A military judge in Guantanamo has rejected a request from the Obama administration for a 120-day delay in the arraignment of a detainee there who's been charged in the USS Cole bombing. Such delays have already been granted in other cases, while the Obama administration figures out what to do about the detainees.

The judge said he doesn't understand how an arraignment will hurt Obama's ability to switch signals on the prosecution if he wants and that in any case the military commissions are creations of Congress. The arraignment is set for Feb. 9.

The detainee involved, Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, is charged with being the mastermind of the 2000 attack on the Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. But he has another claim to fame: He's one of the three Guantanamo detainees that the CIA has acknowledged were waterboarded while in secret custody. (The others are Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, and Abu Zubaydah, another alleged top-level al Qaida figure).

Nashiri's waterboarding will almost certainly be an issue in any future trial, military or otherwise. During his status review hearing at Guantanamo March 14, 2007, six months after the CIA turned him over to the military, he said he was tortured into confessing his involvemnt in the Cole attack and seven other terrorist incidents. According to the Pentagon transcript of that proceeding "The detainee states that he was tortured into confession and once he made a confession his captors were happy and they stopped torturing him."

Nashiri's cousin was one of the suicide bombers in the 1998 Kenya U.S. embassy bombing.