The Braintrust Omits Facts To Smear Obama

Yea, I know - Quelle Surprise!

From today's Op-Ed page at The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

The Obama administration's astoundingly counterproductive practice of releasing captured enemies is no way to fight a war.

A new report to Congress from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says 150 of 598 Guantanamo Bay detainees released as of October are "re-engaging in terrorist or insurgent activities" or suspected of doing so, according to The Washington Times. And of those 150, 83 remain at large.

And:

Catch-and-release consequences are deadly. Victory in the war on terror is less likely. Future terrorism is more likely. If this administration doesn't stop putting politics ahead of war's grim realities, it risks ending up with terror victims' blood on its hands.

That's some pretty serious stuff, right?

The Obama Administration/blood on its hands/released Gitmo detainees re-engaging in terrorism.

Now let's take a look at the report the Braintrust cited (what, you didn't think I'd wouldn't find it?). Here it is.

The part the Braintrust uses:

As of 1 October 2010, 598 detainees have been transferred out of Department of Defense (DoD) custody at the U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO) detention facility. The Intelligence Community assesses that 81 (13.5 percent) are confirmed and 69 (11.5 percent) are suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities after transfer. Of the 150 former GTMO detainees assessed as confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities, the Intelligence Community assesses that 13 are dead, 54 are in custody, and 83 remain at large.

And now the part the Braintrust omits (btw, it's the very next paragraph):

On 22 January 2009, the President signed Executive Order 13492, calling for a comprehensive interagency review of the status of all individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay. Every decision to transfer a detainee to a foreign country under this review was made after a full assessment of intelligence and threat information. Since the implementation of Executive Order 13492 and under the enhanced interagency review process, 66 of the 598 detainees noted above have been transferred. Of those 66 individuals transferred since January 2009, 2 are confirmed and 3 are suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities. [Emphasis added.]

Wait wait wait!

So there've been only 66 detainees released from Gitmo since January, 2009? That must mean that the remaining 532 were released by the Bush Administration.

Now the fun part - let's run some numbers!

Overall, there've been 598 detainees released with 150 of them confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terror activities. That's about 25% (150/598=0.250836).

Since January 22, 2009, there've been 66 detainees released with 5 of them confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terror activities. That's about 7.6% (5/66=.075758).

So before January 22, 2009, that means there were 532 detainees released (598-66=532) with 145 (150-5=145) of them confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terror activities. That's about 27% (145/532=0.272556).

Whose blood on whose hands? The rate of "re-engagement" during the Bush Administration was about 3.5 times higher than it is during the Obama Administration.

Yet again the braintrust over at Richard Mellon Scaife's Tribune-Review omits key facts to smear the Obama Administration.

Yea, I know. Quelle surprise!