detention center are back in front of a military judge today khalid shaikh mohammed along with four other prisoners accused of planning the september eleventh attacks are facing the death penalty a military judge convened an unusual two day pretrial hearing today to gather information about accusations that agents have been questioning staff of the defense team is a development that could create another delay in an already prolonged case earlier i spoke to megan lopez who attended a special media viewing of the hearing from a military base in fort meade maryland first asked her to talk about why this trial continues to be delayed. so this is being called the most complex terrorism trial in the united states history what we have going on in guantanamo bay cuba is that five us separate defendants all nine eleven coconspirators charge with the five a separate defense teams so first of all those five separate defense teams play into how long this trial is taking because as you can imagine a single trial with a single defense team has their own arguments to make so you're talking about five of

notable of which is obviously going to be the nine eleven mastermind or so-called mastermind khalid shaikh mohammed along with him in that courtroom is the stuff all house all we he is described as a nine eleven financier and facilitator also m r all baluchi he's described as a fine a nine eleven facilitator who engaged. in helping arrange the travels of thirteen of those nine eleven hijackers also with them is waleed bin a tonge he's described as a nine eleven facilitator he actually helped case the airport security in the united arab emirates to help those those hijackers get onto a plane that would eventually end up in the united states and finally we have ramzi bin al s'shibh he's described as a nine eleven quarter nater who really put all of those efforts all of the coordination into play and getting everyone on the same page for this terror plot and meghan you were at a special hearing at fort meade watching this all go down what happened today so today is being described as a very special type of pretrial hearing under investigation right now is whether or not the f.b.i. did in fact conduct

. >> i think certainly khalid shaikh mohammed was an exception. you don't want to release, like many of them, returning to the fight. but what does happen to them, i guess aside from the khalid shaikh mohammeds? what should we do? the war is winding down, the war is over. you do some kind of a p.o.w. and prisoner swaps in exchange, and this is just what happens historically. some argue this is taliban, it's not necessarily like traditional warfare. so what do we do with the war winding down with the guys at guantanamo? >> i think we prosecute those that are responsible for war crimes. we repatriate some of those back to their countries of origin where they can be incarcerated there, where they can keep track of them. but what to do with the approximately three or four dozen which the evidence against them is either tainted or would reveal classified sources of information, and they can't be prosecuted, at the same time they can't be sent back without being a real risk. and that's the problem we've wrestled with, how long can we continue to detain t

translator saying make sure the brains find out what the americans are up to, the brains being khalid shaikh mohammed. they were all creepy, manipulative, always looking at you, trying to figure which cracks they could get through to get around you. one of the guys we had from the bali bombings spent his whole day doing knuckle-based pushups and sit-ups. you knew as soon as he got out he was tighter than a spring, he would come out and kill the first american that he saw. nothing made me gladder than when the guards would bring these guys in and they would be two guards and these guys would be shackled, because they exuded this air of dangerousness. >> jeanine: eric, the taliban says this is a great victory. how does this deal make us look to our enemies around the world? >> makes us look weak. the taliban is already saying, look, this is great, we'll kidnap more american soldiers and exchange more prisoners. makes us look weak. president obama, again, goes back on his word, negotiating with terrorists. we have negotiated with iran. now we're recognizing the new palestinian government with hamas. pre

. >> yes, and these were not men who unlike khalid shaikh mohammed who were operationally sitting there planning how to slaughter american civilians in their office towers, mark. >> having been in the pentagon on 9/11, i don't want to discount the danger that the taliban sanctuary for al qaeda posed. again, these are dangerous individuals. but the points you made earlier, we are trying to drive home a conclusion in afghanistan. these individual are also in qatari hands for a little while. we should be so lucky that they pick up the phone and call omar. but we don't know what these individuals might play in a positive role. if they go back to the battlefield a year and a half from now, they're a challenge for the afghan government and if they're that concerned, the afghans may put them on trial. >> colonel wilkerson, someone who spent a career and life in the military, what do you make of the spectacle of an american soldier being essentially tried in absentia for desertion via cable news and websites? >> this is no surprise to me. i've learned that both political parties, particularly m

