CQ Roll Call - On Guantanamo Detainees' Dangers, Facts Hard to Come By

News Article

Date: Sept. 22, 2016
Location: Washington, DC

By John M. Donnelly

"If U.S. officials have a reliable assessment of how many Guantanamo Bay detainees are likely to be jihadists after being transferred to other countries, they won't reveal it to the public... [E]ven unclassified information about the detainees is often shrouded in secrecy. It's not only withheld from the press. It is also not disclosed even after Congress demands in law, as it did last year, that as much of the data as possible be made public.

"I fought tooth and nail to get the bare minimum of transparency from this administration, even though that transparency was required by law, and I'll keep pushing them to be honest and upfront with the American people, who deserve nothing less," Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican on Armed Services, said in a statement to CQ."

...

"[Current law] ordered the Pentagon to provide up-to-date risk assessments for each and every Guantanamo detainee in a report that would be unclassified "to the maximum extent practicable."

But congressional aides say the report did not provide that information, at least not in an unclassified format... Congress did get, after weeks of prodding by Ayotte, an unclassified chart detailing the terrorist activities that landed each of the detainees in prison to begin with, and Ayotte has posted that document on her website."


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