Ex-Bush Official: Many At Gitmo Innocent

Ret. Colonel Says U.S. Forces Swept Up Suspects Without Regard To Whether They Were Non-Combatants

(AP)  Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday.

"There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years."

Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a "mosaic" of intelligence.

"It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance," Wilkerson wrote in the blog. He said intelligence analysts hoped to gather "sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified."

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said vetting on the battlefield during the early stages of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was incompetent with no meaningful attempt to discriminate "who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation."

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on Wilkerson's specific allegations but noted that the military has consistently said that dealing with foreign fighters from a wide variety of countries in a wartime setting was a complex process. The military has insisted that those held at Guantanamo were enemy combatants and posed a threat to the United States.

In his posting for The Washington Note blog, Wilkerson wrote that "U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released."

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney fought efforts to address the situation, Wilkerson said, because "to have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership."

Wilkerson told the AP in a telephone interview that many detainees "clearly had no connection to al Qaeda and the Taliban and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistanis turned many over for $5,000 a head."

Some 800 men have been held at Guantanamo since the prison opened in January 2002, and 240 remain. Wilkerson said two dozen are terrorists, including confessed Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody in September 2006.

"We need to put those people in a high-security prison like the one in Colorado, forget them and throw away the key," Wilkerson said. "We can't try them because we tortured them and didn't keep an evidence trail."

But the rest of the detainees need to be released, he said.

Wilkerson, who flew combat missions as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and left the government in January 2005, said he did not speak out while in government because some of the information was classified. He said he feels compelled to do so now because Cheney has claimed in recent press interviews that President Barack Obama is making the U.S. less safe by reversing Bush administration policies toward terror suspects, including ordering Guantanamo closed.

The administration is now evaluating what to do with the prisoners who remain at the U.S. military base in Cuba.

"I'm very concerned about the kinds of things Cheney is saying to make it seem Obama is a danger to this republic," Wilkerson said. "To have a former vice president fearmongering like this is really, really dangerous."

[texasbeta]

uring the 60s, everyone said, POWER to the PEOPLE. Well, Iraq now has a voting democracy.
Posted by hamiltongrad

ALSO, using the act of illegally holding people in violation of our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, with no charge or trial, torturing them, innocent OR guilty...as justification for Iraq having a voting "democracy" is both appauling and frightening. It is frightening because that would make you a freakin' sociopath. Rethink your stance scooter

[texasbeta]

During the 60s, everyone said, POWER to the PEOPLE. Well, Iraq now has a voting democracy.
Posted by hamiltongrad

The PEOPLE didn't rise up and create THEIR OWN government. Another group of people came in, shot at them, bombed wildly, with no plan....canned the military overnight....left the weapons caches, blew the hell out of city infrastructure...and LIED to do it...to the WORLD, and justified it as a direct response to a terrorist action where 2998 people died, when Iraq had NOTHING to do with it. That not POWER TO THE PEOPLE...that is Colonialism.

[eroosevelt08]

It seems to me that every innocent detainee has adequate reason to hate the United States of America. Inhumanity never furthers the human condition.

[hamiltongrad]

During the 60s, everyone said, POWER to the PEOPLE. Well, Iraq now has a voting democracy.

[hamiltongrad]

There were 5,000 people each month killed by Saddam.

[questionstatus]

This is a travesty of justice--but it is a symptom of how we treat our own people. We treat American citizens as "guilty until proven innocent", buy into the "tough on crime" policies, and do not uphold the importance and freedom of the individual. Plus, we allow our police officers to humiliate and abuse us in the name of "security". Now, we have more people in prison than communist China!

Unfortunately, police officers are generallly attracted to the job because they enjoy torturing others. Research shows that worldwide most state sponsored torture is carried out by police. Their sociopathic tendencies are well known within the psychological community. Police should be VERY closely monitored.

The biggest thing we can do is become a virtuous country that respects individual rights again and stop enforcing ridiculous laws and even more ridiculous sentences to our rape facilities run by our perverted and corrupt officials (yes, that means that some criminals will go free, but that is the price of freedom). We also now have the ability to track and monitor persons under house arrest. Let's use it and stop the human rights violations of our prisons.

[walt1944]

The former-Great Emperor Bush II is unphased at the admission by a former Bush official that there are many innocents still at Gitmo, who have never committed anything wrong but were labeled "enemy combatants" anyway!

Apparently, all that was necessary for the Bush/Cheney Gestapo to arrest someone and send them to Gitmo was if they wore a head covering (even a wet towel was acceptable!), had olive-colored skin, black hair, and was caught muttering under their breath facing the direction of Mecca!

Since "terrrrrorist" groups do not issue ID cards, and anyone could be a "terrrrrorist", the Bush/Cheney Gestapo simply rounded up anyone fitting this general description and would make the determination they were an "enemy combatant/terrrrrrorist" until it was proven otherwise sometime in the 22nd cenury!

