By now, everyone's probably heard that the Bush administration failed in their basic bureaucratic duties to keep organized and detailed casefiles on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The response, both from former Bush administration officials and folks on the right, is that this both proves that Guantanamo Bay should stay open and that the prisoners can't be released. It's another example of one of the bizarre idiosyncratic arguments of the Bush administration, that their failures prove the success of their approach:
Several former Bush administration officials agreed that the files are incomplete and that no single government entity was charged with pulling together all the facts and the range of options for each prisoner. They said that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were reluctant to share information, and that the Bush administration's focus on detention and interrogation made preparation of viable prosecutions a far lower priority.
But other former officials took issue with the criticism and suggested that the new team has begun to appreciate the complexity and dangers of the issue and is looking for excuses.
After promising quick solutions, one former senior official said, the Obama administration is now "backpedaling and trying to buy time" by blaming its predecessor. Unless political appointees decide to overrule the recommendations of the career bureaucrats handling the issue under both administrations, he predicted, the new review will reach the same conclusion as the last: that most of the detainees can be neither released nor easily tried in this country.
"All but about 60 who have been approved for release," assuming countries can be found to accept them, "are either high-level al-Qaeda people responsible for 9/11 or bombings, or were high-level Taliban or al-Qaeda facilitators or money people," said the former official who, like others, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters about such matters. He acknowledged that he relied on Pentagon assurances that the files were comprehensive and in order rather than reading them himself.
This response is less than convincing, because Hilzoy was looking through this declaration from the prosecutor on the Mohammed Jawad case, which he resigned from on the basis that the government had no case against Jawad. This is one of the reasons why:
It is important to understand that the "case files" compiled at OMC-P or developed by CITF are nothing like the investigation and case files assembled by civilian police agencies and prosecution offices, which typically follow a standardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, and the like.
LTC Darrel Vandeveld, the prosecutor, resigned in September. He had no reason to "cover" for the Obama administration or "buy them time" to fulfill their promise of closing Guantanamo, which makes the argument that the Obama administration is attempting to put off its obligations ring false. This isn't a case of the Obama administration learning the hard realities of the war on terror, it's a case of the Bush administration failing to perform its most basic duties in fighting terrorism. The only "hard reality" here is that the Bush administration's incompetence is transcendent.
UPDATE: In case this wasn't clear, the idea that the Bush administration's failure to keep comprehensive case files on GTMO detainees proves that they should all be held indefinitely without trial is absurd. Aside from the moral implications of arguing that bureaucratic errors justify indefinite detention, the Constitution doesn't have exceptions for government officials who don't like doing paperwork.
-- A. Serwer
