Letter to President Barack Obama - Tell American People Truth About Former Gitmo Detainees

Letter

Dear Mr. President:

I write with serious concern due to your administration's continued lack of transparency regarding Guantanamo detainees. In May 2009, you said, "I ran for President promising transparency, and I meant what I said. And that's why, whenever possible, my administration will make all information available to the American people so that they can make informed judgements and hold us accountable." I request that you honor your stated commitment to transparency by providing an unclassified response for the American people that states how many Americans and how many of our NATO partners have been killed by former Guantanamo detainees and which former detainees committed these terrorist acts.

On March 23, 2016, Paul Lewis, the Special Envoy for Guantanamo Detention Closure, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that, "...there have been Americans that have died because of Gitmo detainees." This begs the question of how many Americans and our NATO partners have been killed and which former Guantanamo detainees killed them.

Since Mr. Lewis' testimony, the administration has released eleven more detainees from Guantanamo, with more than two dozen likely to be released in the coming months. This is particularly troubling given the fact that more than thirty percent of the terrorists released from Guantanamo are confirmed or suspected of returning to terrorism and that 93% of the detainees who remained at Guantanamo as of late last year had been assessed as a high risk for a return to terrorism. Even worse, the administration has not provided Americans any reason to believe that most of these terrorists will even be detained in the recipient country or prevented from leaving there once released from Guantanamo. Given these facts, it is likely that many of the detainees released by the administration will return to terrorism.

On May 9, in order to ensure the American people have access to the information they need to assess the administration's policy of releasing dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo, my office asked the Department of Defense (DoD) for more information about those killed by former Guantanamo detainees. On May 23, the administration submitted answers to these questions-but classified them in such a way that even my staff with a Top Secret security clearance could not review the response.

Regrettably, in DoD press statements that accompany the release of Guantanamo detainees, in the DoD response to the Section 1037 requirement of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 114-92), and now in this response to my office, there appears to be a consistent and concerted effort by the administration to prevent Americans from knowing the truth regarding the terrorist activities and affiliations of past and present Guantanamo detainees.

Americans have a right to know how many of our NATO partners and fellow citizens have been killed by former Guantanamo detainees and who killed them, and I reject any suggestion that it would jeopardize intelligence sources or methods to provide an unclassified response to these simple questions. Your administration claims that releasing detainees and ending the lawful detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo supports the national security interests of the United States. If that is true, your administration should trust Americans with the truth about the terrorist activities and affiliations of current and former Guantanamo detainees.

Even if some of this information is currently classified, there is a clear and legal path for declassifying the information and providing it to the American people. According to your Executive Order 13526, dated December 29, 2009, "Information shall be declassified as soon as it no longer meets the standards for classification under this order." Further, the Executive Order also states that, in some exceptional cases, the need to protect information still meeting classification standards, "may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information, and in these cases the information should be declassified." In light of the fact that Americans and our NATO partners apparently have been killed by former Guantanamo detainees and in light of the impending release of additional dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo, the serious public interest in the timely declassification and disclosure of this information is clear.

To honor your stated commitment to transparency with the American people, I respectfully request that your administration provide an unclassified response without delay that states how many Americans and our NATO partners have been killed by former Guantanamo detainees and which former detainees committed these terrorist acts.

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