President Obama’s Two Answers On National Security Law

Q    Mr. President, what does it say about the status of American system of justice when so many of those who are thought to be plotters for September 11th or accused, suspected terrorists are still awaiting any kind of trial?  Are you -- why are you still convinced that a civilian trial is correct for Sheikh -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?  And why has that stalled?  And will Guantanamo remain open for another year?
THE PRESIDENT:  Well, we have succeeded on delivering a lot of campaign promises that we made.  One where we’ve fallen short is closing Guantanamo.  I wanted to close it sooner.  We have missed that deadline.  It’s not for lack of trying. It’s because the politics of it are difficult.
Now, I am absolutely convinced that the American justice system is strong enough that we should be able to convict people who murdered innocent Americans, who carried out terrorist attacks against us.  We should be able to lock them up and make sure that they don’t see the light of day.  We can do that.  We’ve done it before.  We’ve got people who engaged in terrorist attacks who are in our prisons, maximum security prisons, all across the country.
But this is an issue that has generated a lot of political rhetoric and people, understandably, are fearful.  But one of the things that I think is worth reflecting on after 9/11 is this country is so resilient, we are so tough, we can’t be frightened by a handful of people who are trying to do us harm, especially when we’ve captured them and we’ve got the goods on them.
So I’ve also said that there are going to be circumstances where a military tribunal may be appropriate, and the reason for that is -- and I’ll just give a specific example.  There may be situations in which somebody was captured in theater, is now in Guantanamo.  It’s very hard to piece together a chain of evidence that would meet some of the evidentiary standards that would be required in an Article III court.  But we know that this person is guilty; there’s sufficient evidence to bring about a conviction.  So what I have said is the military commission system that we set up -- where appropriate for certain individuals that would make -- it would be difficult to try in Article III courts for a range of reasons -- we can reform that system so that it meets the highest standards of due process and prosecute them there.
And so I’m prepared to work with Democrats and Republicans. And we over the course of the last year have been in constant conversations with them about setting up a sensible system in which we are prosecuting where appropriate those in Article III courts.  We are prosecuting others where appropriate through a military tribunal.  And in either case, let’s put them in prisons where our track record is they’ve never escaped.  And, by the way, just from a purely fiscal point of view, the costs of holding folks in Guantanamo is massively higher than it is holding them in a super maximum security prison here in the United States.
Q    How long for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?  Will that trial ever happen?
THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think it needs to happen.  And we’re going to work with members of Congress -- and this is going to have to be on a bipartisan basis -- to move this forward in a way that is consistent with our standards of due process, consistent with our Constitution, consistent also with our image in the world of a country that cares about rule of law.  You can’t underestimate the impact of that.
Al Qaeda operatives still cite Guantanamo as a justification for attacks against the United States. Still to this day.  And there’s no reason for us to give them that kind of talking point when, in fact, we can use the various mechanisms of our justice system to prosecute these folks and to make sure that they never attack us again.