US: 61 ex-Guantanamo inmates return to terrorism

sabra

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Tue Jan-13-09 02:12 PM
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US: 61 ex-Guantanamo inmates return to terrorism

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed and 43 suspected of "returning to the fight."

He said the figures, updated at the end of December, showed a higher rate of recidivism than seen in a previous report showing 37 former detainees as active militants.

He provided no details about the detainees or their countries of origin.

"The overall known terrorist re-engagement rate has increased to 11 percent" from about 7 percent, Morrell said.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N13404998.htm

I wonder if this has anything to do with Cheney's i-view:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090113.html

For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
January 13, 2009

Live Interview of the Vice President by Bill Bennett, Morning in America

<snip>

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it's a bad decision. Guantanamo is sort of a symbol I guess to the left in this country and maybe to some of our critics overseas. But the fact is it's a very well-run facility. The Red Cross is down there all the time checking on it; reporters are free to go down, members of Congress and so forth, to look at it and see what kind of facility it is. And the fact is it's first-rate.

The other key thing that people forget is that we've got a couple hundred very bad actors down there. We've been through, several times, a scrub of the population in Guantanamo. And a good many more have been returned than we still hold, have been returned to their home countries. Now, out of that group, some number has, in fact, gone back onto the battlefield against us.

So we've not been, I think, especially harsh in terms of the judgments we've made. We have let some people go, and we erred a bit on the side obviously of -- in letting the wrong people go on a few occasions. But now what's left, that is the hardcore. And you've got to decide what you're going to do with those folks before you're going to control -- before you're going to close the facility. These are al Qaeda members. These are people that we captured on the battlefield. These are folks whose main objective in life is to kill Americans.

And the thing I've noticed is there's never yet been a congressman come forward and volunteer to take 250 al Qaeda members in his district. Nobody wants to do that. So then the question is, where are you going to put them? And you've got to sort that all out before you close Guantanamo.

But these are not American citizens. They don't have the rights that an American citizen would have. They are unlawful combatants, terrorists, and by definition, their objective is to achieve their political goals by killing as many civilians as possible. They don't abide by the laws of war.

So it's a good facility. There's a reason why it's there. I used to have the impression this is a classic case where they campaigned so hard against Guantanamo that now they don't have any choice but to try to close it. But that's too bad; they've got a lot of tough questions to answer first.