US Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees

[Bucky]

U.S. Said to Overstate Value of Guantánamo Detainees
By TIM GOLDEN and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

Published: June 21, 2004

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, June 19 — For nearly two and a half years, American officials have maintained that locked within the steel-mesh cells of the military prison here are some of the world's most dangerous terrorists — "the worst of a very bad lot," Vice President Dick Cheney has called them...

But as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the legal status of the 595 men imprisoned here, an examination by The New York Times has found that government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they have provided.

In interviews, dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East said that contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, none of the detainees at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay ranked as leaders or senior operatives of Al Qaeda. They said only a relative handful — some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen — were sworn Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings.

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Say it ain't so, Dick!

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[SoDesuKa]

1. Torturing the Detainees

I don't think information gathering was ever the point of Guantanamo. The real reason was the display of cruelty. Bush is a sicko.

[Eye and Monkey]

2. also - pandering to the base that's drooling over revenge

[blackcat77]

3. Bush thought EVERYTHING was goig to be easy...

Grab a few POWs and get all the information you need. Roll into Iraq and be greeted with flowers. Cut taxes for the wealthy and watch the economy bloom.

Has there ever been an administration less prepared to hold office than this one.

[struggle4progress]

4. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=635171