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Terrorist Relaxes at Gitmo

The White House’s national security adviser says the Obama administration is hard at work on fulfilling President Barack Obama’s deadline to shut down the Guantanamo detention center for suspected terrorists.

But James Jones also says that meeting Obama’s deadline to close the facility by Jan. 22 is proving harder than officials first thought.

Jones says it’s clear that Guantanamo must close, because of the symbol it’s come to represent.

Jones says Obama has made a commitment to close it and the adviser says he still hopes the administration can meet that deadline.

Senior administration officials have told The Associated Press that difficulties in completing the lengthy review of detainee files and resolving other tough questions mean the president’s promised January deadline may slip.

Jones spoke on CNN’s "State of the Union."

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By Eric Allie Cagle Cartoons

By Jane Sutton, Reuters

Obama is preparing to shut it down by releasing terrorists right and left

An Obama administration task force has so far cleared 75 of the remaining 223 Guantanamo prisoners for release as part of its effort to close the detention camp, a military spokesman said on Monday.

The review team is examining each prisoner’s case to decide who will be held for trial and who can be sent home or resettled in other nations.

President Barack Obama had set a January 22 deadline to shut the detention camp although Defense Secretary Robert Gates told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Sunday that "it’s going to be tough" to meet the deadline.

As the review team makes its decisions, military officials at Guantanamo post an updated list in the camps to let the prisoners know how many from each nation have been judged free to go.

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ABC News

Obama sends Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed home to Al-Qaeda haven Yemen

The Department of Justice Saturday evening announced that two detainees had been transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Ireland, and one had been transferred to Yemen.

There are more than 220 detainees remaining at the prison. In the last couple months, the White House has made it increasingly clear that the President will not make his self-stated January 22, 2010 deadline to close to prison.

Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a native of Yemen, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and returned to Yemen today. The Yemeni Embassy to the US issued a statement saying the country welcomed, "with enthusiasm, the release and transfer of its citizen."

The Obama administration did not name the detainees released to Ireland. "Pursuant to a request from the government of Ireland, the identities of these detainees are being withheld for security and privacy reasons," read a statement from the Justice Department. Amnesty International has been lobbying Ireland to accept Uzbek national Oybek Jamoldinivich Jabbarov, and another Uzbekh.

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By Gary McCoy, Cagle Cartoons

By Joseph Curl, Washington Times

President Bush respectfully disagrees with obama's policies

Former President George W. Bush fired a salvo at President Obama on Wednesday, asserting his administration’s interrogation policies were within the law, declaring the private sector — not government — will fix the economy and rejecting the nationalization of health care.

“I know it’s going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we’re in,” the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. “You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.”

Repeatedly in his hourlong speech and question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush said he would not directly criticize the new president, who has moved to take over financial institutions and several large corporations. Several times, however, he took direct aim at Obama policies as he defended his own during eight years in office.

“Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States,” he said to huge cheers.

By Chad Groening, OneNewsNow

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani

The retired naval officer who commanded the USS Cole when it was hit by terrorists says President Obama made an irresponsible decision to transfer a terrorist suspect from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to New York City for prosecution.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is set to go on trial for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. He is the first detainee from the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be transferred to the United States under an Obama administration plan to prosecute some of them in the federal court system.

But critics of the move wonder what happens if the suspect is acquitted — will he just be set free in New York, they ask. Commander Kirk Lippold (USN-Ret.) is the senior military fellow at Military Families United.

“We may have the evidence necessary to convict him of the crimes. That, however, does not necessarily permit the president to just yank him out of Guantanamo Bay, in the dead of night, bring him to the United States and put him up,” he contends.

Obama has yet to deal with the larger issue of Gitmo, according to Lippold.

By PAUL SPERRY, NY Post

From Gitmo, to the streets, to killing the innocent

The Pentagon now confirms that at least 74 former Guantanamo detainees have resumed terror ist activities after claiming they weren’t terrorists.

Such recidivism points up an alarming intelligence failure.

These dangerous prisoners should never have been cleared for release. Why did interrogators fail to find the cracks in their stories and alibis?

Why wasn’t more intelligence gathered to predict they’d rejoin al Qaeda or the Taliban?

In a word, politics. Gitmo interrogations have been emasculated to placate critics of waterboarding and other “torture,” say two senior officials there.

Even known terrorists are spared high-pressure techniques — tactics that have worked before in squeezing out information.

For that matter, Gitmo doesn’t even do “interrogations” anymore. They’re now called interviews, and they’re voluntary.