William K. Lietzau

William K. Lietzau is an American lawyer, former U.S. Marine Corps judge advocate, and former director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.

Personal life

Lietzau grew up in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1983 and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant and infantry officer in the Marine Corps. Lietzau also served in a variety of traditional roles as a marine lawyer, including as prosecutor, defense counsel, military judge, special assistant U.S. attorney, staff attorney, chief of the Law of War Branch for the Department of the Navy's International Law Division, and chief of government appellate attorneys for the Department of the Navy.

Lietzau played a role in a diplomatic controversy in February 2012 when a writ of habeas corpus in the United Kingdom compelled the UK government to seek the return to them of a Pakistani national held by the United States in Afghanistan that the British had apprehended in Basra, Iraq, in 2004. They handed Rahmatullah over to American forces, who transferred him to the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. The UK Supreme Court ruled that his transfer was in violation of international law (see Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs v Rahmatullah).

On July 14, 2011, US forces accidentally released a secret form used to classify whether captives were an "Enduring Security Threat" to the American Civil Liberties Union. Lietzau explained that the accidental release posed a security threat to the United States as it could have significant deleterious repercussions with respect to our diplomatic relationships with Afghanistan and various other countries.... EST criteria and determinations are not currently a topic in our sensitive bilateral discussions with other countries... revelation of EST criteria would likely complicate those discussions.

According to the New York Times in an interview in the late Summer of 2012 Lietzau said the United States was "on a trajectory to be able to comply" with an agreement to devolve control of the Bagram Theater Internment Facility to Afghan control by the agreed date of September 9, 2012. The New York Times noted that the Lietzau referred to September 9 as a "milestone", rejecting the word "deadline". It noted Lietzau said the agreement only applied to the captives who were in custody when the agreement was signed, and that the United States was nevertheless going to retain certain selected captives under permanent US control—including all the non-Afghan captives.

Lietzau sent an email to his staff and colleagues in July 2013, letting them know he would step down from his position by September 1. He was offered a more senior policy position in the Pentagon that would have allowed him to retain authority over detention issues generally, but he could not commit to staying in any new job long enough.