President Trump on Tuesday slammed President Obama for releasing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay that returned to the battlefield, even though most of them were released by President George W. Bush, not Obama.
“122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!” Trump tweeted.
According to a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 113 of the 122 former detainees who returned to fight the United States were released by Bush. The report, published in July 2016, showed that the other nine were released by Obama, who released 161 prisoners in total.
The tweet is another shot in Trump’s mostly-one-sided war of words with Obama. During the weekend, Trump accused the former president of having his phones tapped at Trump Tower just before the election, although he presented no evidence for that claim.
122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017
Trump’s tweet about Obama’s Guantanamo Bay policy comes a day after the U.S. announced it killed a former Gitmo detainee in a March 2 airstrike in Yemen.
Yasir al-Silmi spent seven years at the Cuban prison before being released by Obama. He had been captured shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was among the first of the prisoners released by Obama in 2009.
Obama was unable to close Guantanamo Bay, one of his main campaign promises. He instead let many of the detainees go free in order to shrink the prison.
As his administration left, officials said they hoped the prison population there was now so small it would not be worthwhile to keep the facility open.
This story was updated to reflect that most of the Gitmo detainees who returned to the battlefield were released by Bush.
