A Gut Reaction to the Obama National Security Speech: Getting Stuck in A “Long War”The Great Congressional Bailout: Guantanamo (Part 2 — Dan Froomkin)Related Post: The Great Congressional Bailout - Guantanamo (Part 1 — The Daily Show)
President Obama will make an important, possibly defining, statement on
the future of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility today. It will define not only whether Obama will stick to his January promise to close the prison within 12 months but also whether he will be politically caged --- not only on Gitmo but on other "national security" and foreign policy issues --- by Congress, the media, and the Bushttp://enduringamerica.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=9804#edit_timestamphmen/Bushwomen and those who still support them.
Obama's plan was challenged from Day 1, when dissidents within the Pentagon leaked claims to the media that ex-Gitmo detainees had returned to terrorism. Those numbers were never established, but the seeds were planted. If the Administration could not offer a plan with cast-iron guarantees that no one released from Guantanmo would threaten "America", then the closure would be blocked.
The latest --- and most significant --- blow for Guantanamo's continued existence came this week, and it was thrown by Obama's own party. Democratic Congressional leaders withdrew the proposal for $80 milliino to begin implementation of closure, until the Administration offered more defined plans for the handling of ex-detainees. While those leaders kept the option of reinstating the funds open, the political signal --- accompanied by rhetoric, fed by Obama's own Attorney General, that no "terrorist" would ever be released on US soil --- was clear.
There are a lot of mundane realities behind the Administration's difficulties. It could not release many of the detainees to their home countries, who would not take them or could subject them to further abusive detention, and it was unable to get the commitment from "third countries" to take 60 of the most difficult cases. Most importantly, it could not come up with a legally and politically acceptable plan to process the detainees through the US criminal courts.
However, it is in dramatic headlines, rather than complex details, that Guantanamo --- and Obama's position --- will be framed. And today the propaganda campaign within the Executive Branch comes full circle.
"Two Administration officials" have fed The New York Times, a reliable channel for such information and mis-information, "an unreleased Pentagon report [that] concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad...has returned to terrorism or militant activity".
This is the same Pentagon "study" that was first floated at the end of 2008, with the allegation of 61 recidivists, and then re-presented in January. That study was roundly thumped by analysts who noted the lack of supporting evidence, and the leaking officials went quiet while Obama held the upper hand in the publicity fight over Guantanamo and torture.
There is no further substance offered in today's article, just the assurance that "a copy of [the report] was made available to
The New York Times". Reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, backtracking from the headline "1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds", puts the caveat 2/3 of the way down the article:
The Pentagon has provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided.
There is also the context, at the foot of the story, that "terrorism experts said a 14 percent recidivism rate was far lower than the rate for prisoners in the United States, which, they said, can run as high as 68 percent three years after release".
No matter. The leaking official cutely and cleverly tells Bumiller, "The report was made available...[because] the delay in releasing it was creating unnecessary 'conspiracy theories' about the holdup." It's cute and clever, because any Washington official with more than two weeks' experience knows how the report's unsupported but sensational "1 in 7" claim would be handled. So, with the pretence that he/she is only protecting the public from "conspiracy theories" about the pro-Guantanamo and anti-Obama propaganda, the official leaks that propaganda.
Beyond all the scheming is the significance of the political challenge. In January, when this battle began, it was a minor annoyance to Obama. Now it is a test of his ability to hold a declared position. The President has already flipped twice in recent days on the release of detainee photographs and on military tribunals; this would be a third-time denial both of legal rights and of his authority.
As George W. Bush might have phrased it, Obama's opponents have been chanting, "Bring it on." Today may indicate whether whether Obama will "bring it back" or give way, on this issue and those to come.
Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 13:49 
Last week, when we wrote about testimony by Philip Zelikow and Ali Soufan to a Senate hearing on torture, reader John Birch wrote perceptively, "Zelikow was testifying about the organized use of toture as an interrogation method by the CIA....The photos [Obama] held back are of the abuse and even torture of prisoners by the U.S. military." This prompted my response, "The connection is that the authorisation of torture by the CIA and US military, sanctioned from spring 2002 by Bush officials, made its way to Guantanamo Bay and then to Iraq, including Abu Ghraib," notably via General Geoffrey Miller.
Last week we reported on the testimony to Congress of Philip Zelikow (pictured), the former State Department officer, on the "enhanced interrogation" programmes of the Bush Administration: "The administration was reserving the right to inflict treatment that might violate the so-called 'CID' standard...'cruel, inhuman, or degrading'."