HAIL OBAMA!!!!

[nofoolling]

To knowingly keep innocent men prisoner and subject them to torture reflects the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate's true contempt and lack of respect for human dignity and human rights.

Until our leaders step forward, stop turning a blind eye, and take a stand for justice by bringing charges against these genocidal killers there will be no justice, no trust, no truth, no hope, and no chance to restore America's lost dignity nor tarnished image.

A MIILLION HUMANS BEINGS ARE DEAD BECAUSE BUSH AND CHENEY LIED.

When do the war-crime trials begin?

[ReallyMeanIt]

Many were were captured in the middle of the night out in the fields and no weapons was found on them................ So what are they doing out in the middle of the night during a war and it doesn't takes make to plan an IED, don't need to carry a weapon to do that.
Innocent indeed.
Posted by ReallyMeanIt at 8:59 PM : Mar 19, 2009
--------------------------------
You sad, ignorant, deluded fool! Is that REALLY how you think they were all captured? Who told you that?
Posted by hower4
-------------------------------
Is that you osama?

[messiahx4eve]

People HAVE been screaming for War Trials, SOMEBODY has to have the sack to file the paper work because it is TREMENDOUS. Someone has to be able to separate the truth from fiction concerning the bush regime, and there is sooooooo much garbage to sift through that it could take at least two years to do it.

[dagrandma]

Here is a question I asked a few hours ago.
If he (Lawrence Wilkerson) knew about innocent men at GITMO six or seven years ago, why didn't he come forward then? Would it be because he was looking out for his own azz, and of course, he didin't want to upset his retirement benefits. How does that make him any better than the "neighbors," who sold "innocent," guys for $5,000 a head?
How does it make him better than Bush and Cheney?
Posted by leeanna59 at 10:58 AM : Mar 20, 2009

Penalties for whistle-blowers are pretty bad. I tried it once myself and paid dearly for it.

[dagrandma]

leeanna59: Sorry, I didn't realize you were being sarcastic.

[labrat9999]

If any other country, or any other President of a country had done the same thing we would all be screeming for War Crimes Trials. Where are the American people and their morals? We have allowed George Bush and Cheney to ruin everything that we stood for for over 200 plus years in America! I want to see Americans demand George Bush and Cheney be arrested and appear before the World Court in the Hague for their crimes. This is an outage that we have done nothing. Shame on us! We are a bunch of spineless hypocrites!

[hologram5]

Funny. Some of us have been saying that all along, haven't we? And if we had used due process, instead of disgracing & further endangering this country by using torture, we might have known that before now, huh?

We were right and you were wrong. Man up and accept it.
__________________________________________________
Please extrapolate. You were 'right' about what?
Posted by tj217-2009 at 8:14 AM : Mar 20, 2009
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About the whole idiocracy of this war. It was unconstitutional and illegal. We have done nothing but alienate and create more apathy towards the US for many "a" generation to come. Think about it. If another country were to do that to us, for no apparent reason, wouldn't you feel the same?

[dagrandma]

They (the detainees) have probably had better food, lodging, and medical care at Gitmo than they would have had back in Iraq.
Posted by leeanna59 at 3:33 PM : Mar 19, 2009

No doubt you also believe the blacks were better off under slavery.

[dagrandma]

Well, if they weren't radical Islamic extremists before, they sure as hell will be now -- and who can blame them?

[taxchurches]

"Wilkerson, a Republican... retired Army colonel"

And yet you frightened pro-Bushies now dispute what he says. Where is the unqualified ass-licking you give Petraeus or anybody else in uniform that happens to agree with your views?

"Many At Gitmo Innocent"

Funny. Some of us have been saying that all along, haven't we? And if we had used due process, instead of disgracing & further endangering this country by using torture, we might have known that before now, huh?

We were right and you were wrong. Man up and accept it.

[grumpas]

When you have leaders who imagine they are Rambo and trying to prove to the world how blood and guts tough they are. When they are paying people $5,000 a head to turn people in it stands to reason some of them would probably turn in their mother. It should not be a big surprise there are a lot of innocent people who get swept up in such nonsense. When you have leaders who are indulging in fear mongering and imagine a terrorist behind every bush it stands to reason a lot of innocent people are going to get accused of things they didn't do and hurt. We had a clueless administration that didn't have any idea how to fight terrorism. They were dumb enough to imagine all they had to do was invade some hapless country and the problem would solve itself.

[abbe91]

You sad, ignorant, deluded fool! Is that REALLY how you think they were all captured? Who told you that?
Posted by hower4 at 5:43 AM : Mar 20, 2009

A better version is : Many were turned to the American troops by unfriendly neighbors for a reward. A win-win for them. That's the reason there are so many innocent people in gitmo.

[omnibus66]

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, all with big goverment pensions and benefits. All walking free with no repercussions for what they did.

Innocent Afghans, kidnapped and locked up with no charges, no legal representation or avenue of redress.

Is this a great country, or what?