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Public Statements

Military Commissions

Floor Speech

Location: Washington, DC

Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, no one in this body was untouched by the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, which will stand in our history as one of the most infamous crimes ever perpetrated against the people of the United States. It not only cast a shadow of despair over America, but also thrust us into a different kind of global conflict, fighting an unconventional, adaptive enemy that has adopted the mass murder of innocent civilians as a weapon of war.

More than four years ago, we apprehended the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. He and four others are awaiting trial in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on charges that include 2,973 individual acts of murder. That trial will take place before a reformed military commission.
I believe that such commissions are the appropriate venue for this proceeding. They are modeled on the federal civilian criminal justice system. They protect the rights of the accused. They respect the rule of law. They reflect our core values as Americans. They are transparent. In short, they provide an instrument that is fair, principled, accountable, and effective, one that satisfies the imperative of justice rather than the thirst for revenge.

This confidence is underscored by the fact that Brig. Gen. Mark Martins is the chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Gen. Martins is a lawyer of tremendous skill, and a man of great integrity, character, and judgment. Reflecting his commitment to this case, he recently declined promotion in order to see these matters through to their conclusion. As the war against terrorism moves to the legal arena, we are indeed fortunate that Gen. Martins is leading the effort to ensure that justice is fairly dispensed to those charged with the horrific acts of 9/11.

Recently, Mr. Speaker, Gen. Martins and the reformed military commission were the subjects of a news report from National Public Radio. With your permission, I would like to include the text of that report in my remarks and urge that my colleagues take a moment to read this article and learn more about the man that Gen. David Petraeus described as ``one of those rare individuals who always seems to end up in the toughest assignments and always performs exceedingly well in them.''

(By Dina Temple-Raston)




When the Bush administration resurrected the commissions system in the days after the 9 11 attacks, it was seen as a convenient way to process the hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo.


"Law is being applied, judges are interpreting laws, counsel are arguing for different pieces of a particular motion,'' Martins told NPR in an interview. "Justice is being done, we're just absolutely committed to that. We've worked hard on reforms. Congress has been involved twice. The Supreme Court has ruled upon this.''

``The current system is fair, but I understand that people will have to see that for themselves,'' said Martins, who graduated first in his class at West Point, studied as a Rhodes scholar and then went to Harvard Law School. Closed-Circuit TV Feeds Of Trials




To underscore the point, eight Justice Department attorneys are part of the prosecution teams working on two of the marquee trials the military commissions are hearing: the trial of Abd alRahim al-Nashiri, the man who allegedly planned the attack against the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and the trial of the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his alleged co-conspirators.

Those Justice Department lawyers work for Martins. He assigns them to cases, and they answer to him as well as the Justice Department. Blending Military And Civilian Systems

Martins himself is no stranger to the Department of Justice.



At the ceremony, Petraeus praised Martins: ``Above all he is one of those rare individuals who always seems to end up in the toughest assignments and always performs exceedingly well in them.''


Martins has some unexpected allies on this mission, including key people at the Justice Department. Just last month, Holder, the attorney general, called the military commissions ``essential to the effective administration of justice.''

And he isn't alone. Lisa Monaco, the assistant attorney general for National Security at Justice, said the reformed military commissions have the ``same fundamental guarantees of fairness that are the hallmark of criminal trials.''


Still, critics have reservations.

``One of the biggest problems is that today's military commissions carry with them the baggage of the military commissions from the Bush era and there is no way to get around that,'' says Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School.

That's why Greenberg says Martins has a Sisyphean task of correcting the commissions' difficult history. For example, the Bush era military commissions allowed hearsay evidence and coerced statements--statements that might have come from torture and while the reformed commissions, as Martins calls them, no longer permit that, the old system still manages to cast a pall over the new.

``There are other problems,'' says Greenberg. ``Basic things like attorney-client privilege. Defense attorneys and their clients at Guantanamo have their mail read. This might be okay under some sort of military commission, but it carries with it the legacy that was part of the Bush administration's policy. The Bush administration treated defense attorneys as if they were collaborating with the enemy and that sense hasn't really gone away.''


Now commissions give those on trial a meaningful opportunity to mount a defense. ``I believe that as people watch this system and see it is sharply adversarial, it has all the protections that are demanded by our values...... that they will see that this is a system they can have confidence in,'' says Martins. Plans To Retire From The Military


``I've decided to request that this be my last assignment in the military,'' he told NPR in an interview. ``That will afford a measure of continuity of the commissions process and it will enable me to stay at least until November 2014.''


One chief prosecutor who preceded Martins was accused of rigging the military commissions process to ensure convictions.



That job will be under even more scrutiny in the coming weeks. That's when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of taking part in the 9 11 attacks are expected to be arraigned in a Guantanamo courtroom. Martins is keenly aware that everyone will be watching.

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