Posted on 03/19/2009 3:08:12 PM PDT by pissant
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years."
Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an Internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many Guantanamo detainees were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could provide information for a "mosaic" of intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Powell and McClellan were also “Bush officials”... doesn’t make the credible though.
Definitely a “consider the source” article.
I lost interest as soon as I saw it was someone who worked for General Powell.
By “innocent”, he means they only loaded the guns in to the trucks for the Taliban, they don’t actually fire them.
I don’t think so.
They’ve turned hundreds loose from there, including bona fide terrorists. If someone is still there, its because they can’t be released for one reason or another.
oh, one of ‘Hooties’ blow fish eh??
was Armitage busy or what???
A “Bush Official” who was probably a Clinton holdover that W was too stupid to fire and held over in the “spirit of bi-partisanship”
Remember when TREASON was punished that way?
One more traitor.
I’ll bet his proof of this came from Valerie Plame’s buddy Armitage.
Before anyone was sent to Gitmo—expensive and an additional burden, a committee would meet at Bagram, the case files reviewed and the individual(s) who had interrogated the individual were to testify.
This is nothing more than lies from a bureaucrat who never had anything to do with the process, but has an aching need to be noticed.
I was there and I voted whether or not to send them on to Gitmo.
This is hateful deception. Likely another will appear in short order, another tall tale told by another liar who was never there.
Traitor Powell’s Chief of Staff, nuff said.
If they’ve never been tried, how does he know this?
No, that would be Richard Armitage. If Wilkerson knows a detainee is innocent, why didn’t he get him released?
Wilkerson sucking up to Obama and getting his digs in at Cheney. Wonder what his role was in the dishonorable Powell-Armitage coverup that shifted blame to Scooter Libby for the Plame "leak."
Sorry, no comprehendo.
These liberal 'Republican, Bush administration officials' who - safely free of responsibility - try to give the leftist Bush-obsessed Democrats in congress validation for congressional witch-hunts to help smear the actual Bush administration and distract Americans from Obama's serial disasters should be pressed for more evidence for the ridiculous 'Gitmo detainees are all just innocent bystanders' BS the left has tried to sell for years and these useful idiots try to validate with baseless statements that the leftmedia never challenge. Never.
Yeah, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, right?
Some are aspiring rappers....
A couple are studying for their GED.....
One plans to marry the mother of his child this summer...
One is starting a new job on Monday.....
And several have grandmothers who swear they are “good boys”...
Armitage was his deputy. This guy (and I use the term loosely) was Powell’s chief of staff (butt boy)
A$$hat. What did you do to right this ‘wrong’ when you could have. *spit*
Never heard of the pencilneck until Rush spoke about him today. When does his book tour start?
Not sure, but any “republican” that goes onto MSNBC for any other reason than to slap the marxists down is really a democrat. Yes, that means you Frum, Hagel, Megan McCain, etc etc
Ah, the smell of bull$h|t.
Looks like we have located another terrorist supporter or facilitator.
The only real errors of judgement Bush had was keeping anyone from the Clinton administration. That includes Powell, who later turned out to be as pathetic as Weasel Clark. It appears that although the Army enlisted are solid citizens, selection process for senior enlisted folks is very solid, their officer corps it filled with some pathetic cases at the O-7 and above level. I have run into several Army General Officers over the years and although they have the mannerisms of leaders (All the same “mannerisms” by the way), I could never trust their judgement. I hope I do not offend pissant as this word is what I usually refer to Weasel Clark as. Rhodes scholar? O bullshiite....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.