it's hosted islamic militants for a year, khalid shaikh mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11 was in qatar in the mid-'90s. since then qatar has become a pretty good ally of the u.s., a large intelligence platform there. it's in its national interests to be a good ally of the united states. >> do you think this was a one time deal for qatar? i mean, for this purpose only? or do you thing thk this could the stage for further negotiations with the taliban? >> i think this is a huge opening to the taliban because, again, we're leaving afghanistan. we don't intend to get in a civil war there. if there's some sort of mediation that has to occur between the united states and the taliban, the people to do it are the qataris. they're trusted by both sides. >> what do you think of these guys? how are they specifically going to watch them? is there anything in place? where will they live? who will keep an eye on them? will they have communication with taliban in pakistan or afghanistan? how does this work? >> qatar is pretty much a police state. they will be able to watch them if they want to. all t

and if you look at detainees and this just happened with the taliban, we traded and look at khalid shaikh mohammed, the master mind of 9/11, who's been in prison for more than a decade. our inability to put these people in front of tribunals permanently or execute them shows how broken our government is. >> well, the president wants to take a few days and look at all the option, yet iran is reportedly sending about 2,000 troops, although the leaders there are denying there are troops on the ground there, to help out the maliki government. can the u.s. afford to wait much longer and what do you think about the surprising irony of a possible alliance between iran and the u.s. fighting for a common interest? >> i think this is why we need to start thinking about iraq as three different countries. iran will be on the ground. has been will. has been there all along in many ways and we will not. that means that shiite iraq is going to be a client state of iran. and it doesn't necessarily follow that we want that or that that shiite iraq could be our partner in fighting isis in trying to shape what sunni

would we release khalid shaikh mohammed, what about our diplomats or aide workers? >> are you open to any prisoner exchanges? israel does this routinely. there is precedent for this in the republican and democratic administration. >> i think this would have been a bad idea, even if private bergdahl had been captured heroically on the field of battle. of course, we don't leave any man behind. we continue to search, use intelligence, and if necessary, when we get actual intelligence, we send special operations forced to rescue them, but we don't just give away five senior leaders. these are high-level commanders, the equivalent of their secretary of defense or director of the cia. >> anyone in gitmo's definition of a bad guy. >> these five in particular were bad. >> do you know why they were chosen? >> the taliban has wanted them for the last five years. for whatever reason, the president decided to give in to their demand now. they're in qatar, rooming around, apparently. >> the original agreement was, qatar was going to keep an eye on them, not let them go right to

jacobson, would you trade khalid shaikh mohammed for private bergdahl? >> congressman, that -- >> reclaiming my time, it's a simple yes or no question. >> i don't think that there are simple yes or no questions like that. >> reclaiming my time, i gather by your unwillingness to answer the question, you realize that you cannot answer it. tony blinken, the president's senior deputy security adviser, said that he would not. so i guess that means under those circumstances, the president would have been leaving private bergdahl behind. moving to specialist full, you say in your statement that you were part of alpha team. were you on the same team as private bergdahl? >> same platoon, same squad, same team. >> so down to the lowest level for those of you that don't know, that's a four man fire team. >> we were one man short. it was just me, him -- >> three man. were you his team leader at the time? >> no, i was not. >> okay. so you were among the one or two people in the platoon who had been working most closely with him and seen him in action day after day af

are they saying go capture another american soldier and this time you can command that khalid shaikh mohammedleased? they also want to know about the underlying circumstances by which he fell into taliban hands and the third issue, did six americans die looking for him? that's something we first learned as a blog post in response to a michael hastings story. now the daily mail is out showing you photographs of american service personnel, identifying them by name. that's a question i want to know the answer to. >> the first time i saw it was over the weekend. because they were searching for this young man. he is a hero. he is a desserter. some people question how he disappeared. do you think, i want to stay with you. do you think the president of the united states would have stepped in front of cameras with bowe bergdahl's over the weekend if there were any possible worry that he was a traitor? >> i'm not sure. i don't know that we're ever going know the underlying facts. i look at this and say they want to close guantanamo and maybe this is the direction in which they were headed. i would lik

the issue was raised, you know, would we have traded khalid shaikh mohammed for him. absolutely not. totally different situation. but when you're talking about these five members of the taliban, it is a different equation. and that really raises the issues that the chairman came up with. what -- who were we negotiating with? he says we were negotiating with terrorists. but sergeant bergdahl was captured on the battlefield, in a war zone. the taliban were, until just a few months before that, the legitimate government of afghanistan. the current afghan government has said over and over again that they want to negotiate with the taliban. any sensible person who looks at the situation in afghanistan right now understands that there is no ultimate peaceful solution if at some point you don't negotiate with some of the taliban. which ones? we don't know. so to simply dismiss this as one terrorist group in negotiating with terrorists i think totally misstates the situation. this was on the battlefield, in a war zone, a soldier who was captured by a group of people that were

