1 Boring Old Man

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Well, this is a process that we set in motion; the president signed the order yesterday. And basically, what it says is it sets up a procedure whereby he will make the decision in each case in terms of whether or not a particular suspect, individual who’s come into our custody is transferred, if you will, from the traditional sort of criminal procedural branch of our government through the courts over to the special military tribunals.

And the individuals that will be considered for that are, first of all, not American citizens — they have to be non-citizens — secondly, believed to have engaged in or be participating in terrorist attacks designed to kill Americans, or have provided sanctuary to those who are conducting terrorist operations against Americans. And when that’s the case, when we find somebody such as that — members, say, of the al Qaeda network, or others who may in fact come under our — come into our jurisdiction — then the president will be free to make that decision and move them over to that side.

Now some people say, "Well, gee, that’s a dramatic departure from traditional jurisprudence in the United States." It is, but there’s precedents for it. This is the way we dealt with the people who assassinated Abraham Lincoln and tried to assassinate part of the Cabinet back in 1865. They were tried by military tribunals. In 1942 we had German saboteurs land on the coast up in Long Island and down in Florida — eight of them, I believe, altogether — came into the United States to conduct sabotage against us during the course of the war. President Roosevelt signed an order, established a tribunal, had these individuals tried. They were given a fair trial, prosecuted under this military tribunal, and executed in relatively rapid order. And that procedure was upheld by the Supreme Court when it was challenged later on. So there’s ample precedent for it.

The basic proposition here is that somebody who comes into the United States of America illegally, who conducts a terrorist operation killing thousands of innocent Americans, men, women, and children, is not a lawful combatant. They don’t deserve to be treated as a prisoner of war. They don’t deserve the same guarantees and safeguards that would be used for an American citizen going through the normal judicial process. This — they will have a fair trial, but it’ll be under the procedures of a military tribunal and rules and regulations to be established in connection with that. We think it’s the appropriate way to go. We think it’s — guarantees that we’ll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve.