Obama Administration Considering Turning Over 100 Yemeni Gitmo Detainees to Saudi Arabia Terrorist Rehab Center
EmailABC News’ Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez report:
This morning in Riyadh, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he spoke to Saudi Assistant Minister of the Interior Muhammed bin Nayaf about sending the roughly 100 Yemeni detainees currently in the detainee center at Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia to the Saudi government’s rehabilitation program for jihadis.
Gates said he spoke to Nayaf last night about "our positive impression of the repatriation program, the rehabilitation, repatriation program in Saudi Arabia. I think they’ve probably done as good if not better job of that than almost anybody and explored the possibility of some of the Yemeni detainees coming through that system. I think the notion would be if it worked at all it would be those with strong Saudi family connections or strong connections to Saudi Arabia."
Detainees from Guantanamo were sent to the Saudi rehabilitation camp by President Bush, to mixed success.
Asked if, once through the program, the Yemenis would remain in Saudi Arabia and be monitored by Saudi authorities, Gates said, "I think that’s further down the road than we went. It really was about getting them into the program, not getting them out."
How successful is this rehabilitation center, also called the "Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Care and Counseling"?
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently published a study of the Care Rehabilitation Center saying that since the rehabilitation program started in 2003, "roughly 3,000 prisoners have participated in portions of the counseling program, and about 1,400 of them have renounced their former beliefs and been released, according to Prince Muhammad bin Nayef. Exact numbers are extremely difficult to come by, but approximately 1,000 prisoners remain incarcerated…"
TIME Magazine recently ran a photo essay of the Care Rehabilitation Center where participants undergo a 12-step program "that includes psychological counseling, art therapy, sports and lessons in Islam."
But not all of those rehabbed have 12-stepped their way out of terrorism.
Earlier this year the Saudi government published a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects. Eleven of them had been prisoners at Guantanamo put through the Saudi rehabilitation program.
Said Ali al-Shihri, transferred to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo during the Bush administration in 2007, currently deputy leader of al Qaeda’s Yemen branch.
The Bush administration also released Gitmo detainee Ghulam Rasoul into the Saudi rehabilitation program. Now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, he’s a leader against U.S. forces in southern Afghanistan, according to military and intelligence officials.
Gates noted today that "nothing was decided" and "nothing specifically was asked."
"It was more a general conversation about the capability and about the possibility," Gates said. "I didn’t ask them to do anything and they didn’t volunteer."
He added that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salih is "reluctant to speak out openly and say that this would be a good idea, in part because he may feel that it reflects an inability in Yemen to handle the problem. So I think he is not likely to speak out."
Former USS Cole commander Kirk Lippold issued a statement today saying that “the impact of turning Yemeni detainees over to either Saudi Arabia or Yemen is an unacceptable compromise to our national security. … Transferring Yemeni detainees to Saudi Arabia will inevitably lead to more terrorists on the battlefield endangering the lives of our military for a second time."
– Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez
Rick Santorum Sweeps 3 States 
Pentagon to Open Additional Jobs to Women
LMAO….LMAO…LMAO
You can’t be serious jake LMAO
hope NYC likes the smell of radiation
What a joke turn terrorist over to terrorist
Posted by: How am I doing now Comrades | May 6, 2009, 4:37 pm 4:37 pm
Can you say “revolving door”? These guys will be back in terror training camps in Yemen within weeks.
Posted by: Scare Force One | May 6, 2009, 4:41 pm 4:41 pm
The country that funds the terrorists gets to rehabilitate terrorists? Yeah, sure.
Obama genius at work.
Posted by: Sally J | May 6, 2009, 4:43 pm 4:43 pm
Just get over it Obama, Gitmo stays in business.
Posted by: robert verdi | May 6, 2009, 5:13 pm 5:13 pm
Was the Bush administration really so clumsy that none of the detainees can be properly tried? There is nothing wrong with locking these guys up for life (as the Saudi camp appears to be doing with a third to half of its attendees), the problem is doing it in a quasi-foreign location when the President can have it done on his personal say without any checks by the other branches of government.