the issue was raised, you know, would we have traded khalid shaikh mohammed for him. absolutely not. totally different situation. but when you're talking about these five members of the taliban, it is a different equation. and that really raises the issues that the chairman came up with. what -- who were we negotiating with? he says we were negotiating with terrorists. but sergeant bergdahl was captured on the battlefield, in a war zone. the taliban were, until just a few months before that, the legitimate government of afghanistan. the current afghan government has said over and over again that they want to negotiate with the taliban. any sensible person who looks at the situation in afghanistan right now understands that there is no ultimate peaceful solution if at some point you don't negotiate with some of the taliban. which ones? we don't know. so to simply dismiss this as one terrorist group in negotiating with terrorists i think totally misstates the situation. this was on the battlefield, in a war zone, a soldier who was captured by a group of people that were

-- on monday, rather, that if this were a deal to be done, exchanged with the release of khalid shaikh mohammed, the deal would not have been done. so the circumstances do play a role in this based on that mission of national security. so with regards to the five taliban detain yees who were released, your statements from dna director jim clapper, i'd like to address that directly. because we've had some issues with statements with jim clapper before congress previously on a different topic with regards to his statement that the nsa does not collect data on americans, which he later admitted to be, in his words, the least untruthful answer. it was not a truthful answer. so i'd like to point to the guantanamo review task force that was done where it was stated that these five individuals specifically, "pose a high level of threat that cannot be mitigated sufficiently except through continued detention." i'm wondering what has changed from the time that this assessment was made by this president's appointed task force of military officers, federal prosecutors, fbi agents, intel analysts, and civi

would you trade khalid shaikh mohamed for private bergdahl?> that wasn't -- >> reclaiming my time. it's a simple yes or no question. >> i don't think it's a yes or no. >> i gather you realize you cannot answer it. tony blanken said he would not. so i guess that means under those circumstances the president would have been leaving private bergdahl behind. now moving to specialist school. were you on the same team? >> same team. >> so down to the lowest level. that's a four-man fire team? >> we were one man short. >> so a three-man team. were you his leader? >> no, i was not. >> you would have been the closest one seeing him in action day after day after day. >> yes. >> i have heard numerous reports that private bergdahl sought out afghanistan friends, civilians, i saw that many times, maybe innocently interacting with children or dining with civilians on the base. is that something you saw? >> yes. >> you testified that a cleric and teacher said they were looking for a taliban commander who spoke english. is it curious to you that he would not

yesterday on monday, rather, a that if this were a deal to be done, exchanged with the release of khalid shaikh mohammed, the deal would not have been done. so the circumstances do play a role in this based on that mission of national security. so with regards are to the five taliban detainees who were released, your statements from dni director jim clapper, i'd like to address that directly, because we've had some issues with statements with jim clapper before congress previously on a different topic with regards to his statement that the nsa does not collect data on americans, which he later admitted to be, in his words, the least untruthful answer. it was not a truthful answer. so i'd like to point to the guantanamo review task force that was done where it was stated that these five individuals specifically, "pose a high level of threat that cannot be mitigated sufficiently except through continued detention." i'm wondering what has changed from the time that this assessment was made by this president's appointed task force of military officers, federal prosecutors, fbi agents, intel analysts, and ci

the issue was raised, you know, would we have traded khalid shaikh mohammed for him. absolutely not. totally different situation. but when you're talking about these five members of the taliban, it is a different equation. and that really raises the issues that the chairman came up with. what -- who were we negotiating with? he says we were negotiating with terrorists. but sergeant bergdahl was captured on the battlefield, in a war zone. the taliban were, until just a few months before that, the legitimate government of afghanistan. the current afghan government has said over and over again that they want to negotiate with the taliban. any sensible person who looks at the situation in afghanistan right now understands that there is no ultimate peaceful solution if at some point you don't negotiate with some of the taliban. which ones? we don't know. so to simply dismiss this as one terrorist group in negotiating with terrorists i think totally misstates the situation. this was on the battlefield, in a war zone, a soldier who was captured by a group of people that were