Guantanamo detainees of little use, says report

Detainees at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay have provided little intelligence and their value has been exaggerated by the Bush Administration, a newspaper investigation claimed today.

Despite claims the prisoners are “the worst of a very bad lot” none are leaders or senior figures in al-Qaida, security officials told the New York Times.

Only a few are sworn members of the terror group, which attacked the US on September 11, the officials said.

The prisoners are being held as “unlawful combatants” and most are detained without charge.

The US government has said the detentions are justified because of the intelligence gleaned from the captives, many of whom were picked up in Afghanistan.

But dozens of high-level military intelligence and law-enforcement officials told the New York Times that only a few of the 595 detainees had information about the workings of al-Qaida.

The number was put between one and two dozen.

“When you have the overall mosaic of all the intelligence picked up all over the world, Guantanamo provided a very small piece of that mosaic,” said a senior American official.

A September 2002 top-secret report by the CIA found that most of the accused terrorists at Guantanamo were low level recruits or even innocent men picked up in the Afghanistan war.

Six prisoners have been deemed eligible to face a military tribunal by President George Bush.

More cases are being prepared for prosecution, but most will continue to be held without charge.

Officials at Guantanamo and within the Pentagon defended the operation.

“Every single day we get some piece of information that’s relevant to now,” said Steve Rodriguez, who oversees the interrogation teams at the base.

The officials said the prison camp had allowed the US to piece together a more detailed picture of al-Qaida methods.

They claimed that there were high-level detainees, including a body guard for terror leader Osama bin Laden and a man who recruited September 11 hijackers.

Vice-President Dick Cheney has described the detainees as “the worst of a very bad lot”.

However, Brigadier General Jay Hood, the commander of the task force that runs Guantanamo, added: “The expectations, I think, may have been too high at the outset.

“There are those who expected a flow of intelligence that would help us break the most sophisticated terror organisation in a matter of months. But that hasn’t happened.”

Meanwhile, officials said it was possible that there are more senior al-Qaida figures among those at Guantanamo who have not yet been identified.

A Saudi man, Mohamed al-Kahtani, who allegedly tried to enter the United States as a 20th hijacker on September 11, and was later detained beyond US borders, was held at the camp for months before investigators realised who he was.

“We weren’t sure in the beginning what we had; we’re not sure today what we have,” said General James Hill, the head of the Army’s Southern Command.

“There are still people who do not talk to us. We could have the keys to the kingdom and not know it.”

But other officials feared that the US may be creating a hardcore or terrorists by holding them without charge at Guantanamo.

A senior Arab intelligence official, familiar with the camp’s operations, told the newspaper: “Even those who were not hardcore extremists have now been indoctrinated by the true believers.

“Like any other prison, they have been taught to hate. If they let these people go, these people will make trouble.”