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WikiLeaks Releases Classified Guantanamo Files

Mary Slosson |
April 24, 2011 | 10:07 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

Online whistleblowing site WikiLeaks began releasing almost 800 secret files today from the United States' detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many suspects have been held on suspicions of international terrorism since 9/11.

The files detail the cases of almost all of the 779 detainees "never seen before by members of the public or the media," according to WikiLeaks.

"Most of these documents reveal accounts of incompetence familiar to those who have studied Guantanamo closely, with innocent men detained by mistake (or because the U.S. was offering substantial bounties to its allies for al-Qaeda or Taliban suspects), and numerous insignificant Taliban conscripts from Afghanistan and Pakistan," wrote WikiLeaks.

Carol Rosenberg, a longtime Guantanamo Bay correspondent for the Miami Herald, describes how investigators were dependent on informants and their questionable information in order to build cases against some detainees.

Moreover, "there's not a whiff in the documents that any of the work is leading the U.S. closer to capturing Bin Laden. In fact, the documents suggest a sort of mission creep beyond the post-9/11 goal of hunting down the al Qaida inner circle and sleeper cells," she wrote.

Secret United States files have previously been the target of the whistleblowing site's work.  Beginning in November 2010, WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of classified U.S. State Department cables, embarrassing some public officials and bringing to light previously unknown international diplomatic secrets.

In response to the latest leak, the Pentagon and the State Department issued a statement that "these documents contain classified information about current and former GTMO detainees, and we strongly condemn the leaking of this sensitive information."

The documents can be read here.

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Reach Executive Producer Mary Slosson here.  Follow her on Twitter @maryslosson.



 

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