Ben Wittes shares my downbeat assessment of how the politics of WikiLeaks' Gitmo release may play out:
It will be devastating for the current administration if it happens. But one group of people who should be at least as nervous about this prospect as Obama administration officials is former officials from the Bush administration. After all, they released and transferred more than 530 detainees–some of whose threat assessments will not be pretty documents. Because the major bulk releases, particularly of Saudis, were done under the last administration, not this one, there are undoubtedly a lot of people in there who–were I a threat assessor–would merit a pretty downbeat report. I guarantee one thing: If this material becomes public, releasing people from detention will become as hard as not releasing people from detention. Maybe it already is.
Again, this is information of public interest. But for people who care about making sure Gitmo is ultimately shut down, this release, if it happens, will probably make that less likely.
