What Do You Do With These People?

Eighth of 25 excerpts from The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer:

Almost from the start, the Bush administration's aggressive use of "extraordinary renditions" stirred fierce internal resistance, much of it coming from surprising quarters -- not just human rights activists but rather hard-line law-and-order stalwarts in the criminal justice system with years of experience fighting terrorism. Their concerns were as much practical as ideological. Firsthand experience in interrogation led most to doubt the effectiveness of physical coercion as a means of extracting reliable information. They also warned the Bush administration that once it took prisoners outside the realm of the law, it would have trouble bringing them back in. By holding detainees indefinitely, without counsel, without charges of wrongdoing, and under circumstances that could, in legal parlance, "shock the conscience" of a court, the administration, they warned, would jeopardize its chances of convicting hundreds of suspected terrorists, or even of using them as witnesses in almost any court in the world.

"It's a big problem," explained Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general and a member of the 9/11 Commission. "In criminal justice, you either prosecute the suspects or let them go. But if you've treated them in ways that won't allow you to prosecute them you're in this no-man's-land. What do you do with these people?"

Copyright 2008 by Jane Mayer. All Rights Reserved