Gitmo release and recidivism

Stephen Hayes:

Last spring, in an interview with 60 Minutes, Barack Obama criticized his predecessor over the detainees at Guantánamo Bay. That wasn't new. What was surprising was one of the arguments the president made. When Steve Kroft pointed out that some of those released had been working to recruit others to jihad, Obama agreed.

Well, there's no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we've got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up.

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report leaked to the New York Times in May supported that claim. Return to the Battlefield showed that 74 detainees transferred or released from Guantánamo had returned to jihad. That's one in seven--a recidivism rate of 14 percent.

So the problem, according to Obama, was that the Bush administration was too lenient. The obvious solution: Apply greater scrutiny to detainees under consideration for release and slow the pace of transfers. But the Obama administration went the opposite direction. Having promised to shutter the detention facility at Guantánamo within one year, the administration has lowered the threshold for detainees eligible to be shipped out and is expediting the procedures for transferring or releasing them.

A total of 31 Guantánamo detainees have been transferred or released since Obama took office.

Among them are several men who acknowledged -receiving training in al Qaeda's notorious "al Farouq" camp. One, Binyam Mohamed, was slated to participate in the next wave of al Qaeda attacks on American soil in 2002. Another, Ahmed Zuhair, was convicted in absentia of participating in terrorist attacks in Bosnia in the late 1990s and almost certainly participated in the assassination of William Jefferson, an American working for the United Nations. Several -others that have been released have admitted to training at a camp at Tora Bora under Abdul Haq, a member of al Qaeda's shura council and a senior al Qaeda leader the Treasury Department has designated as a terrorist.

And dozens more are coming. On December 3, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told a congressional committee that more than half of the detainees remaining at Gitmo have been approved for transfer or release--116 of 210.

The 210 detainees who are still there are not wayward goatherds. Most are known jihadists. Many of them have trained in al Qaeda camps or stayed at an al Qaeda safe house. An overwhelming majority was considered too dangerous to release during the intensive vetting at the end of the Bush administration.

The Defense Department has now produced an updated version of Return to the Battlefield. According to four separate sources familiar with the study, the rate of recidivism is increasing. One source said there has been a "spike" in the number of former detainees involved in jihad against the United States and its allies. Another called the increase "significant" and "deeply troubling."

But the Obama administration--despite its -self-congratulatory claims of transparency--is refusing to release it. A Pentagon spokesman tells us the latest report is classified and there are no plans to release it.

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The administrations refusal to release the latest report suggest they think it would raise questions about the wisdom of releasing more al Qaeda jihadis. That is also probably the reason the GOP is trying to get it released. Hayes points out that some of those on the recidivism list are already known because they have high profile jobs in places like Yemen. Others were on a Saudi 80 most wanted list.

Releasing these guys to get "good PR" from liberals around the world is very foolish. So is the trans fer of the remainder to a prison in Illinois. It will not be long before the al Qaeda propaganda effort starts demonizing that facility as an icebox. But it will be much more convenient for the anti war pukes to demonstrate around.