The Politics of Gitmo | Newsweek Periscope

Getting Off the Island
5/29/2009 12:00:00 AM
Late one night in February 2004, the U.S. ambassador for war-crimes issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, and the Danish ambassador to the United States, Ulrich Federspiel, sat in the living room of Denmark's ambassadorial residence in Washington ironing out the details of an agreement to repatriate Guantánamo's only Danish detainee. His name was Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane, and while he had drawn little attention in the United States, his fate had been the subject of intense negotiations between Danish diplomats and a group of high-ranking American officials, including Prosper, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and the White House National Security Council's legal adviser, John Bellinger.
The Reeducation of Abu Jandal
Kevin Peraino 5/29/2009 12:00:00 AM
All teachers have their problem pupils. Hamoud al-Hitar's was a young man who liked to call himself "Abu Jandal," an Arabic nickname that means roughly "The Killer." The moon-faced, slightly paunchy Yemeni, whose real name was Nasser al-Bahri, had fought in Bosnia, Somalia, Chechnya and Afghanistan—all before his 30th birthday. For six years he worked as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, who once personally dressed one of al-Bahri's gunshot wounds near Kabul. In Afghanistan he got to know Mohamed Atta and several of the other 9/11 hijackers. When al-Bahri finally returned home to Yemen about a year before the attacks, "it was the first time in my life that I had a passport with my real name on it," the former jihadist told me one morning this spring when we met in the lobby of a Sana hotel.
To Drone or Not To Drone
Adam B. Kushner 5/23/2009 12:00:00 AM
It's clear that predator drones are revolutionizing the way America fights battles: the flying robots, piloted from thousands of miles away, stand watch while soldiers sleep, kill terrorists from afar and patrol for 24 hours at a stretch. But some counterinsurgency experts say the drones are impeding the broader strategy by losing the war for hearts and minds in Pakistan.
Friendly Fire at the White House
Michael Isikoff 5/21/2009 12:00:00 AM
Fending off criticism from human-rights and civil-rights groups at a private White House meeting Wednesday, a frustrated President Obama complained about the "mess" he'd been left by his predecessor.
THE BIG IDEA
Defusing a Cosmic War
Katie Baker 5/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
In "How To Win a Cosmic War," Reza Aslan explains why George W. Bush's war-on-terror rhetoric played right into Al Qaeda's hands—and how Barack Obama might be the best weapon yet against global jihadism.
NATION
Safe To Release?
Michael Isikoff 1/24/2009 12:00:00 AM
The Pentagon is preparing to declassify portions of a secret report on Guantanamo detainees that could further complicate President Obama's plans to shut down the detention facility.