The Irrelevance of Wikileaks’ Guantánamo Revelations

1.12.10

Following Wikileaks’ release of 251,287 US diplomatic cables, which has, if nothing else, revealed that secrecy and the Internet appear to be mutually incompatible, a handful of media outlets immediately picked up on references to Guantánamo — and the Obama administration’s negotiations with other countries — in the cables.

Britain’s Daily Mail led the way, claiming that the cables revealed that the Obama administration “played a high stakes game of ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ with foreign governments,” as it tried to secure new homes for prisoners who could not be repatriated because of fears that they would be tortured or otherwise ill-treated in their home countries.

The Mail stated that Slovenia was “told that if it wanted a meeting with the president, it would have to accept a prisoner,” that “the island nation of Kiribati [in the central Pacific] was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees” (the Uighurs, the most high-profile cleared detainees in the prison), and that Belgium was told that “accepting more prisoners would be a ‘low-cost way’ to ‘attain prominence in Europe.'”

In addition, the Guardian posted a cable detailing discussions in March 2009 between John Brennan, President Obama’s principal counter-terrorism adviser, and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Most notable for the King’s fiery, warmongering rhetoric about Iran, the meeting also involved Brennan giving the King “a letter from President Obama expressing a personal message of friendship, appreciation for our close and collaborative relationship and concern over the disposition of Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo” — 99 in total, at the time of Brennan’s visit.

Following discussions about the Yemenis, the cable noted:

“I’ve just thought of something,” the King added, and proposed implanting detainees with an electronic chip containing information about them and allowing their movements to be tracked with Bluetooth. This was done with horses and falcons, the King said. Brennan replied, “horses don’t have good lawyers,” and that such a proposal would face legal hurdles in the US, but agreed that keeping track of detainees was an extremely important issue that he would review with appropriate officials when he returned to the United States.

Elsewhere, the Washington Post noted that, “During a meeting between US and Chinese ambassadors in Kyrgyzstan in early 2009, the Chinese diplomat said it was a “slap in the face” that the United States was not returning Chinese Uighur detainees to their homeland but was instead planning to resettle them in Germany,” which never happened.

The problem with all these stories is that they reveal nothing that was not already known, and, moreover, skip over the uncomfortable truth that, when it comes to closing Guantánamo and dealing with the prisoners still held there, every problem that America encounters is of its own making.

No one should be surprised that a certain amount of horse-trading, arm-twisting and envelopes stuffed full of cash were involved in relocating former Guantánamo prisoners to the majority of the 16 countries in which those who could not safely be repatriated were given new homes. With a few exceptions, the countries that took prisoners very obviously sought money and/or influence.

Belgium was not particularly prominent in this list — although the country did indeed take a prisoner in October 2009 —  any more than were Ireland, Portugal and Spain (and Portugal’s former colony Cape Verde), which have all taken former prisoners, but from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union countries were almost queuing up for favors: in Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia and Slovakia. Noticeably, however, Slovenia, despite the mention in the Wikileaks documents, obviously thought twice about the importance it attached to securing a personal audience with President Obama, as it has not taken in a single former Guantánamo prisoner, and nor has Kiribati, despite the offer of millions of dollars.

Outside of the middle and lower rungs of the pecking order, France, which took two Algerians in 2009, and Germany, which made up for turning down the Uighurs, taking a stateless Palestinian and a Syrian in September this year, had less to gain, except, perhaps, for making their neighbors look less generous, and Switzerland picked up where Germany left off by taking two Uighurs in March this year, risking the wrath of China that its northern neighbor was so anxious to avoid. Others who punched above their weight to help the Uighurs — Bermuda, which took four in June 2009, and Palau, which took six in October 2009 — did so not only for influence and/or financial reward, but also because they were not afraid of China: wealthy Bermuda because it is immune to the need for Chinese support, and Palau because the tiny nation in the north Pacific deals with Taiwan rather than Beijing.

As for the Saudi story, the Washington Post correctly noted that Brennan’s meeting involved hopes that King Abdullah would accept some of the Yemenis into its rehabilitation program, but noted that this was “an ambition that faltered along with the plan to close Guantanamo Bay” — as indeed it did, quietly fading away despite extensive and hopeful reporting about the plan, which lasted throughout most of 2009.

This kind of vague reference to the failure to close Guantánamo is as far as the mainstream media has gone in its analysis of why negotiations with other countries were so important. For those seeking powerful headlines that never appear, the blunt truth is that almost everything of importance relating to Guantánamo, and an unacceptable situation in which, it now appears, the prison may never close, involves four parties in the US, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Wikileaks or with other countries, as it relates primarily to the miserable manner in which the resettlement of the Uighurs was handled.

The first of these four culpable parties is President Obama’s Justice Department, which, in February 2009, fought to prevent the Uighurs from being rehoused in the US, as ordered by Judge Ricardo Urbina when he granted their habeas corpus petition in October 2008.

The second is the D.C. Circuit Court, which agreed with the Justice Department, and made some contentious arguments about immigration and executive power to prevent their release.

