Pentagon Roughs Up Obama
Here go the Washington games.
Yesterday, it became known that our President-elect may intend to issue an Executive Order during his first week in office which would order the closure of the Guantanamo Bay Military Prison. According to Reuters, this information comes from an Obama transition adviser. It’s a leak, pure and simple, but who knows if it was intentional.
What’s interesting is that the leak came on the same day after President George W. Bush was asked pointed questions about the degradation of America’s “moral standing” in the world during his administration.
Day Two
Today, another illuminating story from Reuters shines the light of political hardball played Washington-insider style. This dispatch details comments made by Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell regarding the numbers of former Guantanamo inmates who returned to their alleged terrorist ways:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed and 43 suspected of “returning to the fight.”
He said the figures, updated at the end of December, showed a higher rate of recidivism than seen in a previous report showing 37 former detainees as active militants.
He provided no details about the detainees or their countries of origin.
“The overall known terrorist re-engagement rate has increased to 11 percent” from about 7 percent, Morrell said.
I guess you could call this the first Republican salvo in the war over who will become king of homeland security mountain. If Obama were President today, the Pentagon wouldn’t be releasing such information. It’s meant to have an effect.
The problem is, can we believe anything these guys say? They trot out the number “61,” yet there are only 18 they say are confirmed to have returned to the fight. What does the number of 43 suspected to have returned to terrorism mean? If we could prove they were terrorists in the first place, would they have been let go? There are other detainees at Guantanamo who are ready to repatriated but the U.S. cannot find a country willing to accept them. These 43 were obviously accepted somewhere.
These numbers mean nothing in the absence of information regarding specific detainees. This was raw politics. One might consider it somewhat un-patriotic. We have the guy who is almost president talking about a potential policy move. A mere hours later you have the Pentagon casting doubt on the policy with numbers seemingly pulled from the air.
Welcome to Washington Barack Obama. First order of business, fire Geoff Morrell. Second order of business, call Secretary Gates for a dress-down on whose in charge.
