At least 50 U.S. State Department cables released by WikiLeaks report on the U.S. government's contacts and negotiations with foreign governments over U.S. detainee policies, requests to resettle detainees, and follow-up on resettlements. We believe that the following examples, had they been shared or shared more broadly, could have helped build support among the American people for closing Guantánamo Bay prison.
In a 1/15/10 cable from Embassy Luxembourg, classified "confidential," the U.S. ambassador observed that former Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg "is doing our work for us, and his articulate, reasoned presentation makes for a convincing argument. It is ironic that after four years of imprisonment and alleged torture, Moazzam Begg is delivering the same demarche to [the government of Luxembourg] as we are: please consider accepting Guantánamo detainees for resettlement."
Several exchanges with Germany, France and China concern the resettlement of the Uighurs, whom Federal District Judge Ricardo Urbina had ordered released to the U.S. in 2008, to communities where homes and jobs awaited them. The cables bring to light the difficulty for European governments of angering China by accepting the men. For example, in a 12/7/09 confidential cable from Embassy Berlin, although the state secretary expressed a willingness "to consider the two Uighur cases on humanitarian grounds, [he] noted that they would present special difficulties because of the diplomatic row which would likely ensue." Switzerland eventually accepted two brothers as a humanitarian gesture, and the others were resettled in Bermuda and, temporarily, in Palau.
Several more exchanges report that courts in France, Spain, and Afghanistan who accepted detainees whom the U.S. assumed would then be imprisoned and prosecuted were ultimately released. For example, a 7/28/06 secret cable from Embassy Madrid explains how the Spanish court freed the "Spanish Taliban," Abderrahaman, after dismissing him as a threat. "In early 2005, a confidential police assessment shared with [U.S. government] officials concluded that Abderrahaman had the 'mental maturity of a 12-year-old,' was 'naïve and foolish,' and did not seem to comprehend the gravity of his detention in Guantánamo." The cable states further that "prosecutors had improperly translated Abderrahaman's statements and had omitted exculpatory evidence" such as "a document in which U.S. authorities allegedly acknowledged that Abderrahaman was not a member of al-Qa'ida."
A number of cables cover U.S. attempts at damage control, such as discussions with the Spanish government over Spanish National Court investigating judge Baltasar Garzon's plan to investigate "allegations the U.S. tortured terrorism detainees at Guantanamo." Then attorney general Alberto Gonzales and then Secretary of State legal advisor John Bellinger are among those who attempted to improve their audience's perceptions of U.S. detention policies. For example, a 2/15/06 confidential cable from Embassy Brussels relates that Bellinger assured his audience, falsely, that "most detainees have been picked up by our armed forces on foreign battlefields," although in truth most were sold to U.S. forces for bounties, having been picked up far from any battlefield. Bellinger also attempted to reassure his audience that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals had effectively determined which detainees should be released and which were dangerous.
But the single most pointed statement, repeated in some form by every government asked to resettle some detainees, is that it is a "pre-condition," or nearly so, that the U.S. accept some detainees first. The foreign governments' responses to our government's unwillingness to do so are predictable and show how the lack of U.S. support placed their governments in difficult circumstances as they tried to help the U.S. government clear up its mess. For example, "The French public wondered why France should accept detainees who were too dangerous to be transferred to the United States."
Finally, foreign diplomats did offer good advice that the U.S. government would be wise to heed. From the European Union (Brussels) on 2/25/09, a representative of Spain's government put it well:
"[She] highlighted the gap between public perceptions of the kinds of detainees at Guantanamo and the reality that many are very low risk. She felt that this was a message the U.S. had to carry, and urged the administration to 'plainly' explain to Americans (and thus Europeans) that while some detainees are very dangerous, many of them do not pose a serious threat. [She] also commented that whenever a European newspaper ran a story on Guantanamo, they ran the typical picture of a hunched-over detainee in an orange jumpsuit. She said that 'we need better pictures' and urged us to turn the story around by showing low-risk detainees in a better light."
The back-story in the cables is the enormous amount of work and the squandering of goodwill and foreign diplomacy over the U.S. government's past mistakes and current unwillingness to be a true international partner and to share in the problem-solving, rather than foist the entirety of problems of our government's own making upon our allies.
Follow Nancy Talanian on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nogitmos
The US good FarWest policy = do it or else in the case of Spain and Germany. But sorry to hear that Spain bent forward to the US hegemony. That was almost our only chances that Bush and Co would be prosecuted.
In all honesty and sadly I must say that now Pres. Obama is complicit of protecting the perpetrators of War Crimes. I suspect that the reason Pres. Obama is acting this way is probably because he is himself doing the same War Crimes, but of course we do not know yet for sure. The only thing we have is the unman Droned killing a lot of civilians, but lying about the numbers and saying they were all Talibans. The UN has warned the US twice about the Drones.
But for those of us who are not politicians, who don't have to win elections, we don't have to make the same choices they make about what we're going to fight for. We have the luxury of being able to fight for seemingly lost causes, principles, and people who have been wronged and then abandoned.
Wikileaks reveals WMDs in Iraq
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WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/
They were not the WMD's that Bush was talking about. These were old nonfunctional rounds and they were few in number. Only right wing sites grabbed on to that report. All subsequent reports showed the program had long been abandoned and almost nothing was left and what was left was unusable!!!!!!!!!!
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As the article states -
But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.
That same month, then “chemical weapons specialists” were apprehended in Balad. These “foreigners” were there specifically “to support the chemical weapons operations.” The following month, an intelligence report refers to a “chemical weapons expert” that “provided assistance with the gas weapons.”
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I'm sure you're aware that we didn't hear about the 550 tons of uranium yellowcake until after it was all removed from the country. We didn't hear about it while it was still being secured.”