The Daily Muck

On the sixth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chief of the U.S. military, declared that he facility should be closed because of the damage it has caused to the image of the U.S in the world. The military tribunal process has produced only one conviction (through a plea bargain deal) and only four current prisoners have been charged with a crime, yet Mullen is unaware of any White House efforts to close the facility. (Chicago Tribune)

A U.S. appeals court has dismissed a suit filed by four former Guantanamo Bay detainees who claimed to have been tortured and humiliated for practicing their religion while in custody there. The plaintiffs, all British citizens who were released in 2004, had sued top Pentagon officials and military officers, including Donald Rumsfeld. The court based its ruling on a claim that it lacked jurisdiction and that the defendants had a right to qualified immunity for performing their government jobs. (Reuters)

In response to a 2004 lawsuit by the ACLU that asserts that the CIA is required to preserve videotapes of terrorist interrogations, the government has asserted that CIA had “no duty” to preserve the evidence. The ACLU believes that the CIA’s destruction of the tapes violated U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein’s 2004 order. (AP)

The fire-fighting system in the massive new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is defective. U.S. Officials told McClatchy that in the haste to finish construction on the long-delayed embassy, concerns about fire safety “were ignored or overrruled.” (McClatchy)

The New York Times has uncovered “121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one” after returning to the U.S. The Times also found that the number of homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans increased 89 percent in the six years after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan as compared to the six years prior to the invasion. (New York Times)

Bassem Youssef, who at one time was the FBI’s leading Arab-American Middle East expert, ignored warnings from the FBI and recently alleged discrimination within the agency. He also chastised the agency’s alleged lack of interest in Arab language and culture. Youssef, who won a National Intelligence Medal from the CIA for his work on Islamic terrorism in the 1990s, has a history of antagonizing the FBI: not long ago he revealed the agency’s illegal use of secret National Security Letters. (CQ Politics)

American journalist Nicholas Schmidle has been expelled from Pakistan. While the Pakistani government declined to state a reason for Schmidle’s deportation, there is speculation that he was forced to leave after his article, “Next Gen Taliban” appeared recently in the New York Times Magazine. (Washington Note)

John Thomas Michael, who was to be tried for his role in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal later this month, is scheduled to change his plea. Michael originally pleaded not guilty to all charges. (North County Times)

For several months attacks on U.S. soldiers with bombs allegedly linked to Iran (EFPs – explosively formed penetrators) had declined. But General Petraeus has now informed President Bush that these attacks are on the rise. Pertraeus did not say how many U.S. troops have been killed. (CNN)

Heading into the final months of the Bush Administration, Congress and advocates of open government are beginning to have some success gaining access to White House documents. According to Thomas Blanton, head of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, the White House may have been able to gain much of the power it sought had it gone to “to Congress and the public, but by going for 100 percent and doing it in total secrecy, they undermined their own legitimacy and left the presidency weaker than when they started.” (Washington Post)

In general, the websites of Capitol Hill lawmakers, which are ranked by the Gold Mouse Report each year, are unimpressive. Democrats earned better grades than Republicans, with 61% of the Democrats earning a C or better (only 55% of Republicans scored that “well”). Overall, 62.3% of the websites received a C or lower. (The Hill)