From the Washington Post again:
President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.
No comprehensive files? We shouldn't be surprised, but, once again, I am. If there was a way to get things wrong, you just know that the Bush maladministration would do it.
Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration's focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.
I'm surprised that I continue to be surprised by these people.
In a court filing this month, Darrel Vandeveld, a former military prosecutor at Guantanamo who asked to be relieved of his duties, said evidence was "strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks."
He said he once accidentally found "crucial physical evidence" that "had been tossed in a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten."
What other shocking leftovers from the Bush maladministration await discovery, as the new administration moves forward? Probably not just a few. Remember Cheney's secret meetings with the oil barons early in Bush's first term? The battle goes on for the documents which disclose who attended and what was discussed. We're not really done with the Bushies, and we won't be for a very long time, more's the pity.
The whole purpose of Gitmo was to keep these men in legal limbo, possibly for as long as Limbo itself might last. Bush and Cheney didn't want US courts to have jurisdiction--after all, we couldn't have something nasty like the Constitution applying to them--so Gitmo was used, like it was used for would be Cuban and Haitian refugees in prior years.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if we eventually find that the entire case files of some prisoners have been lost track of, and the Pentagon finds at the end it has a handful of men, of whom it has no idea who they are.
I just wonder if when he picked Gitmo, Bush didn't somehow think that Jack Nicholson was still commanding officer there. "He was a good and tough soldier, he knew what to do! He could handle the truth!"
(And Kishnevi realizes that he's having a senior moment, and can't remember the name of the film.)
Kishnevi, did they think they'd be in office forever? There was no logic there. I suppose that they believed they could do whatever they liked after Sept. 11, and no one would ever call them to account.
ReplyDeleteThe movie was "A Few Good Men". You had me curious, so I had to Google.