Ethics

Bush Official: Administration Knew Gitmo Had Innocents

By Ed Brayton

Has there been a more valuable former Bush administration insider than Col. Lawrence Wilkerson? Much of what we know about what went on during the administration comes from him, including his latest statement that the administration knew early on that they were locking up large numbers of innocent men at Gitmo and didn't care to do anything about it.

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."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on March 25, 2009 (boomark / email).