An unhappy anniversary at Guantanamo Bay

By Marie Cocco

January 14, 2007

WASHINGTON — Unhappy anniversary to you, Gitmo.

On Jan. 11, 2002, the first 20 captives in the “war on terror'' were flown from Afghanistan to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At the time the flight seemed a necessary byproduct of military action to topple the Taliban and detain prisoners of war who may have been complicit in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or other plots ...

In the beginning, we were told that those rounded up and shipped to Guantanamo from all corners of the world — they were not just taken from the “battlefield'' in Afghanistan, but also from other countries far from the fighting — were the “worst of the worst.'' Within days of that first flight, Vice President Dick Cheney described the detainees as “the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans.'' Bush himself would later claim: “They were there to kill.''

Now we know the military itself determined that more than half the so-called “enemy combatants'' at Guantanamo committed no hostile act against the United States. Only 7 percent of detainees actually were picked up by U.S. or coalition forces, according to a review of official documents by Seton Hall University law school. The rest were rounded up by Pakistani authorities, various local militias and armed groups — and by bounty hunters who sold them for handsome sums ...


In fact, most of those who've been released have been found by their home countries to pose no threat at all. An Associated Press investigation into the fate of 245 released men showed that 205 were either freed without charge or cleared after investigations into the allegations that had landed them at Guantanamo. Afghanistan freed all 83 of its repatriated citizens, saying they were innocent. Most had been rounded up because of tribal or personal rivalries. A Pakistani official told the AP that his government believes most imprisoned Pakistanis had wound up at Guantanamo after being sold to U.S. forces by Afghan warlords ...

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