Posted by: jhw539 | May 6, 2009, 5:23 pm 5:23 pm
Bush tried the Saudi program, too, with actual Saudis rather than Yemenis. It didn’t get very good results. Even the sunny Saudi statistics put the success rate at less than 50% of their 3,000 inmates; only 1400 got released, and most haven’t returned to terrorism, at least as far as the Saudis know. The rest are still in the facility, or are unaccounted for, at least with the numbers ABC quotes from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Earlier this year the Saudi government published a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects. Eleven of them had been prisoners at Guantanamo put through the Saudi rehabilitation program.
Said Ali al-Shihri, transferred to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo during the Bush administration in 2007, currently deputy leader of al Qaeda’s Yemen branch.
The Bush administration also released Gitmo detainee Ghulam Rasoul into the Saudi rehabilitation program. Now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, he’s a leader against U.S. forces in southern Afghanistan, according to military and intelligence officials.
So Bush proved that this is a bad idea. Will Obama benefit from that painful lesson?
Posted by: Scare Force One | May 6, 2009, 5:26 pm 5:26 pm
Is this story a joke? Is there really a terrorist rehabilitation center in Saudi Arabia??
Posted by: Crazy Pen | May 6, 2009, 5:42 pm 5:42 pm
How about caught again instant excecution? or would that be inhumane
Posted by: njmick | May 6, 2009, 5:50 pm 5:50 pm
Send them to Chicago, payback for Obama, Burris and Durbin.
Posted by: Johnny L | May 6, 2009, 6:05 pm 6:05 pm
Andrew McCarthy:
“On April 23 of this year, only a day after Holder — taking his lead from the president — promised to investigate Bybee, Yoo, and other government lawyers, the Justice Department filed a brief in a case called Demjanjuk v. Holder in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Ohio. The brief urges the federal courts to consider the same torture analysis over which Holder is targeting the Bush lawyers with such fanfare.”
===================================
Unbelievable
Posted by: mad | May 6, 2009, 6:31 pm 6:31 pm
“Was the Bush administration really so clumsy that none of the detainees can be properly tried?”
properly tried? like military tribunals?
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | May 6, 2009, 6:33 pm 6:33 pm
as an Obama supporter i am concerned that this action is reminiscent of extra-ordinary rendition. what will happen to these detainees once they are returned to Yemen? if we are going to send all of these people to repressive regimes that practice torture what’s the point? after 7 years you think the government could make a case. how many of the 600+ detainees have had any evidence at all presented against them? seven years!
Posted by: Paul Wall | May 6, 2009, 6:36 pm 6:36 pm
Probably works as well as our penal system. In one day out the next and back into crime. If the people can not be released then keep them were the are at this time. Stop selling us plans, just so the administration can make good on a promise and make the whole world feel good about them.
Posted by: William | May 6, 2009, 6:50 pm 6:50 pm
Send them to Texas, you know to be jailed on the ‘ranch’.
Posted by: tychisum | May 6, 2009, 6:54 pm 6:54 pm
“Was the Bush administration really so clumsy that none of the detainees can be properly tried?”
properly tried? like military tribunals?”
Exactly.
The military tribunals were rejected because the Bush admin lumped in all combatants in the same pot whether they were captured on the battlefield, snatched or whatever.
Hence Bush admin incompetence cost us the chance to try these people.
Posted by: Ryan C | May 6, 2009, 6:59 pm 6:59 pm
“Andrew McCarthy:”
Right wing torture apologist for the National Review.
He of course completely mangles the brief to state its that smae thing that Woo and Bybee approved.
Home Blog Row NRO Radio NRO TV Subscribe Search NR / Digital Shop! Donate Media Kit Appearances Contact
E-mail Author
Author Archive
Send to a Friend
Print Version
Bookmark and Share
May 6, 2009 1:30 PM
The Justice Department’s Torture Hypocrisy
< Back 1 2
The Justice Department brief goes on to elaborate that, even accepting for argument’s sake all his claims of anticipated physical abuse, Demjanjuk had failed to state a legal torture claim because he had not shown that German officials had deliberately created and maintained conditions that were specifically intended to cause severe pain and suffering: “To the extent that German authorities may inadvertently cause Petitioner to experience any degree of discomfort during the course of a criminal prosecution or incarceration, this is not cognizable under CAT. See 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(5) (act causing unintended or unanticipated severity of pain and suffering not torture).”
