Bin Laden would be held at Gitmo if caught

Osama bin Laden would be shipped to Cuba and held at the Guantánamo Bay prison if he were captured, the head of the CIA told senators on Wednesday.

CIA Director Leon Panetta was responding to a question from Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who asked what would happen to the heads of al Qaeda — Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri — if they were captured.

“The process would obviously involve, especially with the two targets that you just described — we would probably move them quickly into military jurisdiction at Bagram [an air base in Afghanistan] for questioning and then eventually move them probably to Guantánamo,” Panetta said.

Panetta’s comments come as the White House continues its push for the detention facility’s closure after the move was met with significant resistance from Congress, which prohibited last year the transfer of any Guantánamo detainees to U.S. prisons.

Chambliss acknowledged the political precariousness of Panetta’s testimony, but agreed with the CIA chief that moving bin Laden or al-Zawahiri to Guantánamo was the best way to handle their capture from a security standpoint.

“We haven’t moved anybody to Guantánamo in years now, and obviously there has been a move towards closure of that facility, and I would tend to agree with you that’s probably the best place for anybody to go right now, the safest place from a national security standpoint,” said Chambliss.

“Politically it might not be popular, but certainly it is — I appreciate your honesty and straightforwardness about what you would do,” Chambliss said.

President Obama ordered the Guantánamo Bay prison closed in 2009 after the facility was criticized for violating prisoners’ human rights. But the move toward closure came up against a torrent of political opposition, as many Republicans argued that the Cuba-based detention facility was the most secure and best-equipped place to house suspected terrorists.

Many members balked at the idea of housing the detainees in prisons in their districts. In December, much to the disappointment of the Department of Justice, Congress prohibited the use of any funds to transfer detainees from Guantánamo Bay to the U.S. The issue has died down somewhat, though Obama included nearly $67 million in his recent budget proposal to reopen a closed Illinois prison — a move that could be the first step toward relocating Gitmo detainees.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was not so quick to say that such “high-value targets” would find their way to Guantánamo if captured. Instead, he told the senators Wednesday that many of the U.S.’s intelligence and homeland security agencies would have a say as to how such matters should proceed.

“If we were to capture either one of those two luminaries — if I can use that term — I think there would probably be a matter of some interagency discussions … and whether they would be tried or not,” he said. “I’m sure if we did capture them, that would be a subject of some discussion.”

CIA spokesman George Little subsequently released a statement that lawmakers would have the last say about what happened to bin Laden, and that Panetta's comments do not lessen his support of Obama's push to close the Guantánamo Bay prison.

“As director Clapper made clear, and as director Panetta agrees, any decision about what might happen if Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists are captured would be a decision for policymakers, and would have to be informed by the circumstances of his capture,” Little wrote. “The director fully supports the president’s commitment to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay because, as our military commanders have made clear, it’s in our national security interest to do so.”

A senior counterterrorism official, speaking without attribution, said it would be highly unlikely for bin Laden or Zawahiri to be captured alive.

 “The odds of bin Laden and Zawahiri being captured alive are about as good as vodka losing favor among Russians,” the official said.

Clapper took the opportunity Wednesday to revise comments he made last week about the Muslim Brotherhood group, which brought a good deal of criticism from Capitol Hill.

Clapper told House lawmakers at a hearing that the Islamist group, officially banned in Egypt, was “a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.”

But Clapper said his comments had been misconstrued and that he was referring to the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement in Egypt’s “largely secular” political process.

“In my attempt to shorthand my description of the Muslim Brotherhood my message was lost, and that’s regrettable,” Clapper said. “The Muslim Brotherhood is obviously not secular. What I had hoped to convey, and would like to clearly state here, is that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt tries to work through a political system that has been largely secular in its orientation.”

“In Egypt, it has gained much of its support through both grassroots outreach and non-religious functions like providing health clinics and day care centers,” he said. “It also has different factions, including a conservative wing whose interpretation of Islam runs counter to broad electoral participation and a younger, more liberal wing who is more inclined to work through the secular political process.”

The Muslim Brotherhood will likely be involved in Egypt’s ongoing political process in the wake of massive protests that led to President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, Clapper said.

Panetta said it was difficult to characterize the Muslim Brotherhood group, in sum, because its tactics vary depending on the region.

“It’s very difficult to say they are extremists,” he said. “It is clear that within the Muslim Brotherhood there are extremist elements that we have to pay attention to. And that’s something that we watch very closely, to make sure that they are not able to exert their influence on the direction of governments in that region.”

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