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American Morning

No Shortage of Criticism For Way Attorney General Ashcroft Has Prosecuted War on Terrorism Here at Home

Aired December 06, 2001 - 08:10   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: No shortage of criticism, it seems for the way Attorney General John Ashcroft has prosecuted the war on terrorism here at home. The order allowing secret military tribunals to try suspected foreign terrorists has led to questions in the media and elsewhere about whether Mr. Ashcroft has gone too far.

Elliot Mincberg from People for the American Way Foundation spoke at an ACLU news conference yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

ELLIOT MINCBERG, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: What we have seen particularly over the last month is a very disturbing pattern. A pattern that reflects an effort to amend the Constitution and laws by Fiat (ph) - by executive Fiat with only Mr. Ashcroft deciding what information we will and won't release. Only Mr. Ashcroft deciding under what circumstances, for example, the government can spy on conversations between lawyers and clients in federal custody. That is something that must stop.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

ZAHN: Recent opinion polls, though, indicate that Americans support what Ashcroft is doing and later today Mr. Ashcroft will face some of his most vocal critics when he goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Joining me now with their views on how Mr. Ashcroft is doing are two former attorneys general. Ed Meese who served Ronald Reagan. He joins us from our Washington bureau this morning. Good morning.

EDWIN MEESE, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: Good morning.

ZAHN: And Ramsey Clark. Glad to have you as well. He, of course, was the attorney general during the Johnson administration. He joins us from our New York studio. Delighted to have both of you with us this morning.

So Mr. Clark, on top of today's agenda, of course, is John Ashcroft's defense of the use of - potential use of military tribunals. If you were attorney general, would you back this idea?

RAMSEY CLARK, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: Absolutely not - absolutely not. I think it's a terrible mistake. You know, we're right at the anniversaries of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our American Bill of Rights, December 15th and December 10th, and this action clearly violates those. We spend a great deal of time - the United States government in condemning other governments for the use of secret and military trials where a matter of life is.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission condemns them universally. The Inter American Human Rights Commission condemns them in the western hemisphere and here the United States with all its power and all of its commitment to freedom, is saying we don't have confidence in our civilian courts. We don't trust them. We don't think they're capable of doing it. We've got to go to Guam and take people out there and place them where we'll never know what happened except what we're told. It's just unthinkable that we would do it, and the image around the country and around the world, particularly would be extremely damaging to the United States.

ZAHN: Mr. Meese, your reaction to what your colleague Mr. Clark just had to say, specifically the issue, perhaps the suggestion that this means that John Ashcroft has a loss of faith in civilian courts.

MEESE: No, not at all. Mr. Clark is unfortunately totally wrong, both as to the legal aspects and also as to the practical matters. What we're talking about is a very limited use of military tribunals, something that is totally constitutional, something that has been recognized as legitimate by the Congress, and which is going to be used and has been used in the past in wartime situations in extraordinary circumstances.

We have really three types of people that are involved here. We have citizens of the United States who, if they are accused of violations relating to terrorism, will of course be tried in the normal United States courts. We have on the far other side prisoners of war who are merely captured and held without any kind of trial. And then we have others who are classified as illegal combatants or combatants - those who are not part of military units, but who are waging war against the United States and those are the people that would be tried by military tribunals just as Franklin Roosevelt ordered in the World War II.

ZAHN: Mr. Clark, what would be a better way to do that?

CLARK: First it is as simple as Mr. Meese says, we don't really need a Constitution or a Universal Declaration of Human Rights or an international covenant on civil and political rights. We can just do what we want to do. What we ought to do is have faith in freedom. To be afraid of freedom is a bad mistake, and every time we have one of these international crisis, we get (INAUDIBLE) act or we get raids that pick up thousands of people.

Here for no reason whatsoever, with no need and with nobody in custody, we announce that we're going to set up military tribunals out in Guam or out in Wake (ph) and we don't identify the people. We say each trial is going to be different, which is not equal justice under law to put it mildly and there is no way the world will know whether we don't have any evidence, whether we don't have any confidence (INAUDIBLE). The civilian courts have been capable of trying these matters. At this time, they are perfectly capable of trying them. If you want the world to believe what we're doing, let's have the civilian courts try them, and if you believe - American people ought to believe in the civil courts, let's have the civil courts try ...

(CROSSTALK)

CLARK: This is the United States after all.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: But Mr. Clark, I hear what you're saying. What does it suggest to you that polls show that Americans by and large - a majority of them support the policies of Mr. Ashcroft right now. What does that mean?

CLARK: It means they've been a little bit emotionalized. They've been told four times since September that there are terrorists about to strike and they've been told that there are - there may be thousands of letters out there with anthrax in them. They've been terribly emotionalized by the continuance showing of pictures since September the 11th.

But you know we rounded up the Japanese at the beginning of World War II, which everybody concedes was a terrible mistake, that Congress (ph) tried (INAUDIBLE) years later to compensate them for. The public (INAUDIBLE) overwhelmingly and we didn't even pick them up in Hawaii where there were more Japanese proportionally, where they were closer to military facilities, and where they had already been bombed.

It made no sense. It was a political point, and this is basically a political point, to make it appear we're doing everything, but at high cost to human rights. We're suppose to defend human rights around the world and here we're engaging in a fundamental violation that Peru and 25 other countries do constantly and we criticize them constantly. The Congress of the United States in its annual reports criticizes those countries for their use of secret military trials - and now we do it.

ZAHN: All right.

CLARK: Outrageous.

ZAHN: Mr. Meese, do you see any hypocrisy here on the United States part?

MEESE: No, none whatsoever.

ZAHN: Why not?

MEESE: None whatsoever. Mr. Clark is totally misstating the situation. We're not rounding up thousands of people. We're not taking people out to Guam or Wake. This is simply a process that can be used where people are arrested overseas, for example, where they can be tried in that particular location. It is not any violation of human rights and it is totally ...

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: I think maybe Mr. Clark - I don't want to speak for him, but I think he was referring specifically, perhaps the questioning of these 5,000 Arab men in the United States.

CLARK: And to the Japanese ...

MEESE: Well that's totally ...

(CROSSTALK)

MEESE: Let me finish ...

(CROSSTALK)

MEESE: Let me finish. I haven't had the chance to answer the question and that is that we're not rounding up those 5,000. People are going out -- officers are going out to find out what kind of information they might have. There's no rounding up. Nobody's being incarcerated and the military tribunals are a standby situation lawfully convened under the Constitution, under the laws of the country, to take care of those situations where we have illegal combatants and belligerence from other countries that are waging war on the United States. There's nothing unusual about this and it's certainly is not a threat to civil liberties and it is not a threat - violation of any human rights.

ZAHN: Mr. Clark, you get the final word. Do it in about 10 seconds. I'm up against a commercial break here.

CLARK: I just hope the American people will watch what's happening. If they believe in the Constitution of the United States, if they believe the United States says (INAUDIBLE) they don't sacrifice our freedom in war. We are prepared to defend our freedom as well as our security.

ZAHN: It is ...

(CROSSTALK)

MEESE: I would agree with that entirely.

ZAHN: All right. You agreed on something there at the end. It was a privilege to have both of you on the air this morning. Edwin Meese, Ramsey Clark, we very much appreciate your time and your perspectives. Thank you.

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