Seems rather straightforward…now the fun begins.
This is precisely the theory that Bybee and Yoo outlined in the memos that the Justice Department is now citing as a premise for subjecting them to ethical rebuke — and that Obama and Holder have intimated may be grounds for prosecution. Bybee and Yoo reasoned that unless CIA interrogators specifically meant to inflict severe pain and suffering on the high-level al Qaeda detainees they were interrogating, there could be no legally viable claim of torture.
That is no precisely the legal theory at all.
The point of waterboarding is to inflict severe pain and suffering.
The lesson as always? Right wingers lie.
Posted by: Ryan C | May 6, 2009, 7:05 pm 7:05 pm
“this action is reminiscent of extra-ordinary rendition. what will happen to these detainees once they are returned to Yemen”
I tend to agree with this.
Posted by: Ryan C | May 6, 2009, 7:06 pm 7:06 pm
The world has gone goofy!
Posted by: LongT | May 6, 2009, 7:09 pm 7:09 pm
“The military tribunals were rejected because the Bush admin lumped in all combatants in the same pot whether they were captured on the battlefield, snatched or whatever.”
That doesn’t even rise to your usual level of misinformed.
Hence Bush admin incompetence cost us the chance to try these people. ”
Right. That’s why the President is considering reviving military tribunals cause he knows there is no one to try.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | May 6, 2009, 7:19 pm 7:19 pm
Ryan C, I understand your view and the administrations view of torture.
The point is that the administration is using the arguement for which Yoo and Bybee may face disbarment, to plead it’s case in Demjanjuk v. Holder.
Posted by: mad | May 6, 2009, 8:07 pm 8:07 pm
Has ANYONE met/KNOWN ANYONE WHO HAS EVER BEEN REHABILITATED IN THE SYSTEM, ANY SYSTEM WITH PRBLEMS LIKE THOSE??
UMMMM……
PATHETIC WASTE OF OUR MONEY.
Posted by: jeanneen | May 6, 2009, 8:25 pm 8:25 pm
If an enemy combatant captured on the battlefield is considered a criminal and subject to criminal trial, what crime would he be charged with?
Posted by: Sigmonde | May 6, 2009, 8:51 pm 8:51 pm
How many Americans will die because of the president’s recklessness.
Posted by: mesquito | May 6, 2009, 9:06 pm 9:06 pm
Yeah, release them Obama. Coming Soon, “Watch for planes flying low to a city near you”
Posted by: Frank | May 6, 2009, 9:41 pm 9:41 pm
chicago is the place to release them they can pitch tents in the vacant lot next to obamas mansion the mobster sold him for half the price.
Posted by: i_dream_of_a_jeannie | May 6, 2009, 10:20 pm 10:20 pm
“The point of waterboarding is to inflict severe pain and suffering.”
I disagree. Why do you think the democrat Congress has not passed a law saying that? They could you know – probably in a day if the President wanted it.
Posted by: Plumber | May 6, 2009, 10:31 pm 10:31 pm
Let us return briefly to the subject of torture, shall we? The following is an excerpt from a brief filed two weeks ago in a federal appellate court by the Obama/Holder Justice Department.
In arguing that there is no reason not to deport a former SS guard to Germany despite his fears that he may be tortured, the DoJ maintainss that even if he were at risk of torture, and indeed even if he were in fact tortured, deporting him would not violate US law or the Convention Against Torture. The law would not be violated because there is no specific intent on the part of those deporting him to cause severe mental pain and suffering.
This argument was made at virtually the same moment that Holder was leaving the door open to the prosecution of two Bush administration lawyers for the crime of writing a brief defining the meaning of the term. Quoth Holder’s Justice Department:
“[T]orture is defined as ‘an extreme form of cruel and inhuman treatment and does not include lesser forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. . . . ‘ 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(2). Moreover, as has been explained by the Third Circuit, CAT requires ‘a showing of specific intent before the Court can make a finding that a petitioner will be tortured.’ Pierre v. Attorney General, 528 F.3d 180, 189 (3d Cir. 2008) (en banc); see 8 C.F.R. § 1208.18(a)(5) (requiring that the act ‘be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering’); Auguste v. Ridge, 395 F.3d 123, 139 (3d Cir. 2005) (‘This is a ‘specific intent’ requirement and not a ‘general intent’ requirement’ [citations omitted.] An applicant for CAT protection therefore must establish that ‘his prospective torturer will have the motive or purpose’ to torture him. Pierre, 528 F.3d at 189; Auguste, 395 F.3d at 153-54 (‘The mere fact that the Haitian authorities have knowledge that severe pain and suffering may result by placing detainees in these conditions does not support a finding that the Haitian authorities intend to inflict severe pain and suffering. The difference goes to the heart of the distinction between general and specific intent.’)”
And yet, for public consumption, these people actually let it be publicly understood that Messrs. Bybee and Yoo might have committed criminal acts. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | May 6, 2009, 10:34 pm 10:34 pm
Yeah, they’ll turn ‘em over to the Saudi rehab camps – which don’t work. Then they’ll rejoin their brothers in jihad, as somewhere north of 100 former detainees already have. But the Pollyanna’s will be able to sleep at night.
Posted by: Todd | May 6, 2009, 10:54 pm 10:54 pm
“The point of waterboarding is to inflict severe pain and suffering.”
Actually it isn’t, but regardless of whether it is, the point of writing a brief is not. Talk to a lawyer about it. He or she will explain to you why no prosecutor could proceed with a crimial case against Bybee or Yoo, knowing that this brief with his own name on it was going to hit him in the face.
It certainly seems that Mr. Holder and I have reached the same conclusion. The only conclusion the moonbats have reached is that they’re doomed to be very unhappy that Messrs. Bybee and Yoo are now deemed by the administration not to have committed any crime.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | May 6, 2009, 11:44 pm 11:44 pm
“Right wing torture apologist for the National Review” quoting directly from the Obama justice department’s brief. That brief affords an ironclad defense for Bybee and Yoo, and thus they will not be charged. Count on it, and get over it.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | May 6, 2009, 11:46 pm 11:46 pm
To provide guidance for the slow reading group, here is a good working definition of “specific intent”: “An intent to produce the precise consequences of the crime, including the intent to do the physical act that causes the consequences.”
There is no lawyer in America dumb enough to argue the Mr. Bybee or Mr. Yoo had any intent even to produce torture, let along the intent to “do the physical act” of the alleged torture. There are certainly laymen who are dumb enough to make such an argument–as we have seen–but in the eyes of the law and the Obama justice department the two men have been exonerated.
I know this is terribly difficult for moonbats to come to grips with, but I think in the long run it will do them good. What now seems a bitter disappointment will actually make them stronger, and build character. Look on the bright side.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | May 7, 2009, 12:10 am 12:10 am
I don’t understand the problems the right wingers are airing about transferring the Gitmo folks to facilities in the United States. We presently house worse desperado’s in detention facilities within U.S. borders. Besides, according to Condoleezza Rice in a recent statement at Stanford University, Gitmo wasn’t anything but a medium security facility. A quote from her speech at Stanford
” No, no dear, you’re wrong. Alright. You’re wrong. We did not torture anyone. And Guantanamo Bay, by the way, was considered a model “medium security prison”
In that same speech, she had this to say.
“And I’ll tell you something. Unless you were there in a position of responsibility after September 11th, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans. And I know a lot of people are second-guessing now, but let me tell you what the second-guessing that would really have hurt me — if the second-guessing had been about 3,000 more Americans dying because we didn’t do everything we could to protect them.”
