/ 25 April 2011

Guantánamo files reveal detainee details

Guantánamo Files Reveal Detainee Details

A cache of classified United States military documents provides intelligence assessments on nearly all of the 779 people who been detained at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba.

The secret documents, made available to the New York Times and several other news organisations, reveal that most of the 172 remaining prisoners have been rated as a “high risk” of posing a threat to the United States and its allies if released without adequate rehabilitation and supervision, the newspaper said.

The documents, provided by WikiLeaks, also show about a third of the 600 detainees already sent to other countries were also designated “high risk” before they were freed or passed to the custody of other governments, the Times said in its report late on Sunday.

The dossiers, prepared under the Bush administration, also show the seat-of-the-pants intelligence gathering in war zones that led to the incarcerations of innocent men for years in cases of mistaken identity or simple misfortune, the Times said.

The documents are largely silent about the use of the harsh interrogation tactics at Guantánamo that drew global condemnation, the newspaper reported.

Legal limbo
President Barack Obama pledged two years ago to close the prison at US naval base in Cuba but it remains in legal limbo.

Obama administration officials condemned the leaking of the documents but said the material is out of date.

Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell and State Department envoy Dan Fried said in a joint statement that the administration’s Guantánamo review panel, established in January 2009, had made its own assessments.

“The assessments of the Guantánamo Review Task Force have not been compromised to Wikileaks. Thus, any given DAB [Detainee Assessment Briefs] illegally obtained and released by WikiLeaks may or may not represent the current view of a given detainee,” the statement said.

This was the latest batch of secret US documents dumped by WikiLeaks, which had previously released classified Pentagon reports on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and 250 000 State Department cables.

Bradley Manning, a 23-year-old US soldier accused of leaking secret documents to WikiLeaks has been detained since May of last year.

The Guantánamo detention camp was opened to house prisoners captured in the US-led Afghan war launched by president George Bush soon after the September 11 2001, attacks on the United States.

China among regimes invited to interrogate captives
During the nine-year life of the camp the US invited in at least 10 foreign intelligence agencies to interrogate inmates, and to share information on those they regarded as terrorists. This is in addition to frequent questioning by allied British and Western intelligence officers.

Among those from repressive regimes who were invited to carry out interrogations were the Chinese, Tunisians, Moroccans, Russians, Saudis, Tajiks, Jordanians, Algerians, Yemenis and Kuwaitis. They helped identify inmates’ true names. The Saudi security service, the Mabahith, itemised 37 of those it regarded as particularly dangerous, and 77 who the Saudi government claimed were of “low intelligence value” and were prepared to have back and “rehabilitate”.

The Chinese and Russians made plain that they would prosecute and punish the interned Uighurs and Uzbeks if they were repatriated.

In 2002 the US invited the Saudis, Yemenis, Jordanians, Tunisians and Russians. In 2003 the Tajik security service was invited and the Kuwaitis the following year. The Chinese came before 2005, and in July 2005 the Yemenis came for a second time.

An Algerian delegation was invited in March 2006, and in March 2008 a third visit was recorded from Yemeni security officials. The date the Moroccans came is not clear. – Reuters, guardian.co.uk