Posted on 07/17/2009 2:31:32 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A Pentagon official Thursday largely refused to answer lawmakers' questions about why members of Congress are prohibited from meeting with Guantanamo detainees, even as intelligence officials from China and elsewhere were allegedly allowed to visit Guantanamo and interrogate prisoners held there.
"You allowed intelligence agents of a foreign country to interrogate [Uighur detainees], but you are concerned about their safety and that's why you don't allow United States members of Congress [to visit]?" pressed Rep. Jim Moran, D-VA, in a series of rhetorical questions. "You are concerned about 'public curiosity' -- apparently you're implying we'd be seeing them out of some public curiosity?"
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-CA, was visibly upset by the Obama administration's apparent decision to continue the Bush administration's policy of barring detainee visits by lawmakers. "I am being denied -- all of us are being denied the same access that was denied during the last administration," he said. "George Bush, 'what a horrible man, a horrible president!' [But] these very same restrictions on us and are being reaffirmed in today's testimony by this administration."
In addition to allegedly allowing Chinese intelligence personnel to interrogate the Uighur prisoners, U.S. officials allegedly shared with the Chinese private data on the identity of the Uighur detainees' family members; helped "soften up" the detainees by keeping them awake and other measures; and allegedly helped restrain the detainees when asked to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Transparency my butt.
Obama is doing a terrible job...and the longer the news media continues to carry his water...the more credibility they lose.
Good to see this is an ABC piece.
Maybe because Obama (rightly) has more confidence in the Chinese being able to keep their mouths shut and not use the trip as a chance to grandstand for the cameras.
“George Bush, ‘what a horrible man, a horrible president!’
Dana said this??? I didn’t agree with a lot of W’s policies, but this??
FUDR!
Why does Congress care about visiting them? So they can go back to their constituents and either say “We have to find another way,” or, “They deserve what they get.” Can’t they just say that now without visiting?
Ummm. I am pretty sure he was making fun of how people talked about G.W.B.
I hope so! I think you’re probably right! But, I just went ballistic when I read that!
The Chinese hold more than $1 trillion of our publicly held debt and we need them to buy more T-bills. When they speak, we listen and obey.
It has quotes around it...
It seeks that he was mimicking the opposition who elected Obama, only to see "that horrible presidents'" policy continued.
The fact that ABC News, the All Barack Channel, would even write such a headline is bigger news than anything that follows in the article. And the world is laughing at them.
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