NYT: Exaggeration Seen on Value of Guantánamo Detainees

[kskiska]

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, June 19 — For nearly two and a half years, American officials have maintained that locked within the steel-mesh cells of the military prison here are some of the world's most dangerous terrorists — "the worst of a very bad lot," Vice President Dick Cheney has called them.

The officials say information gleaned from the detainees has exposed terrorist cells, thwarted planned attacks and revealed vital intelligence about Al Qaeda. The secrets they hold and the threats they pose justify holding them indefinitely without charge, Bush administration officials have said.

But as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legal status of the 595 men imprisoned here, an examination by The New York Times has found that government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they have provided.

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay rank as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful — some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen — are sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.

more…
http://nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21GITM.html?hp

[Rose Siding]

1. Holy crap. NINE web pages long?

So far, I'm just seeing sources unwilling to be named, damn it. Do they not think things are quite dire enough just yet?

I'll finish the article but as for the 67% still willing to believe that Iraq helped with the 911 attack? Will they believe Our Dear Leader or their lying eyes?

edit- They could have any one of us locked up, say this very same thing and be telling the truth:

snip>
"We weren't sure in the beginning what we had; we're not sure today what we have," said Gen. James T. Hill, the head of the Army's Southern Command. "There are still people who do not talk to us. We could have the keys to the kingdom and not know it."

[struggle4progress]

2. Bushistas needed to look like they were doing something ...

so maybe they just grabbed whoever was easy to take for a big ceremonial lock-up with tough talk.

"Some of the detainees were elderly or infirm, and hardly appeared dangerous. One of those was Faiz Muhammad, a genial old man with a long wispy beard whom interrogators nicknamed 'Al Qaeda Claus.' Another, who was able to make the trip only after extensive medical care from Army doctors in Afghanistan, quickly became known as 'Half-Dead Bob.'"

"...simply innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time."

[schultzee]

3. Whats happened in Abu is what is happening in Gitmo.......

[TahitiNut]

4. Mostly a "photo-op" for the drooling knuckle-draggers who ...

... dim-wittedly support this corrupt Regime. These slack-jawed cretins got off on seeing the photos of those Ay-rabs kneeling in handcuffs, orange jumpsuits, and bags over their heads. It's neofascist viagra.

[stickdog]

5. Props. They are no more than human props. (nt)

[DeepModem Mom]

6. This is the lead story in the Times today....

frontpage, top right.

[soup]

7. Gitmo Taliban Training Camp

from the article (page 2):

American and foreign officials have also grown increasingly concerned about the prospect that detainees who arrived at Guantánamo representing little threat to the United States may have since been radicalized by the conditions of their imprisonment and others held with them.

"Guantánamo is a huge problem for Americans," a senior Arab intelligence official familiar with its operations said. "Even those who were not hard-core extremists have now been indoctrinated by the true believers. Like any other prison, they have been taught to hate. If they let these people go, these people will make trouble."

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surprise, surprise (not). Maybe someone could do a study of nature vs. nurture in prison camps.


from the article (page 5):

A list of 17 new interrogation techniques — the first such addition since the Army field manual was issued in 1987 — was approved by Mr. Rumsfeld in early December. Ten of the techniques were used on Mr. Kahtani before complaints from some military officials prompted Mr. Rumsfeld to retract his approval for the more extreme methods, military officials said.

Military officials refused to say which techniques had been used on Mr. Kahtani, but the list, contained in a memo dated Jan. 8, 2003, included hooding prisoners during questioning, placing them in "stress positions" like standing or squatting for up to four hours, aggravating phobias like fear of dogs, and "mild noninjurious physical contact," officials familiar with the memo said. Another detainee was also subjected to methods from the same list, they said.

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17 new interrogation techniques, approved by Rumsfeld in December 2002. What the heck is 'mild noninjurious physical contact'?

[struggle4progress]

8. kick

:kick: