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John Yoo, a Bush Administration official on loan from UC Berkeley, defended the president’s handling of the 299 alleged Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba at a Wednesday appearance at the university’s Boalt School of Law. 

Yoo, who is a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel, focused on the administration’s controversial decisions to deny detainees prisoner of war status and try them before military tribunals. 

Yoo has discussed these issues at a series of universities around the country. According to Yoo the tribunals are appropriate because the Sep. 11 attacks were acts of war. And acts of war carry different punitive consequences than criminal acts.  

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But UC Berkeley law professor Howard Shelanski worried this reasoning would set a dangerous precedent. Any attack on domestic soil, he suggested, could be construed as an act of war and that would allow the administration to round up hundreds of domestic suspects — like it did in the wake of the Sep. 11 attacks. 

“Is that just an open door for importing the category of war into domestic investigations?,” he asked. 

Yoo said all of the suspects were picked up on immigration violations and provided with lawyers.  

Yoo said the 299 detainees at Guantanamo Bay do not deserve prisoner of war status because they violated the international rules of war, and therefore, do not qualify for the protections laid out in the Geneva Convention. 

Amnesty International, in a report issued earlier this month, accused the White House of violating international law by denying prisoners counsel and failing to provide a reason for detention. But the administration has contended that it is treating prisoners humanely. 

Yoo said the decision to treat prisoners as “illegal combatants” rather than prisoners of war serves three ends. First, Yoo said, “the administration wanted to send an important political message,” separating the alleged Taliban and Al Qaida fighters from the “honorable” soldiers of other countries. 

Second, the decision allowed the administration to deny the prisoners the right to certain privileges enjoyed by POWs, including communal exercise, the right to prepare their own meals and life in barracks, as opposed to individual cells. These group activities, Yoo said, could be dangerous given that several prisoners have suggested that they would kill their captors if they could. 

Finally, Yoo said, illegal combatant status allows the administration to interrogate prisoners about Taliban and al-Qaida activities. If the detainees were POWs, he noted, they would only have to provide name, rank and serial number. 

Contact reporter: 

sharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net