George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent'

Brown Bomber

Shocking abuse of power. American establishment, not just trigger happy pschyopaths....

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.



The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.



Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.



General Powell, who left the Bush Administration in 2005, angry about the misinformation that he unwittingly gave the world when he made the case for the invasion of Iraq at the UN, is understood to have backed Colonel Wilkerson’s declaration.


Colonel Wilkerson, a long-time critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.



He also claimed that one reason Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld did not want the innocent detainees released was because “the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were”. This was “not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at DoD [Mr Rumsfeld at the Defence Department]”.



Referring to Mr Cheney, Colonel Wilkerson, who served 31 years in the US Army, asserted: “He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”
He alleged that for Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.
He added: “I discussed the issue of the Guantánamo detainees with Secretary Powell. I learnt that it was his view that it was not just Vice-President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld, but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.”


Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld, Colonel Wilkerson said, deemed the incarceration of innocent men acceptable if some genuine militants were captured, leading to a better intelligence picture of Iraq at a time when the Bush Administration was desperate to find a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, “thus justifying the Administration’s plans for war with that country”.



He signed the declaration in support of Adel Hassan Hamad, a Sudanese man who was held at Guantánamo Bay from March 2003 until December 2007. Mr Hamad claims that he was tortured by US agents while in custody and yesterday filed a damages action against a list of American officials.



Defenders of Guantánamo said that detainees began to be released as early as September 2002, nine months after the first prisoners were sent to the jail at the US naval base in Cuba. By the time Mr Bush left office more than 530 detainees had been freed.



A spokesman for Mr Bush said of Colonel Wilkerson’s allegations: “We are not going to have any comment on that.” A former associate to Mr Rumsfeld said that Mr Wilkerson's assertions were completely untrue.
The associate said the former Defence Secretary had worked harder than anyone to get detainees released and worked assiduously to keep the prison population as small as possible. Mr Cheney’s office did not respond.



There are currently about 180 detainees left in the facility.

From todays London Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7092435.ece

RGDATA!

cheers, shocking, horrific.

this part is so brazen it actually made me laugh, but it's no laughing matter

A former associate to Mr Rumsfeld said that Mr Wilkerson's assertions were completely untrue.
The associate said the former Defence Secretary had worked harder than anyone to get detainees released and worked assiduously to keep the prison population as small as possible.

Brown Bomber

What is both interesting and infuriating to me is that the US labelled these ##largely innocent civilians and justified their treatment, the torture, the abuse, the psychological attacks and all the other International Law violations by placing their captives in an unprotected category where they were neither (Given rights through the Geneva and Hague Conventions) POWs or (Given rights through the Geneva and Hague Conventions) civilians. They were called "unlawful combatants" and as such were able to treated inhumanely in Guantanamo, with less rights than a ###convicted paedophile murderer in the US homeland. They even passed off Taleban or more likely innocent people they accused of being Taleban soliders by describing Taleban ruled Afghanistan as a "failed state" therefore its soliders were not eligible for POW status and protected by the Third Geneva Convention

Ironically, I am sure these neocon pricks have created a great number of terrorists through their manipulations and blatant disregard for human life.

EDIT: ## "largely innocent" - supposed to mean the majority of detainees were innocent
### "paedophile murderers" - supposed to mean Paedophiles who have murdered also; not someone who has murdered a paedophile.

robtri

RGDATA! wrote: »

cheers, shocking, horrific.

this part is so brazen it actually made me laugh, but it's no laughing matter

A former associate to Mr Rumsfeld said that Mr Wilkerson's assertions were completely untrue.
The associate said the former Defence Secretary had worked harder than anyone to get detainees released and worked assiduously to keep the prison population as small as possible.

why is it that you believe one associate... and not another???????

is it a case of ohhh it has to be true because you want it to be true......



*** i am not making any presumptions if this story is right or wrong** curious why one person story is believed over another persons story....

RGDATA!

robtri wrote: »

why is it that you believe one associate... and not another???????

is it a case of ohhh it has to be true because you want it to be true......

no, i don't think so.

the bit i quoted has nothing really to do with whether I take what Wilkerson says (and he's named and on the record in the article) more seriously than what an un-named former associate believes.

the reason i quoted it was i just think it's a fairly ridiculous suggestion that "donald rumsfeld worked harder than anyone to get detainees released", regardless of whether what Wilkerson says is true.

aside from that the unnamed spokesperson offers no basis for his opinion, it's just a stock message of support. maybe he explained all the reasons why rumsfeld worked hardest of all to get people out of gitmo and that part just wasn't quoted? let him go on the record and elabourate then.

in general i will admit that I am biased against rumsfeld/cheney/bush based on their public record.

Brown Bomber

robtri wrote: »

why is it that you believe one associate... and not another???????

is it a case of ohhh it has to be true because you want it to be true......



*** i am not making any presumptions if this story is right or wrong** curious why one person story is believed over another persons story....

How about you watch this and get back to me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYI7JXGqd0o

RGDATA!

Brown Bomber wrote: »

How about you watch this and get back to me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYI7JXGqd0o

on the one hand this is a linkable youtube vid that points out valid contradictions in the bush admins story about iraq, and i don't want to take away from that. point made i think brown bomber.

[total derail]
still i hate these kinds of videos and wish folks who do these would also take the time to do uneditorialised, annotated versions.
i know that probably sounds faintly ridiculous to some but it applies to a lot of stuff you see from "both sides"* in the CT forum.

videos like the above, if they were without the editorial graphics and music and if they overlayed citations of dates, places and source of video (simple to do on youtube) - would go a long way toward a less dumbed down debate.
sometimes i feel like with youtube we're just falling back on the closest propaganda to our point of view

again, total but heartfelt derail, not meant to undermine brown bombers point, and despite the editorialising the video is valid i think

*don't believe in a "both sides" paradigm, just going along with the parlance

Brown Bomber

RGDATA! wrote: »

on the one hand this is a linkable youtube vid that points out valid contradictions in the bush admins story about iraq, and i don't want to take away from that. point made i think brown bomber.

[total derail]
still i hate these kinds of videos and wish folks who do these would also take the time to do uneditorialised, annotated versions.
i know that probably sounds faintly ridiculous to some but it applies to a lot of stuff you see from "both sides"* in the CT forum.

videos like the above, if they were without the editorial graphics and music and if they overlayed citations of dates, places and source of video (simple to do on youtube) - would go a long way toward a less dumbed down debate.
sometimes i feel like with youtube we're just falling back on the closest propaganda to our point of view

again, total but heartfelt derail, not meant to undermine brown bombers point, and despite the editorialising the video is valid i think

*don't believe in a "both sides" paradigm, just going along with the parlance

TBH I agree with everything you said, and I think its refreshing to get the thoughts of a true skeptic rather than a debunker type. Unfortunately I feel in situations such as this, and the era of miniscule attention spans tabloid is more effective.

The point I was trying to make was that it disengenous IMO to take the word of proven liar(s) with a clear agenda over or on a par with someone who publically has gone on record against the tyranny of his former employers.

TalkieWalkie

It's not like anyone would be surprised if these allegations were found to be true.. would they :rolleyes: ?