Britain to US: we don't want Guantánamo nine back

[muriel_volestrangler]

The United States has offered to return nearly all British residents held at Guantánamo Bay after months of secret talks in Washington, the Guardian has learned.

The British government has refused to accept the men, however, with senior officials saying they have no legal right to return. Documents obtained by the Guardian show US authorities are demanding that the detainees be kept under 24-hour surveillance if set free - restrictions that are dismissed by the British as unnecessary and unworkable.

Although all are accused of terrorist involvement, Britain says there is no intelligence to warrant the measures Washington wants, and it lacks the resources to implement them. "They do not pose a sufficient threat," said the head of counter-terrorism at the Home Office.

The possible security arrangements appear to have caused months of wrangling, but senior UK sources have told the Guardian the government is interested in accepting only one man - Bisher al-Rawi - who is now known to have helped MI5 keep watch on Abu Qatada, the London-based Muslim cleric and al-Qaida suspect who was subsequently arrested.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,1886236,00.html

:wtf:

[lapfog_1]

1. I repeat... if the victims in Gitmo were not terrorists before

THEY ARE NOW.

I don't know what we can do. We can't simply apologize and turn them loose.
There is no good solution to the detainee issue.

Maybe, just maybe, let the ones who were falsely arrested (and for which we paid a bounty)
go to a neutral country and pay them a huge settlement, enough to take care of them and
their families for decades... and apologize to them, their families, and the world in
general... maybe they won't think that all citizens of the US should be killed.

But I doubt it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Couldn't the Brits just say, "Sure, we'll keep them under 24-hour

surveillance" and gradually "forget" to do so?

[NorCalDem]

3. Probably because of Reply #1

In all liklihood, these men ARE terrorists (at the very least severly potential terrorists) NOW. Without Gitmo, who knows....

[robinlynne]

4. Did you notice the last sentence; one of the men in guantanamo was a spy

for the British. And his name was just published.

[Vinca]

5. I say we send 'em to Crawford to cut brush with Shrub. nt