless spanned the Vir- ginia political spectrum. Both of the state’s Democratic senators expressed doubts about the deci- sion. Sen. Mark Warner said in a statement that he saw “no ration- al basis” for shuttering the com- mand.


Sen. James Webb, a former


Navy secretary, said the proposal could be “harmful to the capabili-


ties of the finest military in the world.” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said a move to cut the entire combat command must be subject to the “heaviest scrutiny.”


But despite the effort to pre- sent a united front against Gates’s proposal, some partisan cracks emerged within hours of the announcement. McDonnell and Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) accused the Obama administra- tion of looking at the defense budget for cuts instead of at other parts of the federal government. The administration is “selling off our military at auction to pay for its social programs,” Forbes said. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) responded that a reduction in contracting was inevitable after Republicans pushed jobs that should be performed by govern- ment employees into the private sector under President George W. Bush. He said, for instance, that acquisition officers who oversee other, private contracts should be employed by the government for accountability. And he suggested that Repub- licans who have spent months calling for reduced federal spend- ing should understand that the pain of trimming must be shared. “Just as with budget cutting as a whole, when we look at where the impact is, it will invariable be felt by every state and in every district,” he said. heldermanr@washpost.com


Staff writer Craig Whitlock in Washington contributed to this report.


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