I find it quite hypocritical to lament the possibility of another 3000 more Americans possibly dying, in defense of the Bush administration actions. Instead of 3000 more Americans dying to date, the actions have seen the death of more than 4200 American military personnel, countless more American civilian personnel, 90,000 innocent Iraq civilians, with another estimated 3 million displaced. And that’s not to mention the coalition casualties as well as a nations infrastructure destroyed. Just once, I’d like to see a top tier official from the Bush administration stand up and state, “we were wrong”. What can we do to right that wrong? The one to do that would of course be George H.W. Bush.
Posted by: devilkev | May 7, 2009, 10:25 am 10:25 am
The one to do that would of course be George H.W. Bush.
================================
What does the 41st president have to do with military action undertaken by the 43rd?
Posted by: mad | May 7, 2009, 10:40 am 10:40 am
Right, send these jihadists for “rehabilitation” to the Whabi homeland and citadel. That is level headed? Secretary Gates has turned acrocephalic.
No, the covert circumstances which captured those fanatic killers prohibit bringing them to the US for trial. They will conclude in their release into US society.
That is the fix which the Administration’s cheap posturing and foolish abandonment of Guantanamo, a perfectly good solution for an impossible situation, has created. Now Gates is contemplating releasing deadly scorpions, captured at great cost, back to their nest. Brilliant.
Posted by: NaCl | May 7, 2009, 1:02 pm 1:02 pm
so we paraphrase Nixon now, if America does it it’s not a crime?
Mr. Hyena,
During the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the
International Military Tribunal for the Far East,
Japanese soldiers were charged with torture technique on prisoners of war (WW2). Water-boarding topped the list. AMERICAN judges convicted many of them and they were HANGED, while others went to prison.
and:
Number of Axis POWs detained in camps on the U.S. mainland at the end of WWII: roughly 425,000.
Posted by: Truth | May 7, 2009, 1:45 pm 1:45 pm
“I find it quite hypocritical to lament the possibility of another 3000 more Americans possibly dying, in defense of the Bush administration actions. Instead of 3000 more Americans dying to date, the actions have seen the death of more than 4200 American military personnel, countless more American civilian personnel, 90,000 innocent Iraq civilians, with another estimated 3 million displaced. And that’s not to mention the coalition casualties as well as a nations infrastructure destroyed. Just once, I’d like to see a top tier official from the Bush administration stand up and state, “we were wrong”. What can we do to right that wrong? The one to do that would of course be George H.W. Bush.”
————————————
devilkev ,
Are you ready to condemn Obama for all the deaths in Afghanistan? There are going to be plenty. Soldiers, civilians & terorists alike.
Rather than continuing to play Monday morning QB, here is your chance & the opportunity for ALL liberals who agree with your statements to stand up and DEMAND that Obama bring our troops home from the Afghanistan theatre of operations right now! Similar results are about to occur over there, and your a bigger fool than you appear if you think otherwise.
Posted by: Mike_C | May 7, 2009, 4:19 pm 4:19 pm
I don’t believe that’s a good idea(sending the detainees to Saudi Arabia). After reading the article, I get the impression Gates has NOT thought this through enough. I trust the Saudis as much as I trust Bush, Cheney, and Bin Liden. They have one of the most repressive governments on the planet. That country is a breeding ground for terrorists. Very bad move.
Posted by: leftyintexas | May 8, 2009, 1:10 pm 1:10 pm
“Water-boarding topped the list. AMERICAN judges convicted many of them and they were HANGED, while others went to prison. ”
Many Japanese were executed for water boarding prisoners to death. What is your source that “waterboarding topped the list” What list?
Posted by: Sigmonde | September 11, 2009, 8:08 pm 8:08 pm
“We presently house worse desperado’s in detention facilities within U.S. borders.”
Worse desperadoes? You equate terrorists with common criminals such as murderers, rapists, etc?
Give us an example of a criminal in detention that is worse than a terrorist that would blow up an airplane. Thanks
Posted by: Sigmonde | September 11, 2009, 8:17 pm 8:17 pm