The Obama administration has released a list of 55 Guantanamo detainees who were approved for transfer by the Guantanamo Bay Review Task Force. The task force, which was authorized by President Obama as one of his first acts in office, completed its work in January 2010. The Obama administration has worked to resettle many of the detainees the task force approved for transfer, but the detainees on the newly-disclosed list remain at Guantanamo.

Before the task force was authorized in January 2009, Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) had previously assessed all of the detainees held in Cuba. JTF-GTMO's threat assessments for 760 current and former detainees have been leaked online. (Approximately 167 detainees remain in custody at this time.)

The Long War Journal has matched those threat assessments to the 55 detainees on the task force's list.

JTF-GTMO determined that 34 of the 55 detainees on the newly-released list were "high risk(s)" who are "likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies" if freed from custody. One detainee was deemed a "medium to high risk."

JTF-GTMO assessed that 19 of the 55 detainees are "medium risk(s)" who "may pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies."

Just one of the 55 detainees was assessed to be a "low risk, due to his medical condition."

Ultimately, the task force's recommendations differed from JTF-GTMO's in at least 37 of the 55 cases. JTF-GTMO recommended that all 34 "high risk" detainees and 3 "medium risk" detainees remain in the Defense Department's custody, whereas the task force approved them for transfer.

Prior to the task force's creation, JTF-GTMO also disagreed with civilian authorities in the Bush administration on some transfer decisions. (JTF-GTMO made recommendations on transfers to authorities in the Defense Department, who then made decisions on how to treat individual cases.)

Of the 55 detainees on the list, 24 are Yemeni. The Obama administration suspended transfers to Yemen after the attempted Christmas Day 2009 attack on a Detroit-bound airliner. That plot was traced back to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a terrorist organization that is staffed by a significant number of ex-Gitmo detainees.

READ FULL SOURCE ARTICLE


The BasicsProject.org informational and educational pamphlet series is now available for Kindle and iPad. Click here to find out more...

The New Media Journal and BasicsProject.org are not funded by outside sources. We exist exclusively on tax deductible donations from our readers and contributors. Please make a tax deductible donation today.