Posted on 04/09/2010 6:01:07 AM PDT by autumnraine
The Bush White House knew that hundreds of early Gitmo detainees were innocent, but refused to release them because the admission would weaken support for the war in Iraq, according to a new document obtained by the Times of London. The charge, by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, was made in a declaration in support of a lawsuit for a Gitmo detainee. Wilkerson claims that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees had been picked up, not by the US military, but by Afghans and Pakistanis for a bounty, and there was no evidence against them. But they saw it as "politically impossible to release them."
If innocent detainees were released, he writes, the detention efforts would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were. Of Cheney, he writes: 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. Wilkerson also says he discussed the issue with Powell, who told him it was not just Cheney and Rumsfeld, "but also President Bush who was involved in all of the Guantánamo decision making.
I’m suspicious of anyone who worked for Colin Powell.
Is this story true?
I’m sure that Semi-Colon Powell’s lackey would call it straight, yes sir.
What a load of crap! Innocent of what?
More BS for you as you drink your AM coffee.
It seems hundreds have been released already. We’ve only kept the ones that are really considered dangerous or war criminals. So I don’t see how this is even a major story...just some blow hard making noise because he wants to write a book.
All the Americans who died on 9/11 were innocent, and the Muslim world celebrated. So I don’t really give a damn.
Its another Wilkerson fabrication to sell books.
Yep, you nail it ... Colin Powell gives it away.
Innocent or not, the Geneva Convention allows retention of all POWs until war’s end.
....someone left a bs generator on overnight
Wilkerson is a liar. It’s just that simple.
I agree. This does not pass the smell test. My 'beeber' is going off.
That is like blaming someone for not knowing what is in their neighbors refrigerator.
If all of the Gitmo detainess were captured while on the battlefield, how could any of them be innocent? Perhaps one or two of them were delivering pizza and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time... BS!
Someone can give some background on Wilkerson ? Sounds like a traitor to me.
Hmmmm...why do I suspect that this information is NOT accurate?
What does “innocent” mean in this context? Does it mean they were not active combatants against our military? They may very well have been taliban members that Afghanis and Pakistanis wished to be rid of.
Either way, I agree with the decision.
I call BS on this one. Another Leftist elbow at the ribs of the Bush Administration IMO.
Anybody that worked for Colin Powell should be arrested and sent to Gitmo, as should his Chief A$$-Hat, Powell himself.
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