A former official in the former regime now ways there are and were "many" innocent captives held at Guantanamo.
Larry Wilkerson, formerly an Army officer (Col., ret; a chopper pilot in the 'Nam) and an aide to then-Sec. of State Colin Powell, said he was speaking out to provide an active counter-voice to recent proclamations by former Vice-President Cheney. Cheney has made news lately claiming Obama's policies on detaining terrorists and torture have reduced US capacity to "protect" Americans.
According to Wilkerson, many of the alleged "enemy combatants" swept up in the first years of the US intervention in Afghanistan, in particular, weren't competently 'vetted.' That is, the charges against many captured prisoners were never substantiated, an many accused malefactors were and are still completely innocent. Yet they have been detained for up to 7 years, so far, with little chance of release.
The best known of these are the 8 Uighurs whose complete innocence is without dispute, but who are still not released. But according the Wilkerson, there may be as many as a couple of HUNDRED of such cases.
He told the AP in a telephone interview that many detainees "clearly had no connection to al-Qaida and the Taliban and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pakistanis turned many over for $5,000 a head." USer invaders had bounties for the capture of Talibs in the first years of the invasion of Afghanistan.
Sometimes, I think the US won't close the Gitmo Prison until a hurricane levels the place, drowns all the prisoners, and sweeps away all the evidence...I think that's what they're actually waiting for.
*ICORP* = Invasion, Conquest, Occupation, Rape & Pillage
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