The Myth of Return to the Battlefield from Guantanamo

The New York Times last night joined the parade of news organizations credulously reporting the utterly undocumented claims of Bush Defense Department holdover officials that large numbers of released former Guantanamo detainees had "returned to terrorism or militant activity."

The story indicates that the Times has seen a copy of the report. But had Times Pentagon correspondent (and Condee Rice biographer) Elizabeth Bumiller seen any names? Apparently, 74 detainees are claimed to have returned to "the fight" (up from the 5, 7, 10, 12, 31, 61, and other unsupported totals the military has issued over the years). But 45 names they won't release. (Which it to say, those claims are nonsense -- compare the "43 suspected of returning to the fight" from DOD's Jan. 14 press conference.) As to the others, "29 have been identified by name by the Pentagon, including 16 named for the first time in the report." If so, that means 13 were previously named. Luckily we have a report from the Pentagon from July, 2007 which names names, and includes the "anti‐coalition militant activities" the detainees are supposed to have participated in. Included: three English detainees whose "militant" activity was participating in the making of Michael Winterbottom's movie The Road to Guantanamo and seeking damages for their torture in U.S. courts, and five Uighurs, shipped off to Albania to forestall a court hearing on their release in 2006 and living in a run-down refugee camp there, whose crime was to complain to Tim Golden of the same New York Times about their miserable condition.

In fairness, the July 2007 report's preamble claims that "anti‐coalition militant activities" can include "participat[ion] in anti‐US propaganda or other activities"--but the report never bothers to sort out the total number of those who have "returned to the battlefield" through the militant activity of ... typing. Or talking to a reporter. The gaudy numbers reported previously (generally without names) have undoubtedly included all those few released detainees who dared complain about what they had experienced.

Bumiller apparently didn't scrutinize the Seton Hall Law School report tearing apart the military's earlier claims. Nor did she check the names herself, at least as far as the story shows. But, lest you think no reporting at all was involved in her Times story, she did bother to do the math -- dividing 74 into the total number of released detainees (534) to come up with a "recidivism rate" -- which she then compares to the rate in US prisons! (Wow -- that part counts as *actual research*!)

Since the Times prides itself on its use of the English language (if not content), let's stop to explain a fine point to the editors here. "Recidivism" implies a prior crime, just like "return to the battlefield" implies the detainees were there once before. That's simply not true for 96% of the detainees, who the military's own records show were not captured on anything resembling a traditional battlefield.

What about actual names? Here, as best as I can tell, are the stories that are specific enough to be worth further analysis:

* Mullah Shazada: an Afghan killed on the battlefield on May 7, 2004, supposedly bragged to his people that he had been at Guantanamo under a completely assumed identity, and managed to get released. Conveniently, there's no way to verify a story like this, which could easily be the sort of thing a fighter makes up to increase his street cred.

* Abdullah Al Ajmi: A Kuwaiti who was released, lived a relatively normal life for three years, then vanished and allegedly blew himself up in Mosul, taking several Iraqi soldiers with him. According to his lawyer, when he first met Ajmi he was a polite young man, who left Guantanamo so damaged that his lawyer tried to warn the authorities that he needed help -- to no avail. The fact that the stigma of Guantanamo made him unmarriageable was apparently a major factor in his decline.

* Two Saudi guys who appeared in a video wearing tight camouflage t-shirts and claiming to be the new leaders of Al Qaeda in Yemen: Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi and Sa'eed Ali al-Shihri. However, al-Oufi turned himself in to Saudi authorities after the Saudis made an appeal to their families and the families apparently called out for their kids to return, raising the question: how dangerous can a momma's boy really be?

Note that all of these men were released not by a court order, but by the Bush administration's own haphazard internal process. Perhaps if that administration had shown a commitment to charging and trying detainees, some of these men might be serving sentences for conduct prior to their detention. But instead, the Bush admin showed a mindless commitment to expanding executive power -- deciding to hold men as long as they could to prove a point about presidential power, not to make us safer.

Of course, there are limits to how long any country can hold foreign nationals in preventive detention: eventually the diplomatic costs will always get so high that the executive will have no choice to release them. And, of course, that's not a bad thing when there's no evidence justifying someone's detention. As the President has said repeatedly, the costs - both in terms of diplomatic and popular cooperation and goodwill overseas - far outweigh the risk of releasing individuals about whom we may have incomplete information. President Obama would do well to consider his own words when deciding whether to go forward with the preventive detention scheme he proposed today in his speech to the nation.

The president I still am hopeful about. The Times, not so sure. Will they print a front-page retraction to match the print headline "1 in 7 Rejoins Jihad, Pentagon Finds"?

UPDATE: See Spencer Ackerman's slow dissection of Bumiller's claims here and here.

UPDATE II: Bumiller backtracks (sort of, and ever so slightly) here.

UPDATE III: Bumiller herself called me this afternoon to indicate: (1) she spoke at length to the author of the Seton Hall report, and read two of their three prior reports, and (2) that she did scrutinize the names on the report, and that it was "unclear" whether the names of the Tipton 3 or the five Uighurs sent to Albania were among the 29 names listed. She suggests I write to the Times' public editor. (For good measure, I apologized for being snippy in the above, and promised to follow up as she suggested.)

Comments

[listeningpost]

America is still memorializing Bataan, and German prison camps. It is just as likely that Guantanamo will remain as a permanent stain in our history.
I'd sure like to see Kadidal go head to head with Cheney.

[jmpurser]

If the claims WERE true then for every 7 people released we face ONE additional foe. Meanwhile for every ONE person detained indefinitely we have a recruiting poster FOR THE ENTIRE MUSLIM WORLD.

Which do you think is the greater threat to our security?

Guantanamo (and now Bagram Airbase) has done the exact same thing for America that Abu Ghraib did.

