Bringing those accused in the September 11 attacks to New York for trial would increase the security threat to the city and give radical Islamists a platform to propagate their ideology, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Sunday.
Giuliani's view that the Obama administration is erring in trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center was echoed by other Republicans on the Sunday television news programs.
Democrats defended the decision of Attorney General Eric Holder to try the five in New York where more than 2,000 civilians were killed on September 11. If someone murders Americans in this country, they should be tried in the US, said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
``I don't think we should run and hide and cower. Let's use our system,' Leahy said. Republicans argued that the five are war criminals and should be tried in the military tribunals where some other Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees will be judged. They disputed administration arguments that these five were conspirators to a crime committed on American soil.
``What the Obama administration is telling us loud and clear is that both in substance and reality the war on terror from their point of view is over,' Giuliani said. Moving the case to a civilian court, he said, ``seems to be an overconcern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern for the rights of the public.'
The former mayor was similarly critical of the administration's handling of the shooting spree at Fort Hood last week. President Barack Obama, he said, ``doesn't get the fact that there is an Islamic war against us.'
Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, top Republican on the House intelligence committee, said the trial could expose the people of New York to years of propaganda from the defendants. ``We are now going to rip that wound wide open and it's going to stay open two, three, four years,' he said.
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