http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21gitmo.html?_r=1&hp

Quote :

"May 21, 2009 1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds By ELISABETH BUMILLER WASHINGTON — An unreleased Pentagon report provides new details concluding that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials. The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against releasing any more prisoners as part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the prison by January 2010. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism, however, have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail. The Pentagon promised in January that the latest report would be released soon, but Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said this week that the findings were still “under review.” Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo. The White House has said that Mr. Obama will provide further details about his plans for closing the prison there in a speech Thursday morning at the National Archives. Pentagon officials said there had been no pressure from the White House to suppress the report, and said they believed that the Defense Department employees, some of them holdovers from the Bush administration, were acting pre-emptively to protect their jobs. The report is the subject of numerous Freedom of Information Act requests from news media organizations, and Mr. Whitman said that he expected it to be released shortly. The report, a copy of which was made available to The New York Times, says the Pentagon believes that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent. The report was made available by an administration official sympathetic to its findings who said the delay was creating unnecessary “conspiracy theories” about the holdup. A Defense Department official said there was little will inside the Pentagon to release the report because it had become politically radioactive under Mr. Obama. “If we hold it, then everybody claims it’s political and you’re protecting the Obama administration,” said the official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “And if we let it go, then everybody says you’re undermining Obama.” Previous assertions by the Pentagon that substantial numbers of former Guantánamo prisoners had returned to terrorism were harshly criticized by civil liberties and human rights groups who said the information was too vague to be credible and amounted to propaganda in favor of keeping the prison open. The Pentagon began making these assertions in 2007 but stopped earlier this year, shortly before Mr. Obama took office. In recent days, the Pentagon has run into rising objections in Congress to closing the prison, particularly from Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, who said recently that Guantánamo detainees would “never” be released in the United States. On Wednesday, Michele A. Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, reminded reporters that many of these now expressing reservations about the transfer of prisoners from Guantánamo had also called for the closing it. “I think there will be some that need to end up in the United States,” she said. Among the 74 former prisoners that the report says are again engaged in terrorism, 29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report. The Pentagon has said that the remaining 45 could not be named because of national security and intelligence-gathering concerns. In the report, the Pentagon confirmed that two former Guantánamo prisoners whose terrorist activities had been previously reported had indeed returned to the fight. They are Said Ali al-Shihri, a leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch suspected in a deadly bombing of the United States embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, last year, and Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, an Afghan Taliban commander, who also goes by the name Mullah Abdullah Zakir. The Pentagon has so far provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people who are identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided. “It’s part of a campaign to win the hearts and minds of history for Guantánamo,” said Mark P. Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University School of Law who has represented Guantánamo detainees and co-written three studies highly critical of the Pentagon’s previous recidivism reports. “They want to be able to claim there really were bad people there.” Mr. Denbeaux acknowledged that some of the named detainees had engaged in verifiable terrorist acts since their release, but he said his research showed that their numbers were small. “We’ve never said there weren’t some people who would return to the fight,” Mr. Denbeaux said. “It seems to be unavoidable. Nothing is perfect.” Terrorism experts said that a 14 percent recidivism rate was far lower than the rate for prisoners in the United States, which, they said, can run as high as 68 percent three years after release. The experts also said that while Americans might have a lower level of tolerance for recidivism among Guantánamo detainees, there was no evidence that any of those released had engaged in elaborate operations like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Terrorism is perpetrated by organizations and not individuals,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. In addition to Mr. Shihri and Mr. Rasoul, at least three others among the 29 named have engaged in verifiable terrorist activity or have threatened terrorist acts. Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi, a Saudi national who was released from Guantánamo to Saudi Arabia in November 2007, and who is named on the most recent list of 16, appeared with Mr. Al-Shihri in a video released by Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch in January and reported by news organizations at the time. Like Mr. Shihri, Mr. Awfi passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for jihadists after their release from the prison. The program has been seen as a model, and the Saudi government has previously said that none of its graduates had returned to terrorism. In the video, Mr. Awfi threatened attacks against Saudi Arabia and spoke angrily about Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza. Another on the list of 29 whose case has been widely reported is Abdullah Salih al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti who was in Guantánamo from 2002 to 2005 and who subsequently carried out a suicide bomb attack in Mosul, Iraq, in 2008. The attack killed several Iraqi soldiers. Margot Williams contributed reporting from New York."

