Media advance falsehood that Pentagon has confirmed that 61 former

[firedupdem]

Guantánamo detainees have returned to battlefield


http://mediamatters.org/items/200901230002?f=h_top

Summary: Since President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring that the Pentagon's detention facilities at Guantánamo be closed within a year, numerous media figures and outlets have repeated or failed to challenge the claim that 61 former detainees held there have returned to the battlefield. In fact, the figure, which comes from the Pentagon, includes 43 former prisoners who are suspected of, but have not been confirmed as, having "return to the fight."

Since President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring that the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay be closed within a year, numerous media figures and outlets -- including CNN's Campbell Brown, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Fox News' Sean Hannity, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and ABCNews.com -- have repeated or failed to challenge the claim that 61 former detainees held at Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield. Hannity, the Globe, and the Los Angeles Times, in particular, falsely asserted that the Pentagon has confirmed this figure. In fact, as Media Matters for America documented, according to the Pentagon, the 61-detainee figure includes 43 former prisoners who are suspected of, but have not been confirmed as, having "return to the fight."