Fox News reported on this yesterday afternoon — with heavy irony on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. CBS News’ Catherine Herridge confirms this morning that the Pentagon has opened plea-deal negotiations with the five masterminds of the worst terror attacks on America. In exchange for life sentences, the five will drop all appeals and agree “substantial sentences” in American prisons.

This may not be a horrible idea, but it will not be a popular one:

CBS News has confirmed military prosecutors and defense attorneys are negotiating potential plea deals that could take the death penalty off the table for the five defendants accused in the 9/11 attacks, @CBS_Herridge reports. pic.twitter.com/DLZH0ZLxLg

— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) September 12, 2022

Debra Burlingame is “outraged” — saying she and the other families want justice, not “closure.” They will not be the only people outraged either, especially if the sentences are “substantial” rather than life without parole. Fox’s report from yesterday has more of the details:

U.S. military prosecutors are reportedly negotiating potential plea deals with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other conspirators imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay.

The plea deals may allow the five dependents to escape a potential death penalty, according to CBS. Mohammed is widely credited with being the architect of the 9/11 terror attacks. The other four defendants are Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ammar al-Baluchi.

Attorneys for the defendants reportedly say they would be willing to enter a guilty plea in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, as well as for getting treatment for alleged torture they experienced while in CIA custody.

Ironically, any “substantial” sentences would still have to be served in Gitmo, as Herridge notes. Congress passed a law forbidding transfers of any detainees from Gitmo to the US, which means that the Pentagon would have to ask Congress to repeal it. Plea deals could mean the perpetual operation of Gitmo as a detention center, although Congress could act to change that. After KSM and his masterminds get off the hook for the death penalty, however, don’t count on that option being very popular. Who wants to run for re-election as the man or woman who voted to let KSM and his team back into the country for an eventual parole?

What’s the upside to a plea deal? For one, it gets these defendants and their trials off the Pentagon’s desk after two decades of interference from Congress. It also allows the US to sidestep the torture issue arising from the interrogations of all five men, an issue that has been the primary complicating factor for their adjudication. It would be almost impossible to avoid having to disclose the methods applied by intelligence operators while extracting confessions in any kind of trial allowed under current regulations. The “enhanced interrogation methods” might be so offensive as to negate the confessions altogether, and there is some risk that even a military tribunal could resist a conviction. The embarrassment factor from the testimony alone would be enough to have the Pentagon looking for an easy way out.

Just because it’s understandable, however, doesn’t make it any less outrageous. These men cut a deep scar into the US and into American life while murdering nearly 3,000 of us in a single day. They should have been tried by a military tribunal along the Nuremburg lines years ago and only a dim memory by now. The families of the victims deserve justice, not “closure.”