The Guantanamo Bay detainee who U.S. authorities say is responsible for killing Americans was released during President George W. Bush’s time in office, according to a senior Obama administration official.
“Less than five percent of detainees released since January 2009 are confirmed of re-engaging in terrorism and, of those, none are assessed to have killed Americans,” the official told the Washington Examiner.
The official made the clarification following testimony Wednesday from one of the administration’s two envoys for closing the prison. Citing national security concerns, the official requested anonymity and would not provide further details about the detainee or the circumstances surrounding the Americans’ deaths.
Sources familiar with the details told the Examiner that the detainee was an Afghan released during Bush’s tenure and killed Americans in a “battlefield situation.”
According to a recent report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 30 of the 118 detainees who U.S. authorities have confirmed had re-engaged in terrorism during Bush’s tenure have died, although the report does not provide details on the circumstances of their deaths.
A source suggested that U.S. authorities killed the Afghan detainee responsible for American deaths.
News that a released Guantanamo Bay detainee had gone on to kill Americans triggered sharp criticism from Congress, but those lawmakers didn’t say and likely didn’t know that the Bush administration was responsible for releasing the detainee.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., a leading opponent of shuttering the Guantanamo Bay prison, said the administration’s policy on the prison has been “irresponsible” and “dangerous” and said the news about the killings is the “single most important reason why the president should cease his misguided efforts to close the facility and release dangerous terrorists.”
“One of the purposes of Guantanamo is to keep enemy combatants from returning to the battlefield, and it’s tragic that Americans have lost their lives unnecessarily,” she said. “No family should have to hear that their loved one serving in uniform has been killed or injured by a former Guantanamo detainee.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said the “clear admission” by the Obama administration of the killings shows that the president’s efforts to close the facility are “detrimental to our security.”
“The president must rescind his Guantanamo plans and instead begin detaining captured ISIS fighters at the facility,” Scott said. “This is bigger than politics, and the president must stop putting campaign promises first and American lives second.”
The latest controversy over Obama’s efforts to close the facility erupted Wednesday after Paul Lewis, the Department of Defense’s special envoy for Guantanamo Closure, on Wednesday told a House Foreign Affairs Committee that some Americans have died at the hand of at least one released detainee. He would not say in an unclassified setting exactly how many or the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
“What I can tell you is that unfortunately, there have been Americans who have died because of [released] Guantanamo detainees,” Lewis told the panel.
In admitting that a released Guantanamo Bay detainee had gone on to kill Americans, Lewis was responding to a question from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who asked how many lives have been lost by terrorists who went back to fight after the U.S. government released them from Gitmo. Lewis first said he could talk about the incidents only in a classified setting, a statement Rohrabacher challenged.
“Classified?” he asked. “Is it over 10?”
“What I can tell you is unfortunately there have been Americans that have died because of [released Guantanamo] detainees,” Lewis said. “…When anybody dies, it is a tragedy and we don’t want anybody to die because we transfer detainees.”
Rohrabacher argued back that the administration is allowing for the deaths of “innocent people” in their calculations over releasing detainees from the facility.
“As far as I’m concerned, if one child is saved because she would have been blown up by someone being released, it’s better to keep all 90 of those people in Gitmo,” Rohrabacher responded, adding that the scenario “disgusts” him.
The facility now holds 91 detainees, 36 of whom have been cleared for release and another 10 who are on trial. The rest are detainees that the administration has deemed unworthy of release, according to the envoy’s testimony.
After establishing the prison after 9/11, Bush later aggressively pushed for its closure, arguing that it had become a recruiting tool for terrorists around the world, a view Obama shares.
Bush released 532 detainees from the prison, and of those, 111 are confirmed to have returned to the terrorist fight, although several of them since died, leaving a recidivism rate of 20.9 percent during Bush’s time in office. Another 74 are suspected of re-entering in the fight, pushing up the confirmed and suspected recidivism rate during Bush’s time in office to more than 30 percent.
The Obama administration has implemented a multi-agency vetting process for releasing detainees and touts its much lower recidivism rate of 4.9 percent of the 7 confirmed former detainees who have returned to terrorism. The rate is more than 13 percent when including 12 more who are suspected of returning to the battlefield, according to the intelligence report.
Republicans point out the actual recidivism rate could be higher. U.S. authorities have told them it takes an average of four years to confirm if a former detainee has returned to the battlefield.
