Lawmakers Blast Obama "No-Visit" Gitmo Policy

[Beacool]

Foreign Intelligence Said to Meet Detainees – But Lawmakers Can't

By JUSTIN ROOD
July 17, 2009



A Pentagon official Thursday largely refused to answer lawmakers' questions about why members of Congress are prohibited from meeting with Guantanamo detainees, even as intelligence officials from China and elsewhere were allegedly allowed to visit Guantanamo and interrogate prisoners held there.

Allan Liotta, director of the Pentagon's Office of Detainee Policy, testified before a concerned and sometimes fiery House Foreign Affairs subcommittee Thursday, with the difficult task of explaining why the Pentagon allegedly allowed Chinese officials to interrogate several ethnic Chinese Uighur detainees at Guantanamo over a week-long visit in 2002, while it has barred any of the 220 U.S. senators and congressmen who have visited the island facility from meeting any of the detainees held there.

All of the Uighur detainees have since been determined not to be enemy combatants and some have been released from U.S. custody. Five of the men now live in Albania and four are in Bermuda. The island nation of Palau offered earlier this year to accept the remaining 13. The United States declined a request from China to repatriate the Uighurs, out of concern they would be tortured or executed.

Pentagon insists on keeping lawmakers away from Guantanamo detainees for fear the detainees may be harmed, Liotta explained. "Without question, the single greatest reason to limit access to detainees is to provide for their personal safety, as well as that of the guards and other military personnel," he said.

The Pentagon policy is also built on a respect for the Geneva Conventions, Liotta testified, which requires the United States to shield detainees from "public curiosity." As well, he said, the prohibition was in place to ensure a U.S. lawmaker does not get drawn in to ongoing litigation involving the detainees.

Those answers did not sit well with the lawmakers present. "You allowed intelligence agents of a foreign country to interrogate , but you are concerned about their safety and that's why you don't allow United States members of Congress ?" pressed Rep. Jim Moran, D-VA, in a series of rhetorical questions. "You are concerned about 'public curiosity' -- apparently you're implying we'd be seeing them out of some public curiosity?"

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=8108591&page=3

[Xipe Totec]

1. I think POTUS is being held hostage by the spirit of the PUTZ!

We need to break through and talk to the man we elected President.

[Beacool]

2. I'm not sure how to feel about this whole thing.

Why allow the Chinese to interrogate the detainees, but not allow members of Congress to meet with them? How could they be harmed by them?

The one thing that I do find disturbing is this:

"I had never thought that American soldiers would work with Chinese and treat us like this," wrote Abu Bakker Qassim, a Uighur ex-detainee who provided testimony, through his lawyer, to the committee. Qassim, who applied for political asylum in the United States, now lives in Albania.

"After the Chinese had left, during an interrogation, I asked interrogators why they released all of our materials to the Chinese even though they promised to keep our information confidential; the Chinese could now randomly oppress our family members," Qassim wrote. "They apologized by saying that someone in Washington gave our materials to the Chinese."

:(

[ThirdWorldJohn]

3. WTF part of Bizarro Land is Guantanamo in?

Pentagon insists on keeping lawmakers away from Guantanamo detainees for fear the detainees may be harmed, Liotta explained. "Without question, the single greatest reason to limit access to detainees is to provide for their personal safety, as well as that of the guards and other military personnel," he said.

Civilians lawmakers are too much of a challenge for our trained US Soldiers to keep from committing mayhem in a prison. What a slap in the face to our troops. And our lawmakers.