ANDREW McCARTHY: ON GITMO RECIDIVISM AND THE AWLAKI ASSASSINATION SUIT
NRO — The Corner
The 25 Percent Recidivism at Gitmo[1]
Regarding this eye-opening new study to which Dan alluded,[2] a few observations.
First, as I’ve been arguing ever since Obama counterterrorism advisor John Brennan absurdly claimed[3] that a 20 percent recidivism rate for mass-murderers is pretty good, the truth is we have no idea how high the actual recidivism rate of former Gitmo detainees may be — other than that it’s probably a lot higher than the assessments we’re getting from the intelligence community, alarming though they are. We cannot know with certainty whether a former detainee has gone back to the jihad unless (a) we encounter him on the battlefield, or (b) we are in the rare situation of having excellent intelligence about what that particular former detainee is up to. Everything else is guesswork — and a lot of it is guesswork influenced by the hope that dubious initiatives like the Saudis’ terrorist rehab program actually work.
Second, Tom Joscelyn, who has been following this as closely as anyone, has an excellent article[4] at TWS, which begins:
150 former Guantanamo detainees are either “confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities,” according to a new intelligence assessment released by the Director of National Intelligence’s office on Tuesday. In total, 598 detainees have been transferred out of U.S. custody at Guantanamo. 1 out of every 4, or 25 percent, of these former detainees is now considered a confirmed or suspected recidivist by the U.S. government
The DNI’s latest assessment is a significant increase over previous estimates. In June 2008, the Department of Defense reported that 37 former detainees were “confirmed or suspected” of returning to terrorism. On January 13, 2009 — seven months later — Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that number had climbed to 61. As of April 2009, the DoD found that same metric had risen further to 74 — exactly double the Pentagon’s estimate just 11 months before.
It’s all worth reading, as is another TWS piece[5] by Steve Hayes, contending that these latest figures mean you can forget about Gitmo being shuttered. Steve futher notes that although most of the known recidivists were released by the Bush administration (when there were hundreds more detainees at Gitmo), five of them were released by the Obama administration — despite its ballyhooed enhanced review process.
On Obama administration stonewalling, Steve adds:
As the WikiLeaks cables related to Guantanamo Bay make clear, U.S. diplomats began a global effort to persuade allies to take detainees and, when that didn’t work, to bribe them to reconsider. But as the administration worked to empty Gitmo, reality was causing problems. The number of recidivists was growing steadily and the threat posed by those remaining at Guantanamo – the worst of the worst – was becoming clear….
After recounting the most transparent administration in history’s information lock-down — Obama turning a deaf ear to the press, congressional Republicans, and FOIA demands — Steve concludes:
The administration was undeterred and sought to downplay the dangers associated with releasing or transferring individual jihadists. In some cases, sources say, administration officials rewrote threat assessments on the detainees produced by the intelligence community and the U.S. military. And the only reason the administration is set to release the report now is that Congress, in the 2010 Intelligence Authorization bill, mandated that the office of the Director of National Intelligence make the information public by December 7, 2010. So despite its efforts to keep the information hidden, it will be made public. And despite the efforts to close Guantanamo Bay, it will remain open.
Yup.
[1] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/254759/25-percent-recidivism-gitmo-andrew-c-mccarthy
[2] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/254751/25-percent-recidivism-gitmo-daniel-foster
[3] http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229868/islam-their-very-own/andrew-c-mccarthy
[4] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/gitmo-recidivism-rate-soars_521965.html
[5] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/gitmo-will-remain-open_521968.html
_________________________________
NRO — The Corner
Judge Dismisses Awlaki Assassination Suit
Federal Judge John Bates in Washington, D.C., has dismissed the lawsuit brought by the family of al Qaeda operative and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki which alleges that President Obama’s reported authorization of his (Awlaki’s) assassination violated his constitutional rights.
Judge Bates’s opinion[2] is 83 pages long and I haven’t been able to do more than skim it so far. Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism gives[3] what appears to be the bottom line: the judge concluded (the quote is from the opinion) that a federal court “lacks the capacity to determine whether a specific individual in hiding overseas, whom the Director of National Intelligence has stated is an ‘operational’ member of [al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula], presents such a threat to national security that the United States may authorize the use of lethal force against him.”
I want to digest the ruling before saying much more. Suffice it to say for now that if the judge is saying courts lack the institutional competence to second-guess the commander-in-chief’s wartime judgments about how the enemy should be fought overseas, I would agree with that. But better to take the time to analyze exactly what the court said … and to remember that this is just Round One.
[2] http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/1436.pdf
[3] http://www.investigativeproject.org/2384/judge-dismisses-al-awlaki-suit
Comments are closed.
