Study slams DoD Gitmo detainee "Fact Sheet"
A group of academics and researchers have released a report today on the latest DoD’s “Fact Sheet” on Guantanamo detainees, and their findings are troubling. As you may recall, the DoD report says 74 former prisoners “re-engaged in terrorist activities.” But the further one delves into the report, the more vexing the numbers become. Some are listed as “confirmed” to be involved terrorist activities while most are “suspected.” And as we wrote about, the threshold for becoming suspected terrorist operative is quite low. The researchers questioned the accuracy and indeed the legitimacy of the DoD reports.
April’s report was the fourth fact sheet released by the DoD, yet the independent study finds that “each of these ‘partial’ lists has proven rife with errors, inconsistencies and inflated statistics.” Indeed, someone listed as a confirmed terrorist in an earlier fact sheet may be listed as a suspected one in the next. How the public first learned about this latest report has also come under fire. As reporting by my colleague Tom Lasseter shows in this exceptional series, dig a little deeper into these detainee stories, and one discovers the charges that led to a detainees’ arrest --and release -- were often flimsy.
And yet underlying all of this – particularly as the Obama administration have promised to close the facility in January – are some basic questions: How does the United States decide who is a threat and why, after seven years, can this nation not do a better job of answering basic questions about detainees once held under U.S. custody?
All this mess for 9/11. Even many names of the highjackers were wrong. Many of them are still alive in their country of origin. It took only 4 hours for the FBI to come out that day with the names. Strange.... no Arab names were on the passenger list and we all know that know that you cannot board an airplane without your name being on the passenger list. When a journalist discovered the discrepancy, FBI took the list. Who knows where it is now. Same thing with the detainees - Pentagon (the killing machine) has absolutely nothing against them: ties to 9/11. That is why that had to torture them to make them admit to something they didn't do. THIS IS THE BIGGEST COVER UP IN THE AMERICAN HISTORY. and yet the Americans just don't get it.
Posted by: claudia | June 20, 2009 at 06:41 PM
I think that in most cases there is a factor not mentioned much: male pride. Most of the military is run by men and men hate to admit they made a mistake. So they don't look for mistakes and just act as if everything is fine. Like driving around a strange city and refusing to ask at a gas station which way to the highway. It's possible every single person at Gitmo IS innocent of terrorism and the DoD knows it but is too proud to admit they screwed up.
Posted by: Will Shirley | June 11, 2009 at 06:32 AM
Dear Mark and Randy: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I would like to respond them in what I hope is the first of many engaging conversations. Mark, the questions I raised at the end of the column are about the detainees that have been in U.S. custody for years. That is, it is one thing to mistakenly arrest someone, spell their name inconsistently or even charge them in the battlefield. What I don't understand is how it is that the United States can hold someone for years on charges they pose a grave risk to national security and not know basic things about them before they are released. Most disturbing to me is that someone who the United States deemed appropriate to be released can then be listed as confirmed in reengaging in terrorist activities one month only to become a suspected terrorist a report later. That says to me that none of these suspected terrorists are truly confirmed. That all said, I appreciate your comment Randy that the rules applied to Gitmo detainees have not been consistent. So thanks to both of you for your comments.
Also, I have gone through and tried to catch most of the typos that appeared when I first posted this. My apologies. I was running out to a baseball game when I posted this. The Nats lost I am afraid, but Lincoln won the president's race.
Posted by: Nancy Youssef | June 10, 2009 at 01:30 PM
To the point that there is little time on the battlefield and in war for one to evidence I would say, no there is not and that is why such detainees have always been POWs and covered under war convention rules. Rules that the detainees at Guantanamo were never allowed to be under.
Innocent, check out the Seton Hall U. School of Law report on the subject of. Te report title is Report on Guantanamo Detainees. Perhaps not all are innocent, but because some may be guilty is no reason in a civilized world to call them all guilty.
Posted by: RandyT | June 10, 2009 at 11:03 AM
Nancy, the battlefield and wars aren't exactly places where you have time to question people shooting at you and examining evidence. What do you propose doing? Release them all? Are you implying they are all innocent?
Posted by: Mark Eichenlaub | June 10, 2009 at 08:56 AM