McClatchy: Huge Report on the Detention of Enemy Combatants. First Part Detainees 'Caught' Through Suspect Means. Extra Info: Only 10% of Worst of the Worst Likely to Be Charged With War Crimes

A big report in the McClatchy newspapers show mistaken identity and mistreatment at America's detention centers for "enemy combatants".

The five part series starts at "America's prison for terrorists often held the wrong men" which was Sunday's (June 15, 2008) portion of the report. 

Links to the other parts of the report have or will appear to the right of this initial one between Monday and Wednesday.

Interesting facts:  We've heard before that over 600 prisoners had been sent to Guantanamo.  Well, the lead report to the set gives us a more accurate count of about 770.  Now I've heard multiple reports lately that the total number of those worst of the worst prisoners as described by McClatchy, but as I remember too by many different members of the Bush administration since 2002 when Guantanamo was first opened.  It was like a Christmas carol sung year round.  "Bless the metal cages. Their defending iron, stays.  Keep us safe and sound, Dear Friends, from the 'Worst of the Worst' always." 

Nowadays, 500 of those 'Worst of the Worst' have been sent home as "oopsies".  Wrong guy.  Some have returned to the Middle East so filled with rage that they did take actions against US interests as they saw them, but it is hard to tell if they were not radicalized by the horrendous treatment they received under detention.

Now there are 270 of the WotW left, but recently  the current AG Michael Mulkasey has said that they plan to try up to 80 of these last detainees for war crimes .

So little more than 10% of the 'worst of the worst' will be facing the kind of trial that the 'Worst of the Worst' should have.  Apparently another 70 prisoners can't be charged or released and their home countries either won't accept them or would release them if they were transferred to their custody.

Yet, as the first of the McClatchy reports shows early decisions by the Bush administration not only started harsh interrogations tactics, but apparently a whole culture of casual abuse by guards on prisoners caught mostly in Afghanistan by questionable tactics including bounties, being 'fingered' by others as 'terrorists' for payback, or for being for being low level Taliban conscripts, fighting solely so they or loved ones weren't harmed.

Excerpt: 

In 2002, a CIA analyst interviewed several dozen detainees at Guantanamo and reported to senior National Security Council officials that many of them didn't belong there, a former White House official said.

Despite the analyst's findings, the administration made no further review of the Guantanamo detainees. The White House had determined that all of them were enemy combatants, the former official said.

Rather than taking a closer look at whom they were holding, a group of five White House, Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers who called themselves the "War Council" devised a legal framework that enabled the administration to detain suspected "enemy combatants" indefinitely with few legal rights.

The threat of new terrorist attacks, the War Council argued, allowed President Bush to disregard or rewrite American law, international treaties and the Uniform Code of Military Justice to permit unlimited detentions and harsh interrogations.

The group further argued that detainees had no legal right to defend themselves, and that American soldiers — along with the War Council members, their bosses and Bush — should be shielded from prosecution for actions that many experts argue are war crimes.

With the support of Bush, Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the group shunted aside the military justice system, and in February 2002, Bush suspended the legal protection for detainees spelled out in Common Article Three of the 1949 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, which outlaws degrading treatment and torture.

The Bush administration didn't launch a formal review of the detentions until a 2004 Supreme Court decision forced it to begin holding military tribunals at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court ruling last week said that the tribunals were deeply flawed, but it didn't close them down. 

 There is much more at source, and this is only the first report of the series. I will be extraordinarily busy for the next few days, so I probably won't be trying to summarize the rest here. 

tags: guantanamo  enemy combatants  unlawful combatants  detainees  war on terror  

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