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Take My Terrorists, Please
Dangerous Prisoners May Be Released In United States
By MICHAEL P. TREMOGLIE, The Bulletin
Attorney General Eric Holder’s quest to find a country — or countries — to take custody of the detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay prison has not been an easy one.
America’s allies are not willing to take these terrorists. President Barack Obama already announced the prison will close next year, so the clock is ticking.
Fox News reported yesterday that several European officials it spoke to said their countries are not eager to take them
“It’s a ‘mission impossible’ for him, I think,” an unnamed German analyst told Fox.
Austria’s interior minister Maria Fekter asked, “If the detainees are no longer dangerous, why don’t they stay in the U.S.?”
“In Germany, many are asking why America isn’t taking care of its own business. If you started it, you ought to finish it,” said Simon Koschut, an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.
But Mr. Holder is trying to remain optimistic. He told the Associated Press that before President Obama’s deadline can be met, the U.S. must first decide which detainees to put on trial and which to release to the U.S. or other countries. He said the first step is to decide how many total detainees will be set free.
“We’re doing these all on a rolling basis,” he said. “I think we’re probably relatively close to making some calls.”
The attorney general has called the Guantanamo work the toughest part of his job.
The Obama administration has said that at least some of the prisoners will be coming to the U.S. These are the Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs.
The issue of what to do with the Uighurs is problematic. They could be executed if returned to their home country so the administration does not want to send them there.
The Uighurs sued for release in federal court last October. They used the Supreme Court’s “Boumediene” decision, which gave Guantanamo prisoners the right to habeas corpus in court.
The court ordered their release into the United States. But a federal appeals court overturned the decision, stating it is the White House’s responsibility to make the decision. The Obama administration favors releasing them in Virginia because they do not consider them threats to national security.
But according to a story by Jed Babbin, in Human Events, the White House is refusing to consider the findings of an inter-agency panel that the Uighurs are dangerous.
The White House ordered an inter-agency committee to review the status of all the detainees. The committee consisted of all of the national security agencies. The first case they looked at was the 17 Uighurs who were captured at an al-Qaida training camp. This was thought to be an easy task because the consensus prior to the review was that they were not dangerous.
But the committee determined they were too dangerous to release because they were members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) terrorist group. They recommended that the Uighurs not be released in the US.
But Defense Department sources told Human Events that the White House legal office told the review group “to re-do their findings to come up with the opposite answer.”
Michael P. Tremoglie can be contacted at mtremoglie@thebulletin.us
America’s allies are not willing to take these terrorists. President Barack Obama already announced the prison will close next year, so the clock is ticking.
Fox News reported yesterday that several European officials it spoke to said their countries are not eager to take them
“It’s a ‘mission impossible’ for him, I think,” an unnamed German analyst told Fox.
Austria’s interior minister Maria Fekter asked, “If the detainees are no longer dangerous, why don’t they stay in the U.S.?”
“In Germany, many are asking why America isn’t taking care of its own business. If you started it, you ought to finish it,” said Simon Koschut, an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin.
But Mr. Holder is trying to remain optimistic. He told the Associated Press that before President Obama’s deadline can be met, the U.S. must first decide which detainees to put on trial and which to release to the U.S. or other countries. He said the first step is to decide how many total detainees will be set free.
“We’re doing these all on a rolling basis,” he said. “I think we’re probably relatively close to making some calls.”
The attorney general has called the Guantanamo work the toughest part of his job.
The Obama administration has said that at least some of the prisoners will be coming to the U.S. These are the Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs.
The issue of what to do with the Uighurs is problematic. They could be executed if returned to their home country so the administration does not want to send them there.
The Uighurs sued for release in federal court last October. They used the Supreme Court’s “Boumediene” decision, which gave Guantanamo prisoners the right to habeas corpus in court.
The court ordered their release into the United States. But a federal appeals court overturned the decision, stating it is the White House’s responsibility to make the decision. The Obama administration favors releasing them in Virginia because they do not consider them threats to national security.
But according to a story by Jed Babbin, in Human Events, the White House is refusing to consider the findings of an inter-agency panel that the Uighurs are dangerous.
The White House ordered an inter-agency committee to review the status of all the detainees. The committee consisted of all of the national security agencies. The first case they looked at was the 17 Uighurs who were captured at an al-Qaida training camp. This was thought to be an easy task because the consensus prior to the review was that they were not dangerous.
But the committee determined they were too dangerous to release because they were members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) terrorist group. They recommended that the Uighurs not be released in the US.
But Defense Department sources told Human Events that the White House legal office told the review group “to re-do their findings to come up with the opposite answer.”
Michael P. Tremoglie can be contacted at mtremoglie@thebulletin.us
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