Marc Thiessen accuses the Obama administration of having a "catch and release" policy based on Vice Admiral William McRaven's testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding detention at sea:
The United States' top special operations commander told Congress that because the United States has no place to hold captured terrorists we have simply been letting them go. In his testimony, Adm. McRaven used the phrase “in many cases,” which seems to indicate that not only has this happened, but it has happened in numerous instances. Well, exactly how many al-Qaeda terrorists have been taken into U.S. custody on Navy ships and released by the Obama administration? Who are these terrorists? Where were they captured? Who decided to release them? Where were they released? And what has become of them since?
Look, it's possible that the U.S. has released some of the people who've been detained on Navy ships, but we have no way of knowing that, least of all based on McRaven's testimony. Here's the relevant exchange between McRaven and Senator Lindsey Graham:
SEN. GRAHAM: What's the longest we can keep somebody on the ship?
ADM. MCRAVEN: Sir, I think it depends on whether or not we think we can prosecute that individual in a U.S. court or we can return him to a third-party country.
SEN. GRAHAM: What if you can't do either one of those?
ADM. MCRAVEN: Sir, again, if we can't do either one of those, then we will release that individual.
SEN. GRAHAM: OK.
ADM. MCRAVEN: I mean, that becomes the unenviable option, but it is an option.
Nowhere does McRaven say that this has happened. He says its an "unenviable option," but nowhere does he admit that "because the United States has no place to hold captured terrorists we have simply been letting them go." It's fair to ask whether this has happened, but Thiessen states flatly that it has been happening when he hasn't the foggiest idea, and he states that McRaven said it's been happening, which he quite plainly didn't.
The allegation that the administration has adopted a policy of "catch and release" is plainly false for the above reasons, but even if the military had released someone they've detained because they don't have a basis to charge them, that wouldn't amount to a policy of "charge and release." Just ask the nearly 200 men remaining at Gitmo, or the detainee population at Bagram, which has tripled since Obama took office.
The implication is that this is why we need Gitmo ("because the United States has no place to hold captured terrorists") but Thiessen's operating definition of "catch and release" seems to be based on the idea that the administration should never release anyone suspected of terrorism for any reason. This is somewhat comical since more suspected terrorists were released from detention under Bush than under Obama, and with a higher recidivism rate, in no small part because the Bush administration couldn't be bothered to keep the files on them straight. That detention on suspicion of terrorism should be permanent and irreversible is morally repugnant and unsustainable policy, which is why no Republicans were interested in interfering with Bush when he was releasing far more people than Obama ever has. Yet Thiessen is aghast at the (unsubstantiated) thought that "we have indeed been capturing such terrorists — and setting them free," as though releasing terror detainees has never happened before. Under the Thiessen "everyone is guilty" theory of terrorism, his former boss let more than 500 terrorists go. Yet for some reason I doubt Thiessen would refer to Bush policy as "catch and release."
Thiessen complains that "until now, it was believed that the administration was not capturing senior terrorists alive outside the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, but simply killing them." While Thiessen obviously won't be satisfied until kids can go to Disney World and whip the bottom of Gitmo detainees' feet with bamboo sticks, there are logistical reasons why the U.S. simply doesn't capture many detainees from the Horn of Africa period, and never has. There are no boots on the ground in the region, and the weak Somali government simply doesn't have the means to capture and hand people over. Only one of the "high-value detainees" at Gitmo was captured in Somalia, and that was in 2004, two years before the Bush administration's ill-advised intervention in Somalia helped make al Shabab what it is today. The vast majority were captured in Pakistan.
Now, I'm perfectly fine with people captured outside of war zones being tried or released, since I don't think indefinite detention away from the battlefield is justified. For me the solution is simple--you try these people then throw them in prison, and that shouldn't be a problem if the U.S. is certain that the individual in question is a terrorist. But the real reason the administration has no where to indefinitely detain individuals captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq is because people like Thiessen think terrorists have superpowers and can't under any circumstances be allowed on American soil. While I have some issues with the Obama administration's approach, it's vastly preferable to expanding the population of Gitmo or trying suspects in an untested, ineffective military-commissions system.
