Here’s a news item that almost slipped under the radar, but is well worth considering:
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.
Emphasis mine. Let me repeat that, in case you missed it:
discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.
There’s information scattershot throughout executive communications, but no comprehensive files. Many of us were mildly sad, though unsurprised, that Obama didn’t just immediately release all the political prisoners with the understanding that we relinquished our right to try them when we relinquished our responsibility to uphold their basic human rights. I’m sure many of them are guilty of something, but we can’t put them in jail because the Bush administration flubbed this one. The Obama administration put the tribunal on hold (and it’s understood that it’s most likely going to be shut down) and hung onto these prisoners to figure out what to do with them, all in good faith. The assumption is that the Bush administration had some reason to maintain this no man’s land political prison. But with this discovery, I’m inclined to think that we’re going to find out even more unsavory realities about who got sent to Gitmo on what little evidence. Maybe in the end, they’ll just have to do what human rights groups have been asking and let the prisoners go.