Obama and Cheney clash on fight against terror

Obama said he is trying to clean up the "mess" he inherited from the Bush-Cheney administration and stressed the need to uphold American values, repeatedly noting the setting for his speech - the august National Archives, which houses the original Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Cheney used the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as his touchstone, referencing them two dozen times as he warned that dismantling Guantanamo will place Americans at risk. He also scolded Obama for releasing Bush administration legal memos justifying harsh interrogations, saying that the move gives terrorists "a lengthy insert in their training manual."

The president gave no ground, instead faulting the Bush administration for making what he called a series of hasty decisions after the Sept. 11 attacks - such as authorizing what he called torture and opening Guantanamo - that he said were based on fear and ideology rather than foresight and justice.

Blaming Republican fear-mongering for what he described as the current overheated debate, Obama said the Guantanamo prison must be closed to restore America's moral authority. He said that he wants to put some of the detainees held there - including Al Qaeda sympathizers and Taliban fighters swept up from battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan - on trial in federal civilian courts and house them in high-security US prisons. He argued that the justice system has already handled dangerous terrorism suspects and said it is tough enough to protect the public while the system of military tribunals at Guantanamo has been struck down in numerous legal challenges.

But Democrats in Congress this week delivered a blow to the president's plans on Guantanamo, rejecting his request for $80 million to close the prison, at least until the White House offers a detailed plan on where the detainees will go.

Meanwhile, Obama also drew fire from some civil liberties groups by suggesting yesterday that he would continue to hold some terrorism suspects indefinitely, arguing that they "in effect, remain at war with the United States."

Just moments after Obama concluded his 45-minute speech and a few blocks away, Cheney, the president's most vocal critic, strode into an auditorium at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning Washington think tank where his wife is a scholar and where he serves as a trustee.

Cheney delivered a blunt, at times biting speech defending the Bush administration's anti-terror approach, and continued his recent series of attacks on Obama's national security stance.

While he praised Obama for two decisions - adding 17,000 troops to the US combat force in Afghanistan and blocking the court-ordered release of new detainee-abuse photos, Cheney suggested that the president's actions to fight terrorism should be based on a correct understanding of what worked in the Bush administration and "not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric."

He said the Bush administration launched a comprehensive antiterror strategy, including fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, improving homeland security, and allowing the National Security Agency to intercept domestic phone calls and emails, which he said saved lives.

The former vice president reserved his fiercest defense, however, for the use of waterboarding, in which interrogators repeatedly subject a detainee to the sensation of drowning. Speaking in his familiar, somber baritone, he said the technique was used on only three hardened senior Al Qaeda operatives and only when all other methods had failed.

While Obama asserted that waterboarding amounts to torture and said he could not disagree more with those who say it and other interrogation techniques are necessary, Cheney cast Obama as dangerously naive to have banned such harsh interrogation, though he noted that Obama has reserved the right to use them in an emergency.

"To completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme," Cheney said. "It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness and would make the American people less safe."

He repeated his call for Obama to release other secret documents that he insists will reveal that the aggressive interrogations yielded valuable intelligence that thwarted terrorist attacks. But Cheney failed to note that an executive order President Bush signed bars the release of secret documents that are the subject of litigation; the CIA cited the Bush executive order last week as the main obstacle to unsealing those documents.

In response to Obama's talk of upholding American values while keeping the country safe, Cheney said, "When an entire population is targeted by a terror network, nothing is more consistent with American values than to stop them."

Reaction to the dueling speeches ran largely along ideological lines, though many Democrats said they still wanted more detail on Obama's plan to close Guantanamo.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat, praised Obama for "being honest with the American people" while avoiding fear-mongering, while her Republican counterpart, John Boehner, said that the president dismissed the concerns of the American people and a strong bipartisan majority that does not want Guantanamo detainees brought to their communities.

On the Senate side, Senator Patrick Leahy - a Vermont Democrat who has proposed a truth commission to get to the bottom of controversial Bush administration decisions on handling terrorists - agreed with Obama, saying, "It's time to act on our principles and our constitutional system."

But Senator John Cornyn, an influential Texas Republican, questioned whether the criminal justice paradigm is an appropriate way to prosecute terrorists.

"Are we really going to insist that the jihadist with a suitcase nuke captured in Times Square be read his Miranda rights, potentially closing off the chance to garner valuable intelligence that might save hundreds or thousands of American lives?" he asked.

Civil libertarians, who have sued the government on behalf of detainees held for years without charges or trial, embraced Obama's dedication to constitutional principles but were dismayed by his plans to create a version of indefinite detention for some terrorist suspects.

"The president wrapped himself in the Constitution and then proceeded to violate it," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human rights group.

Obama said that in order to close Guantanamo by January, he plans to send detainees to other countries when that is possible and does not pose a security risk. So far, two have been released - one to Britain and one to France - and 48 others have been approved for release. Obama also said he plans to use military tribunals for those charged with violating the rules of war, and to release those who have been ordered released by the courts.

The White House said that Ahmed Ghailani, who is accused of helping terrorists build one of the bombs that destroyed US embassies in East Africa in 1998, will be the first detainee brought to trial in civilian court, in New York.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.