RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, January 11, 2012, The Washington Post
Benjamin Wittes examines the past decade of policy experimentation at Guantanamo Bay, arguing that since Guantanamo will likely be around for another 10 years, America needs to develop principles around detention policies that command support from a wide swath of the political system. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Robert M. Chesney, Matthew Waxman and Benjamin Wittes, June 15, 2011, House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
In a briefing paper to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Benjamin Wittes, Matthew Waxman, and Robert Chesney examine the problem of transfers of Yemeni detainees from Guantánamo Bay. The authors lay out why Yemen has proven such an intractable problem in the disposition of Guantánamo cases and why generalizing the Yemen predicament to the rest of the Guantánamo population is a mistake. Read More
VIDEO
Benjamin Wittes, May 13, 2011
While some argue that harsh interrogation techniques helped the U.S. find Osama Bin Laden, expert Benjamin Wittes notes that it’s impossible to say whether the same information could have been extracted using conventional military interrogation methods.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, Robert M. Chesney and Larkin Reynolds, May 2011, The Brookings Institution
Benjamin Wittes, Robert Chesney and Larkin Reynolds describe in detail and analyze the U.S. courts’ work to date on habeas corpus cases concerning Guantánamo detainees. As the courts are now the main decision-makers in the effort to define the rules of military detention, the law established in these cases will in all likelihood govern not merely the Guantánamo detentions themselves, write the authors, but any other detentions around the world over which American courts might acquire habeas jurisdiction. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, April 25, 2011, The Brookings Institution
Benjamin Wittes reacts to the release and subsequent media coverage of classified materials on the prison population held at Guantánamo Bay. Wittes argues that Americans should not vacillate between calling for the freeing of detainees and expressing shock at the actual danger they may pose. Instead, he says, the right approach is to build systems that effectively handle the uncertainty in releasing and detaining the Gitmo population. Read More
VIDEO
Benjamin Wittes, April 05, 2011
The Obama administration has abandoned efforts to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators in civilian courts, saying the suspects will be tried in military tribunals at the Guantánamo Bay prison. Benjamin Wittes says this was a tough decision, but the right one.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, March 10, 2011, The Brookings Institution
Benjamin Wittes sees two reasons to be cautiously optimistic that President Obama and Congress will reach a deal on Guantánamo. Dual commitment to making policy in this area will force congressional Republicans to negotiate and, for the first time, nearly everyone is talking about a common objective: a legal framework for detention policy. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, January 21, 2011, The Brookings Institution
One year after President Obama failed in his promise to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Benjamin Wittes suggests that the president should face the fact that Guantanamo as it stands today has improved. The author of a new book on detention policy, Wittes describes how the facility has evolved into a model of how long-term counterterrorism detention can proceed. Read More
BOOK
Benjamin Wittes, December 21, 2010
Benjamin Wittes issues a persuasive call for greater coherence, clarity, and public candor from the American government regarding its detention policy and practices, and greater citizen awareness of the same. In Detention and Denial, he illustrates how U.S.
detention policy is a tangle of obfuscation rather than a serious set of moral and legal decisions. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, September 17, 2010, The Brookings Institution
There are very few places where the Constitution is more visibly alive than in a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals case about a Guantánamo Bay habeas corpus issue, writes Benjamin Wittes on Constitution Day. An oral argument heard by highly intelligent judges of radically diverse politics who avoid political posturing entirely and bore in on important questions is a living thing of immediate and accessible constitutional beauty. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, March 24, 2010, The New Republic
Benjamin Wittes recounts his recent effort to mount a defense of Justice Department attorneys who faced intense criticism for having represented Guantánamo detainees. In the statement he circulated among former officials and legal experts, Wittes and the co-signatories called the attacks unfair to the individuals; said the defense of detainees is an important function in any set of detention policies; and argued that the Justice Department benefits from a diversity of experience and points of view. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
March 08, 2010, The Brookings Institution
In response to a recent campaign demanding that the Justice Department release the names of attorneys defending Guantánamo detainees, a group of attorneys, former officials and policy specialists who have worked on detention issues—including Brookings's Ben Wittes and Robert Chesney—issued a statement condemning the action and affirming the American tradition of representing unpopular defendants in court. Read More
VIDEO
Benjamin Wittes, March 05, 2010
As the Obama administration reviews its decision to try 9/11 suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed in civilian court, expert Ben Wittes looks at the thorny issues surrounding terrorism detentions and prosecutions, @Brookings.
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Robert M. Chesney and Benjamin Wittes, February 05, 2010, The Washington Post
President Obama's decision not to seek additional legislative authority for Guantánamo detentions, along with Congress's lack of interest in taking on the subject, means that judges must write the rules governing military detentions of terrorist suspects, write Benjamin Wittes and Robert Chesney. The result is that a detainee's likelihood of prevailing in his habeas suit will be largely a function of which judge hears his case. Read More
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
Benjamin Wittes, Robert M. Chesney and Rabea Benhalim, January 22, 2010, The Brookings Institution
On January 22, 2009, President Obama set a one-year deadline for closing the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. With the facility still open and the president’s decision not to seek additional legislative authority for detentions there—combined with Congress’s lack of interest in the task—judges must write the rules governing military detention of terrorist suspects, write Benjamin Wittes, Robert Chesney and Rabea Benhalim. Read More