Brought to you by the military:
Accelerating the public relations battle over terrorism suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, a new study of detainees in 2004 and 2005 requested by the Pentagon argues that many were a proven threat to United States forces. They included fighters of Al Qaeda, veterans of terrorism training camps and men who had experience with explosives, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, it said.
The report, by a terrorism study center at West Point, is essentially a rebuttal by the military of growing assertions by advocates for detainees that the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is filled with hapless innocents and low-level cooks and other support personnel who pose no real threat.
It paints a chilling portrait of the detainees, asserting that publicly available information indicates that 73 percent of them were a “demonstrated threat” to American or coalition forces. In all, it says, 95 percent were at the least a “potential threat,” including detainees who had played a supporting role in terrorist groups or had expressed a commitment to pursuing violent jihadist goals. The study is based on information from detainees’ hearings in 2004 and 2005.
The authors made clear that one of their goals was to affect public attitudes. They said the report should “enhance our collective understanding of the threats facing the United States, its allies and its interests and how we respond to them.”
Discuss.