And now the Senate has refused to fund the transfer of those in GITMO to the U.S without a plan.

Maybe they should have done that with:

1) The war in Iraq,
2) H.R. 1 - American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

(you know, the part about having a plan)

5/20/2009 8:12:26 PM

I bet all those Gitmo detainees are just itching to break out of supermax. Despite, you know, it being supermax.

Lesson #1: "Prison Break" is a primetime drama on Fox, not a documentary.

Also:

Quote :

"The Pentagon has so far provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people who are identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided."

Yeah, let's take their word for it. What could possibly go wrong?

[Edited on May 20, 2009 at 8:16 PM. Reason : Ugh.]

5/20/2009 8:15:10 PM

This is pretty darned specious

1. ^ .

2. Even assuming the report is correct, this is an incredibly low recidivism rate. In America, more than 2/3 of freed prisoners are back in jail in three years.

http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/reentry/recidivism.htm

1/7 is shockingly low, given that all of the released ones were falsely imprisoned (and probably tortured).

[Edited on May 20, 2009 at 8:46 PM. Reason : benefit of the doubt]

5/20/2009 8:40:47 PM

Quote :

"one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials."

Even if I was the gardener, with no role in militant/terrorist activity, of some Al Qaeda leader who just happened to be scooped up on a raid for terrorists. Once released from Gitmo after experiencing "enhanced interrogation techniquies", held without any formal charges, and treated like crap for 5 years by the US; i'd probably be pretty pissed off ready to go fire my AK47 at some yanks when i got home.

5/20/2009 8:56:26 PM

i also thought 1/7 was pretty low.

5/20/2009 9:02:48 PM

I've got a better statistic:

100% of turrurists killed have not rejoined the fight.

5/21/2009 3:26:56 AM

i don't consider 1 in 7 to be all that high a percentage

5/21/2009 3:37:19 AM

14.2857143%

5/21/2009 3:41:55 AM

14.285714285714285714285714285714%

5/21/2009 4:44:30 AM

Quote :

"Cheney has charged that, Obama's national security decisions have left the United States more vulnerable to attack. "

Obama is lettin them turrists winz!

5/21/2009 8:20:02 AM

Quote :

"1/7 is shockingly low, given that all of the released ones were falsely imprisoned, kicked, pushed around, forced into stress positions, made to listen to death metal at 150 dB for 18 hours non-stop, their families threatened and religion insulted, etc. (and probably seriously tortured)."

5/21/2009 3:52:46 PM

if even 1 does another terrorist activity with any significance i think there will be hell to pay

5/21/2009 3:59:28 PM

The ones that weren't in GB were and are actively involved in plotting against Western nationals anyway. The only difference is the suicide bomber could be a guy already in the ranks or one of these guys that returned. It isn't like we are going to hand over a guy like KSM or Zoubeida. There is a real good reason we didn't have enough info to continue to hold indefinitely the guys we sent back, it's because they weren't doing shit seriously enough for us to survey them or know enough for us to keep them (enhanced techniques or otherwise). By holding many many people that we deem aren't of the highest or near the highest value, we are essentially saying that are counter surveillance and other information techniques haven't improved any since 9/11.

5/21/2009 4:31:43 PM

Quote :

"made to listen to death metal at 150 dB for 18 hours non-stop"

AMERICA, FUCK YEAH.

5/21/2009 4:44:31 PM

i speculate that 6 in 7 detainees like death metal, going for swims, and staying up all night.

5/21/2009 4:48:14 PM

http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/05/photos-obama-wont-release-include-images-of-rape.html

and to think how many of the innocent that we turned against us....

[Edited on May 29, 2009 at 6:33 AM. Reason : ...]

5/29/2009 6:32:57 AM

I'd be seriously interested in what the US gov't/military considers "death metal".