The third is Congress, which came close to passing a law preventing any Guantánamo prisoner from being brought to the US mainland for any reason in the fall of 2009, but then relented, agreeing — in theory, at least — that prisoners could be brought to the mainland for trial, but not for any other reason (although no one has been transferred to the US since the law was passed).

The fourth is President Obama, who, in May 2009, killed a plan by White House Counsel Greg Craig to bring two of the Uighurs to live in the US, as a precursor to bringing more, and on the clear understanding that it would encourage other countries to take cleared prisoners who couldn’t be returned home.

Although these decisions paved the way for the negotiations highlighted in the Wikileaks documents, the main problem now is that it looks as though even the horse-trading has stopped. There are apparently 33 prisoners — most of whom face the risk of torture if repatriated — who are awaiting release, or who are “approved for transfer,” to use the phrase that Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force learned from President Bush when it reviewed the cases of all the prisoners last year, although the well of countries prepared to take them appears to have dried up.

And the rest? There are 58 Yemenis, also “approved for transfer,” but held on what seems to be a permanent basis because of a moratorium on releasing anyone to Yemen, which President Obama announced last January, after it was revealed that the failed Christmas Day plane bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had trained in Yemen; 34 other men, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, who were recommended for trials that Obama doesn’t want to risk pursuing; and 48 others whom the Task Force recommended should be held indefinitely without charge or trial.

Compared to this, some horse-trading and financial incentives are nothing, and compared to making deals with other countries, the real story is that Guantánamo may never close, and no one seems to care.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), and my definitive Guantánamo habeas list, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

As published exclusively on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation. Cross-posted on Uruknet.

10 Responses

  1. Andy Worthington says...

    Here are some comments from Facebook:

    Willy Bach wrote:

    Andy, yes, your research is ahead of the pack on Guantanamo, but historians will want the primary sources and the sooner the better, whether it can make a difference to what we know today. Agreed, no surprises there.

    I was never very impressed with the standard of journalism at the Daily Mail (although it might be 40 years since I read it).

  2. Norwegian Shooter says...

    The world media isn’t overnight going to start reporting substance with regard to any issue, so it’s useless to complain. And I have a real problem with all these “they reveal nothing that was not already known” dismissals. The release of the cables isn’t about confirmation of things that people in-the-know already knew. It’s about two things: documentation, to replace speculation, of the actions of people and governments; and bringing issues to the attention of a worldwide audience that doesn’t know much, if anything, about them. That’s my two cents.

    This is one revelation, and a good one at that, don’t you think? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-cables-us-guantanamo-moazzam-begg

    I posted a reply to Jack Goldsmith on my blog: http://norwegianshooter.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-there-terror-assessment-gap.html

    Cheers

  3. Andy Worthington says...

    Virginia Simson wrote:

    Yesterday that Amnesty report came out:
    http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19084
    Would be great if it made a DIFFERENCE, eh? Unaccountability on the part of MurKa was seen to be a root cause of the problems. The EU COULD do better. The rule of law seems to be missing in the leaks. But hey! WAR CRIMES are still going on.

  4. Andy Worthington says...

    Mui J. Steph wrote:

    Lift the ban on Gitmo refugees reentering the country. Release the Yemenis, especially that poor mentally ill/brain damaged man.

  5. Andy Worthington says...

    Mui also wrote:

    On the other hand, this is just disgusting: ““I’ve just thought of something,” the King added, and proposed implanting detainees with an electronic chip containing information about them and allowing their movements to be tracked with Bluetooth. This was done with horses and falcons, the King said. . . ”
    Who else does this king think of treating like horses and falcons?

  6. Andy Worthington says...

    Thanks, Willy, Virginia and Mui.
    And thanks, especially, Mui, for reminding readers of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, the mentally ill Yemeni prisoner who is still held, despite winning his habeas corpus petition in July:
    http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/08/02/judge-orders-release-from-guantanamo-of-mentally-ill-yemeni-2nd-judge-approves-detention-of-minor-taliban-recruit/

  7. Andy Worthington says...

    Hi Norwegian Shooter,
    I knew when I came up with such a provocative title that it wasn’t entirely justified, and was more aimed at enticing in some readers who might not know what lay behind the scramble to secure homes for cleared Guantanamo prisoners in Europe and elsewhere, but I figured it was worth it for exactly that reason.
    It is of course worthwhile having evidence of the negotiations — so long as people know why they were needed! — and the vindication of Moazzam’s efforts is a much-needed counter-weight to the attacks to which Cageprisoners is subjected in the right-wng media here in the UK. I have an article on this particular cable, and on other revelations, coming out soon.
    However, I think that what’s even more important are the revelations of the pressure exerted on countries to prevent investigations into the Bush administration’s torture program – so far, with reference to Germany and Spain. Articles on these will also be coming soon.
    And finally, for now, thanks for the link re: your reply to Jack Goldsmith. “Trust me!” hasn’t really been a valid cry on terrorism since it was first used by Bush, Cheney et al.

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    […] 31 men and the need to secure third countries prepared to offer them homes, I pointed out how, in the recent WikiLeaks revelations about the international horse-trading regarding these men, the failure of the US to take […]

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Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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