No one can prove that any attacks were stopped, but they can prove that no more occurred. Which is more important to you? The first attack should never have happened, and there are few people who know whether or not it was actually preventable. But the only thing worse than screwing something up once, is not learning from your mistakes and screwing the same thing up again.
The word "tough" and presidential acts do not mix? Every president uses the word tough. The one in office, who has been there for a very short time, said ???What I???ve said here in Washington is that we???ve got to make some tough choices.??? I guess Obama doesn't fully understand the choices he's making either, by your logic.
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The Saudi ministers proposed a possible solution to Prosper and Waxman. The country was developing a rehabilitation program for former jihadists. Respected clerics would basically reeducate the men, explaining to them that the Qur'an does not, in fact, sanction murder. In addition, the Saudi government would try to ease their transition back to normal life by helping them find jobs or go back to school.
The United States wasn't sure what to make of the idea: could it really succeed at defanging hard-core jihadists? "No one in the government had any illusions [about the program]," says Waxman. The Saudis continued to lobby American officials, though, and the U.S. ultimately decided to transfer some detainees into it.
Almost everyone now agrees that Guantánamo is not just doing serious damage to America's international reputation; its continued existence has in all likelihood become a valuable propaganda tool to Islamic fundamentalists. Put in starker terms, a detention facility that was intended to help protect America from another terrorist attack may well be increasing the possibility of one.
But the problem remains: what to do with detainees who are not suitable for trial? The Bush administration had no luck persuading third-party governments to absorb them. "We heard from a number of countries who were unhappy that the Bush administration had not expressed a desire to close Gitmo," says Emi McLean, who works on Guantánamo issues for the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Obama isn't finding the task a lot easier. While he has earned some good will by denouncing torture and promising to close the prison, it's hard to believe many third-party countries will be willing to commit to repatriating any detainees unless the United States agrees to take some in itself. This will be a tough sell: witness Congress's recent rejection of Obama's defense-budget request that included funds to transfer prisoners to U.S. soil. Meanwhile, the president's supporters in the human-rights community are growing impatient. "Obama has certainly set a new tone, but what has he actually done?" asks David Remes, the legal director of Appeal for Justice, which represents a number of Guantánamo detainees.
In a sense, Bush not only created the Guantánamo mess; he left the toughest work for Obama. About 60 of the 240 detainees remaining on the island have been cleared to leave, but many of them—citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia—have said they don't want to be sent home because they are worried about being tortured. The U.S. has a legal and moral obligation to honor their requests. They remain on Guantánamo not because of who they are but because of where they are from.
By far the largest population left on Guantánamo is from Yemen, a poor, volatile nation with a deeply entrenched culture of jihad. Al Qaeda is gaining strength there. At the same time, extremists continue to escape from Yemeni prisons, and the country may very well be on the brink of civil war. Yemen has been known to torture its citizens as well. Obama is no doubt wary about returning detainees to such an environment—all the more so because it's certainly possible that after years at Guantánamo, individuals who weren't previously inclined toward violent acts of anti-Americanism may now be.
The issue of released detainees joining or rejoining the fight against the U.S. and its Coalition partners is a difficult one to get a handle on. During the Bush years, the Pentagon reported periodically on Guantánamo recidivism. But these reports were conspicuously murky and short on supporting evidence. A recent New York Times story about the latest Pentagon report, which has not yet been released, didn't do much to clear up the confusion: 45 of the 74 released detainees who have allegedly returned to the fight were unnamed.
Even one prisoner taking up arms anew is too many. But something is going to have to give if Obama truly intends to meet his self-imposed deadline to close the much-maligned prison before Jan. 20, 2010. "It's a mistake to think that there are any risk-free solutions with respect to Guantánamo," says Waxman. "It's all about balancing the competing risks."
Mahler is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author
most recently of The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power.
© 2009
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