[OverIt]

Even if there is PROOF that released former detainees are engaging in terrorism, it is not necessarily evidence of RECIDIVISM!

Is it really that difficult for people to imagine that a 100% INNOCENT man who is snatched off the street and torn from everything he knows including his family, who is thrown into a black site/ secret prison, who is possibly tortured and held for MANY YEARS without charges and without meaningful human connection could BECOME a terrorist once let go?

It's called anger, revenge, retribution! The SAME feelings that all of US feel toward Bin Laden and those who would do US harm.

A released detainee being caught in the act of terrorism doesn't tell us ANYTHING about whether or not he was guilty in the FIRST INSTANCE.

It only tells us that to the extent possible, the Obama administration needs to differentiate itself in practice and in public opinion from the Bush administration and that there should be a "plan" to assist former detainees to reintegrate successfully with "regular" society once released so they do not become sitting ducks, vulnerable to the violent ideology of the radical extremists in their home countries.

[OverIt]

Not to mention that we have the responsibility to also assess the mental health of detainees to be released as well. PTSD is not only an American phenomenon.

[Bushwillresign]

PTSD - Post Torture Stress Disorder

[Deidroni]

If anyone is interested, cut and paste this link to read the transcript from Professor Mark Denbeaux's testimony at a congressional hearing from 4-26-07. He clearly refutes the Pentagon's claims of recidivism.

www.bordc.org/resources/denbeaux.doc

[tbone99]

I imagined they were released with a survey in a stamped self addressed envelope addressed to the Cia to be returned in 6 months reporting on their mood, whereabouts and employment status.

Remember being asked at the airport '"Did someone else pack your bag?"Our dorky government at work.

I can't imagine more did not become terrorists after having the Koran thrown in the toilet and being treated like dogs.And after all ,many will need to prove they are not working for the CIA or be be offed by their tribal members. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place

[Boyaca]

The American Military Propaganda division is a lying bag of Dog S**t. Thats it thats all. You can't believe a single thing that comes out of that outfit.

[enochsmoky]

According to polls taken after 9/11, significant percentages of the Arab world thought the attacks were justified and approved of them. A cartoon in a Dutch newspaper ignited spasms of violence all over the Middle East. With such an ingrained mindset, I am surprised that only 1 in 7 detainees released from Gitmo returned to the jihadist fight. A complete and total transformation of the Arab world is needed for their own sake and the rest of the world.

[LeftRight]

Actually, it wasn't until we invaded Iraq that the Muslim world started to think that the attacks were justified. Before that time, they had been opposed to the attacks just like the rightwingnutjobs were opposed to the Oklahoma City bombing!!

[Marcospinelli]

There are billions of people in the world, in the Middle East, of Middle East descent, who live peacefully in and around everyone else in the world.

The US government has imposed rulers on them, undermined their governments, murdered them or supported other countries that have murdered them, raped them, occupied their land and supported other countries that have done the same.

We could stand some of that total transformation you so glibly recommend, beginning with becoming informed about what our politicians are doing to people in other countries, in our names.

[tompoe]

Detainees were released because they engaged in terrorism? Detainees were released to continue terrorist activities? Only one in seven were willing to continue terrorist activities? The six in seven not willing to continue terrorist activities are refusing on what grounds?

On the other hand, maybe, just maybe the detainees released were released because they were wrongly captured and tortured. That would make the report a total propaganda piece that should have had fact checks before the author shills for corporate media.

[rf dude]

We live in a fragmented world

because all we can do

is " imagine world piece "...
--

[Weirdwriter]

Been wondering for some time how it could be proven that these released detainees returned to terrorist jihad.

Not surprised that this "fact" has as much credibility as Saddam's nuclear bomb.

[howie1]

SINCE THE TERM MOMMAS BOYS CAN'T BE DANGEROUS AS THE AUTHOR HAS POINTED OUT AND HE IS OBVIOUSLY LIVING IN SOME UTOPIAN IDEAL OF A DREAM WORLD PERHAPS HE COULD DO WELL REMEMBERING THE NORMAN BATES OF DREAM LAND.

[tbone99]

Norman Bates AKA Dick Cheney?

[TRYKER]

Our publication is in danger of dying, please help us by reading our lousy dishonest reporting and buy our paper, Thanks, NY Times.

[henrywolff]

what a mess. based on ordinary human nature (and putting aside the fantasy that military are all simply evil incarnate), here is likely what happened, imo
-battlefield expediencies mean net is cast too broadly
-once in Guantanamo, unholy mess to sort out--too far from site where anything happened, witnesses scattered to four winds, all you have is testimony of the accused
-no one wants to take responsibility for sorting this out, being the bearer of bad news
-status quo reigns for years, political hot potato
-bad press makes situation worse
-leave problem for Obama to sort out

I'm a Republican, but I can say it appears Bush really screwed the pooch on this one.

[mcostello]

Hmmmm, let's see; take an inocent afghani and put him in confinement, torture him, show disrespect to his religion and then let him go 4 years later.
He find some like-minded people and sets up ambushes for US troops. It sounds pretty reasonable and predictable.

If we (U/s) don't do the dirt, we don't have to hide it, or worry about the fall out.

[research]

Why is it Liberals have to repeatedly refute the same old lies from the conservatives?

Why does anybody take the conservatives seriously?

Conservatives habitually Lie, deceive, delay, obstruct, project, mislead.

[KenGirard]

Because many people do not have a memory, and assume that it is new information.

If Bill showed some Jane evidence that said Dick was wrong, and then a week later Dick repeats the wrong information to Jane, then Jane is going to guess that Dick has shown Bill evidence that disproved Bill's evidence. Surely Dick wouldn't keep telling a lie, right?

[research]

sigh.