Former State Department Official Says United States Knew Many Gitmo Prisoners were Innocent

Former State Department Official Says United States Knew Many Gitmo Prisoners were Innocent

washingtoninde pendent.com

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, writes in The Washington Note about “the utter incompetence of the battlefield vetting in Afghanistan” during the early days of U.S. operations there. “Simply stated, no meaningful attempt at discrimination was made in-country by competent officials, civilian or military, as to who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation.”

Having too few adequately trained troops and civilians, combined with pressure from then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others to “just get the bastards to the interrogators” meant lots of hasty abductions of the wrong people, many of whom were sent to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

Moreover, Wilkerson writes, “several in the U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.”

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Another unknown, a part of the fabric of the foregoing four, was the sheer incompetence involved in cataloging and maintaining the pertinent factors surrounding the detainees that might be relevant in any eventual legal proceedings, whether in an established court system or even in a kangaroo court that pretended to at least a few of the essentials, such as evidence.

Simply stated, even for those two dozen or so of the detainees who might well be hardcore terrorists, there was virtually no chain of custody, no disciplined handling of evidence, and no attention to the details that almost any court system would demand. Falling back on "sources and methods" and "intelligence secrets" became the Bush administration's modus operandi to camouflage this grievous failing.

But their ultimate cover was that the struggle in which they were involved was war and in war those detained could be kept for the duration. And this war, by their own pronouncements, had no end. For political purposes, they knew it certainly had no end within their allotted four to eight years. Moreover, its not having an end, properly exploited, would help ensure their eight rather than four years in office.

www.thewashingtonnote.com...

Dear god i'm speechless!

The worst part of this is that there will never be justice or any slim chance of accountability.
Forget accountability, the people involved are probably some of the richest people on the planet.

washingtoninde pendent.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

come on guys this is BIG

All I can say is, I'm not surprised at all and that this will be the same case when they start abducting and rounding up "domestic terrorists" and shipping them off to some hell hole in god knows where.

I don't think any of the abductions or interrogations of Afghans or Iraqis were for our benefit, it was a fear tactic to keep the population in line. Kind of like "You better do what they say and stay on the up and up 'cause they might just take you anyway."

And now that the American population knows of the abuses and absurdities of this whole system we start to feel the same fear they did. "They might black bag me even if i'm innocent so I should obey and follow what they say."

I'm not sure of the credibility of that news site.

Just looking around I thought it was light on news and heavy on opinions. I'm going to check around to see if I can find another site to confirm this. I'm thinking its left wing propaganda.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Oh come off of it. You know full well that these people were terrorists. This guy is simply out for blood because he got FIRED! Sheesh, you will buy anything.

Hehe, okay, now that I got the strongest 'pro-gitmo' argument off of my chest I will say what I really feel.

I'm not surprised at all. I have held this stance for a LONG time as well as many others on and off of this site. Yet the Bush administration decided it was okay to torture these people. These human beings that the majority of were simply living their lives and trying to take care of their families like you and me. It was a crime what happened to them and what is still happening. A crime against humanity and yet there are those on here who still stand up for what was done.

They either believe that the people being held are still guilty or that the collateral damage is worth catching 1 or 2 real criminals.

Well, I'm here to say that it is NOT worth it. Because I'll just say this plainly. If it were my significant other that was being held without cause or charge I would NOT support it. If it were my significant other or son or daughter that was being tortured 'just because' I would NOT stand for it. Now, those of you who still support this, put yourself in that situation and ask yourself honestly if the collateral damage is worth the catching of 1 or 2? Ask yourself if it is still justified.