News & Politics - Few at Guantanamo are interrogated, commander says

Lexis · 05-20-2006, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Only about one-fourth of the prisoners held at the Guantanamo naval base are interrogated regularly because there are not enough translators and interrogators to question them all, the U.S. admiral in charge of the detention operation said on Thursday.

Rear Adm. Harry Harris, who at the end of March took command of the military task force that runs the camp, said the 460 captives at Guantanamo in Cuba were dangerous men who still provide useful information about al Qaeda tactics, financing and safe houses.

But only those he described as senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders were routinely questioned by U.S. interrogators, he said.

"It's about around 25 percent of the population that we are actively interrogating," Harris told visiting journalists.

"If we had unlimited interrogators and translators then we could interrogate more. But we have limited resources so we have to focus that the best way we can, so we go after those detainees that have the largest intelligence value."

The rest are not ignored completely, he said. But asked if some prisoners might have gone years without being questioned, he replied, "I would think there are, but I just don't know."

The United States has faced criticism from human rights groups and some of its allies for indefinitely holding prisoners at Guantanamo. President George W. Bush said earlier this month he would like to close the detention center.

Some 759 captives have been held at Guantanamo since the detention operation opened in 2002, and nearly 300 have been released or transferred to their home nations for continued detention, including 15 sent home to Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

Harris said he expected the population to drop further as officials in Washington complete diplomatic negotiations to return about 120 more to their homelands.

He said he was convinced the rest were "truly dangerous men intent on jihad" and must continue to be held for the protection of Americans.

SUICIDE ATTEMPTS Continued ...

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jh...rc=rss/topNews

Maybe I'm missing something but if these people are "truly dangerous men intent on jihad" shouldn't we ensure that there are enough translators and interrogators?

86amanda86 · 05-20-2006, 10:11 AM

Agreed. Although I don't know of any place that has translators and interrogators lying around for the using...

Lexis · 05-20-2006, 10:45 AM

I can't quite place where I read it but I seem to remember reading about the gutting of Arabic studies programmes at US colleges being one of the problems in getting people trained up.

86amanda86 · 05-20-2006, 10:54 AM

Hmmm, interesting.. If you find the link, do share it with me.

Ms Carolyn · 05-21-2006, 08:18 AM

I once had to get a verified translation of Yellow Pages ad in Farci, and it was a daunting task! I would imagine that right now a student coming out of college with a degree in Arabic studies could write their own ticket if they wanted to work for the U.S. government, or, for that matter, any major oil company or other business with government contracts in the Middle East.


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