The jihadist accused of masterminding the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which resulted in 17 American sailors being killed, has had all charges dropped against him by the Pentagon. Apparently President HopeNChange felt that the tribunal process addressed by Congress wasn’t “legitimate”.

The Pentagon’s senior judge overseeing terror trials at Guantanamo Bay dropped charges Thursday against an al-Qaida suspect in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, upholding President Barack Obama’s order to freeze military tribunals there. The charges against suspected al-Qaida bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri marked the last active Guantanamo war crimes case.

The legal move by Susan J. Crawford, the top legal authority for military trials at Guantanamo, brings all cases into compliance with Obama’s Jan. 22 executive order to halt terrorist court proceedings at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Crawford dismissed the charges against al-Nashiri without prejudice. That means new charges can be brought again later. He will remain in prison for the time being.

“It was her decision, but it reflects the fact that the president has issued an executive order which mandates that the military commissions be halted, pending the outcome of several reviews of our operations down at Guantanamo,” Morrell said late Thursday night.

The ruling also gives the White House time to review the legal cases of all 245 terror suspects held there and decide whether they should be prosecuted in the U.S. or released to other nations.

Charges may or may not be refiled against al-Nashiri at a later time. Well, dropping charges against a man who masterminded the murder of 17 Americans certainly is change. Andrew McCarthy analyzes:

…it is noteworthy that, before the appointing authority acted this evening, Obama had scheduled a meeting for tomorrow afternoon with victims and families of victims not only of the Cole bombing but of of the 9/11 attacks. At a minimum, he appeared poised to announce he was dropping the Cole charges against Nashiri. All evening, however, it has been floated from several knowledgeable sources that the president was prepared to announce the dismissal of all the commission cases — i.e., not only against Nashiri but against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters. That suggestion is supported by the fact that the 9/11 families were invited to the White House meeting: there would have been no need to invite them to discuss an announcement that impacted only the Cole case.

Dismissals, if they happened, would surely be couched as “without prejudice.” That is, Obama would be able to tell the families — whether he meant it or not — that he could always re-file military commission charges if he ultimately decided that commissions, rather than civilian trials, were the best way to go.

The appointing authority’s action tonight removes the pressure on Obama to do anything tomorrow. (In truth, there was really no pressure on Obama to act tomorrow. It just happens that tomorrow is Friday, the day when administrations traditionally announce news they’d prefer to see buried — even when the country is not already distracted by a catastrophic trillion dollar “stimulus” bill.) Nevertheless, I would not be surprised to see the new administration go ahead and shut down all the commissions tomorrow.

Should make for a bit of an awkward meeting tomorrow. “Hey, you know that guy who planned the murder of your family member? Yeah, I dropped all charges against him. I might refile the charges later, but I just felt that the process wasn’t fair to him. I’m sure you understand.”