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”.
Whoda thunk it?
“Whoda thunk it?”
Umm, me for one.
What I think is you can find a former aid of any President willing to claim anything. That is just the way the world is. Get me some proof or stop boring me.
Well, this really only makes good war mongering common sense and has been reported on before.
WHAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, and has not been reported on, is WHY the BushCo Regime released those guys that are now heading up Al Quada Yemen (or wherever).
I assume it was a pay-off to some important Oil providing Arab, but its not consistent with the BushCo/Cheney spin===unless Halliburton/Blackwater really does want endless war?
I thought those three people were three General Ackbars at first. Turns out they were humans who fell victim to A TRAP.
http://bit.ly/argyNL
I posted this awhile back, in cagematch..
2 of the main people that we WERE told were the major persons…that we arrested..WEREN’T..
No surprise. War is messy. Trying to handle it ‘legally’ and ‘ethically’ never works.
Actually surprised it took this long to realize some of the ‘enemy combatants’ may actually be as innocent as those in the wikileaks video.
Sort of like the revelation that water feels wet.
Ummmmm, you guys are clearly focused on the issue of this thread?- – – that the detainees were known to be innocent yet kept in detention ANYWAY?
This thread is NOT about innocent people being unfairly charged or caught up in some sweep.
I can imagine BushtheRetard giving the same laugh when being informed of this that he gave when bragging about how many prisoners were executed in Texas.
Surely, a good born again Christian showing us what the faith is all about.
WOW.
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield are even more EVIL than I though. Reminds me of how they had to burn down the village to save it during the Vietnam war.
Meanwhile, liberal Democrat Barack Obama, who has been in running things for almost 1 1/2 years, has ordered the murder of US citizens.
“Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen”
http://salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations
Lou—don’t you just wish BushtheRetard had the balls/love of America to do the same thing???
Why do you hate America?
What’s wrong with this? It was war… messy things do happen. I am proud of the patriots who led us through that difficult time.
“Why do you hate America?”
I don’t. Why do libtards support a presidential directive from Barack Obama that authorizes the murder of US citizens?
#12:
“What’s wrong with this?”
It makes it way easier to find people who’ll fly planes into buildings, for starters.
#13–Lou==do you EVER exercise any independent judgment or just yap yap yap whatever the talking point of the day is?
Did you even glance at the linked article you provided?
Some good info there as in: “the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them…”
So now YOU tell us why an established terrorist with a long term history should not be targeted for assassination just because he was born in Amnerica???
Can you do that for us snuggums? A glass of warm milk and a cookie for you at bedtime if you even try.
Regardless of whether this actually happened, there is no way Fox News would touch this story. We all know that Fox News does not allow anything on-air if it does not help a Republican party candidate get elected.
Man, do they all look like Admiral Ackbar?
This is why we have due process. It gives the inocent a chance to prove it. To lock up people without just cause/due process is criminal and this should be treated that way.
Although this all could be avoided if the war was never waged and the people would of looked into the threats that lead to Sept. 11th.
Impeach Bush jr
It’s not that they (the CIA, the FBI, NSA, HS) shouldn’t be doing this. It’s more about THEM NOT BEING CAUGHT.
This is another example that politicizing public institutions by filling top levels with political buddies instead of people who actually deserve it is detrimental to the security of any nation.
http://bit.ly/argyNL
angel..PLEASE go look at my links I gave in cagematch.
# 12 said, on April 11th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
“What’s wrong with this?”
Put the boot on the other foot, what would you have to say if you were treated this way?
“It was war… messy things do happen.” Only when Shit-Bag American Ned-Necks get involved.
“I am proud of the patriots who led us through that difficult time.”
I’m bloody glad you don’t live here in Australia Santa Maria, you are a Dick-Head!
Forced to listen to Barry Manilow’s Mandy for hours they told everything.
This is a surprise how?
When Gitmo was established I really questioned how a lot of mud-hut dwellers from half a world away could be “masterminds”, let alone several hundred of them.
However, these guys weren’t killed (yes this sentence is directed to the anti-death penalty types).
I focus on the relevant. The relevant is the NOW, and not yesterday.
Why are we still in Afghanistan and why is Gitmo still active?
# 2 deowll:
“What I think is you can find a former aid of any President willing to claim anything. That is just the way the world is. Get me some proof or stop boring me.”
Why bother? You set an impossible limit! If you will not accept the testimony of a highly-placed official WHO WAS THERE, then there IS NO PROOF POSSIBLE!
What a wonderful thing this would be if presented in an international court of law with actual evidence to back it up of course.
Our high court would reject any convictions that arise from it of course but Shrub doesn’t live too far from Mexico and he somehow stepped over the border he could be arrested. That would make my day.
So does the Constitution now protect Admiral Akbar and his ilk? [Sorry, couldn’t help commenting on the picture.]
I want to know if anything was left out of this article, the same way stuff was left out of his LA Times op-ed a few years ago?
That time, from the Q&A of his speech
I can’t tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the U.N. on 5 February 2003 was the truth. I can’t. I’ve wrestled with it. I don’t know – and people say, well, INR dissented. That’s a bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and running. That’s all INR dissented on. They were right there with the chems and the bios….
When you see a satellite photograph of all the signs of the chemical weapons ASP – Ammunition Supply Point – with chemical weapons, and you match all those signs with your matrix on what should show a chemical ASP, and they’re there, you have to conclude that it’s a chemical ASP, especially when you see the next satellite photograph which shows the U.N. inspectors wheeling in in their white vehicles with black markings on them to that same ASP and everything is changed, everything is clean. None of those signs are there anymore.
But George [Tenet] was convinced, John McLaughlin [then deputy DCI] was convinced that what we were presented [for Powell’s UN speech] was accurate….
…
The French came in in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by god, we did it to this RPM, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments?
Last year, Wilkerson claimed that Cheney & Co sent one guy to Egypt for waterboarding to get him to admit to ties with Iraq & Al Qaeda.
http://thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/05/the_truth_about/
This was made up facts, as by April and May of 2002, which is the dates Wilkerson provides, al Libi had already provided info linking Iraq and Al Qaeda. He later recanted that along with the rest of his February testimony, including that he was with Al Qaeda.
This should make it “politically impossible” to bring Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to trial.
Political prisoners, on an island, far from the nation that’s imprisoning them. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld must be students of history (pretty sure Bush wasn’t). They simply recreated “Devils Island”, as per the French. Which wasn’t too far from Guantánamo. And the reasons for many of their imprisonment, not all that different. It’s often said that those who are ignorant of history, are doomed to repeat it. But in this case, it much more like they chose to repeat it, by deliberate design. What’s next for the “Conservatives”, the Spanish Inquisition?