5/29/2009 8:33:48 AM

I think the police in our country would probably be stoked if only 1 out of 7 hoodlums they arrest do not go back to a life of violence, drug dealing, rape, etc

5/29/2009 8:44:42 AM

Obama: Rhetoric v. Reality

Quote :

"While I recognize that your administration inherited detainees who, because of torture, other forms of coercive interrogations, or other problems related to their detention or the evidence against them, pose considerable challenges to prosecution, holding them indefinitely without trial is inconsistent with the respect for the rule of law that the rest of your speech so eloquently invoked. Indeed, such detention is a hallmark of abusive systems that we have historically criticized around the world…. Once a system of indefinite detention without trial is established, the temptation to use it in the future would be powerful. And, while your administration may resist such a temptation, future administrations may not. There is a real risk, then, of establishing policies and legal precedents that rather than ridding our country of the burden of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, merely set the stage for future Guantanamos, whether on our shores or elsewhere, with disastrous consequences for our national security."

http://www.qando.net/?p=2702

"This Rachel Maddow video on Obama’s speech is great. She calls it the Department of Pre-Crime based on the Phillip K Dick novel and Tom Cruise movie:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uuWVHT1WUY&feature=player_embedded

5/31/2009 1:33:03 PM

Quote :

"In America, more than 2/3 of freed prisoners are back in jail in three years. "

Quote :

"I think the police in our country would probably be stoked if only 1 out of 7 hoodlums they arrest do not go back to a life of violence, drug dealing, rape, etc"

first of all....if they weren't released they wouldn't be able to go back to lives of crime...

second of all...how can you possibly compare threats to the national security of an entire country to the threat of...let's say...a 7/11 store clerk getting robbed by a crack head...

6/1/2009 2:03:43 PM

Quote :

" second of all...how can you possibly compare threats to the national security of an entire country to the threat of...let's say...a 7/11 store clerk getting robbed by a crack head..."

Check your assumptions. That the national security of an entire country is threatenned by anyone we have in prison is simply not credible. A more appropriate comparison would be between an Iraqi soldier dying in a car bombing and a 7/11 store clerk getting shot dead by a crack head. These two events are not demostrably different and therefore should be treated similarly. If you wish to hold suspected terrorists without trial then you should hold suspected crack heads without trial.

6/1/2009 2:10:31 PM

Is this hypothetical crack head an American citizen?

6/1/2009 3:14:25 PM

I'm going to say no. So what?

6/1/2009 3:49:14 PM

Quote :

"America is Double Hetler (sic Hitler) in unjustice (sic injustice)"

--Chinese Muslims at Guantanamo Bay

Quote :

"The 17 men were picked up in the training camps in Afghanistan where they were preparing for Jihad against China. They were cleared for release, in part, because their supporters claim the United States is not their direct enemy."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/01/uyghur-detainees-gitmo-compare-hitler/

1. GODWIN'S!!!1

2. You're welcome, China.

6/2/2009 12:40:11 PM

KeB... Really? You posted that? Really? Can I post from some other random-ass blog that makes an outlandish and un-verified claim? Come on... Those two pictures could have come from bangbus, practically.

Quote :

"That the national security of an entire country is threatenned by anyone we have in prison is simply not credible."

Moussaoui? I'm just saying... Plus, I think the intent of the quote was to compare the guys in gitmo to the crackheads in prison...

6/2/2009 8:08:10 PM

So, 6 out of 7 terrorists give up terrorism. That's a success rate of 86%. That's not bad, compared to the prision recidivism rate.

6/2/2009 9:56:14 PM

hahaha. that assumes that those 6 guys were terrorists in the first place...

6/2/2009 9:59:40 PM

Why don't we just let them go in Afghanistan where we found them? Even if they did rejoin the fight its not like they could make much of a difference anyway.

6/3/2009 12:18:08 AM

That is a good point. I wonder what the crime recommital rate is among people that were merely arrested, most of which are let go.

6/3/2009 2:10:07 AM

why cant we just send the remaining like 150 to states that will vote repub in 2012 so if it makes the ppl mad it wont matter

7/25/2009 4:45:23 AM

I'm sure it violates International Law or even American Law for that matter, but it would've been nice if we could have implanted some RFID chips into their skin without their knowledge and then let them rejoin their terrorist cells so we can wipe them all out.

7/25/2009 10:56:46 AM

I don't think RFID chips work the way you think they work.

7/25/2009 11:39:21 AM

Quote :

"I don't think RFID chips work the way you think they work."

LOL!

7/27/2009 10:06:20 PM