Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [308]
[T]here continues to be static concerning the handling of the detainees at Guantánamo. I suggest that: If an agency is dissatisfied with the Administration’s policy, they propose a change to the policy to the NSC [or if] an agency doesn’t like a particular result from the interagency process (for example, a decision on a specific detainee), they elevate their concern to the NSC and propose an alternative.54
Precious few were stepping forth to defend the President’s policy and rationale. “Administration policy on detainees in GTMO is clearly an issue about which there is not unanimous agreement—in the Administration, in the Congress, in the country or in the world,” I wrote in my December 2003 memo, adding:
That being the case, and since, nonetheless, it is our Administration’s policy, it would help if all agencies would help defend the Administration’s policy and explain the reasons for it to the Congress, to the country and to the world. I don’t think DoD is the best communicator of the Administration’s policy on detainees, since it is seen as a legal matter. Nonetheless, we are supporting it energetically. It would be appreciated if all agencies would pitch in and help carry the message.55
I was perfectly willing to shutter the facility if a better alternative could have been found that would be as effective at obtaining intelligence and preventing terrorists from returning to the fight. But no alternative to Gitmo was proposed. Nor did I receive any replies to my memo. Meanwhile, the public drumbeat against Guantánamo Bay intensified.
Gitmo, though damned across the political spectrum, offered a solution—however imperfect—to the problem of keeping high-risk detainees out of circulation. What was the alternative—letting them go and then hoping to catch them as they were committing their next terrorist attack against the American people? Dedicated men and women of the U.S. armed forces performed an enormously valuable service in running a first-rate detention and interrogation operation at Guantánamo. The base has logged a proud record of professionalism and success. Detainees routinely attacked the military guards there—kicking, biting, head butting, and throwing “cocktails” of feces and urine.56 The prisoners demonstrated remarkable resourcefulness in turning personal items into deadly weapons: blankets into garrotes, sinks into bludgeons, and wires into daggers. The guards demonstrated impressive restraint. In those few cases where the military guards were goaded by detainees and crossed the line, disciplinary action was taken.
To date, not a single prisoner has escaped from Guantánamo, and hundreds of terrorists have been kept from returning to the fight. At Gitmo, intelligence officials have uncovered information that has helped prevent terrorist attacks—information about al-Qaida’s leadership, the identities of operatives, terrorist communication methods, training programs, travel patterns, funding mechanisms, and plans to attack the United States and our allies. Detainees have provided information on bank accounts, al-Qaida front companies, improvised explosive devices, and tactics.57 Coalition intelligence officials and our forces on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq have used this information to help protect the American people.
Despite the more than $500 million that U.S. taxpayers have invested in state-of-the-art facilities at Gitmo, and in operations there since 9/11, both of the 2008 presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, pandered to popular misconceptions by promising to shut it down.58 On his second full day in office, President Obama vowed to close the facility “promptly.”59 Years later, however, Guantánamo remains open, undoubtedly because the Obama administration, despite its promises, has not found a practical alternative. Eventually it may