A Simple Question

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

A response to Benjamin Wittes and Robert Chesney.
THOMAS JOSCELYN
7/16/11

My suggestion that Matthew Olsen answer questions about his work on the Guantanamo Review Task Force during his Senate confirmation hearing has clearly struck a nerve at the Lawfare Blog. There are two posts replying to my original piece – one by Benjamin Wittes and another by Robert Chesney.

Neither author challenges my central finding: the task force Olsen headed approved a large number of “high” risk detainees, as deemed by Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), for transfer. Wittes concedes: “Joscelyn is, to be sure, not wrong that the task force recommended people for transfer who previous reviews had considered ‘high risk.’” Moreover, as I wrote previously, JTF-GTMO recommended that about 75 percent of the detainees held in late January 2009 be retained in the Department of Defense’s custody, whereas the task force recommended that 65 percent be transferred.

Nothing in either Wittes’s or Chesney’s posts changes this reporting. Instead, both authors offer unconvincing reasons why no one should be concerned about this state of affairs. They are not the least bit curious as to why the task force came to the conclusions it did, or why these conclusions differed by a wide margin from JTF-GTMO’s recommendations. Wittes says he was "worried" that anyone would even dare raise this issue.

(Snip)