The Innocent in Gitmo, Secret Prisons

Not funny how so many Not question the why so many we've held for years, in Gitmo and at the sercret prisons around the world, and probably all tortured or most, were simply released with no charges ever given against them nor trials!

Also extremely not funny how many grasp the propaganda meme that those released 'returned to the battlefields', where most were never found in in the first place, as the quickly labeled, for fear factor, terrorists! Frankly the surprise would be that so few have taken up arms against and some may become the 'criminal terrorist' so feared but would never have considered being before they were grabbed for political propaganda reasons!

George W. Bush 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent'

Donald Rumsfeld believed that releasing the innocent detainees would harm the Administration, according to a signed declaration by a top aide to Colin Powell

April 9, 2010 George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who was General Powell’s chief of staff when he ran the State Department, was most critical of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld. He claimed that the former Vice-President and Defence Secretary knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantánamo in 2002 were innocent but believed that it was “politically impossible to release them”.

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Two detainees are escorted to interrogation by US military guards at Guantanamo Bay

Colonel Wilkerson, a long-time critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq, claimed that the majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken. -->-->-->

Guantánamo case

Lawsuit filed in Seattle over Guantánamo case

A Sudanese aid worker freed from Guantánamo Bay in 2007 sued U.S. government officials Wednesday over what he called his forced ...

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Skinner said Hamad's case was bolstered by a declaration provided last week by retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Wilkerson testified that certain officials, including Rumsfeld, "knew that they had seized and were holding innocent men at Guantánamo Bay, and that they simply refused to release them out of fear of political repercussions," Hamad's complaint states. -->-->-->