Es sei nichts Neues und eigentlich keine Nachricht mehr wert, schreibt der amerikanische Kommentator Phillip Carter, dass viele der Gefangenen in Guantanamo von pakistanischen Stämmen an amerikanische Truppen für größere Dollarbeträge (zwischen 3.000 und 25.000) verkauft worden sind. Dies sei ebenso wie umstrittenen "Screening Systems", bei denen die Gefangenen nach ihrer terroristischen Bedeutung klassifiziert werden, schon seit drei Jahren bekannt. Tatsache aber sei, dass die große Mehrheit der Inhaftierten, zwischen 70 und 90%, keinen echten Wert für Geheimdienstinformationen habe, weswegen sich die Frage stelle, ob man dafür ein derartiges Camp außerhalb jedes Rechts brauche, ob es nicht ein ganz normales "Detention-Camp" auch getan hätte.
Dass Menschen als mutmaßliche Terroristen bzw. Mitglieder der Al-Qaida an US-Truppen weiter verkauft wurden, ist nicht neu und mit der großen Unkenntnis der meisten US-Soldaten über die Gegebenheiten ihres Einsatzgebiets zu erklären. Über diesen "Handel" zwischen Stammesführern und Truppen, so Carter, gebe es schon seit drei Jahren Berichte und Informationen. Neu sei allerdings, dass die Vorwürfe zum ersten Mal eidesstattlich vor US-Gerichten erhoben wurden. Das Guantanamo-Virus breitet sich demnach weiter aus, daran wird auch der Hood-Bericht nicht viel ändern.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2005/06/...sold_for_bounty/ They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing US bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the US government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
A former CIA intelligence officer who helped lead the search for Osama bin Laden told AP the accounts sounded legitimate because US allies regularly got money to help catch Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. Gary Schroen said he took a suitcase of $3 million in cash into Afghanistan to help supply and win over warlords.
''It wouldn't surprise me if we paid rewards," said Schroen, who retired after 32 years in the CIA after the fall of Kabul in late 2001. He recently published the book ''First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan."
Pakistan has handed hundreds of suspects to the Americans, but Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the AP, ''No one has taken any money."
The US departments of Defense, Justice, and State and the Central Intelligence Agency also said they were unaware of bounty payments for random prisoners.
The US Rewards for Justice program pays only for information that leads to the capture of suspected terrorists identified by name, said Steve Pike, a State Department spokesman. Some $57 million has been paid under the program, according to its website. But many detainees at the US lockup at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said they were sold into capture. Their names were blacked out in the transcripts of the tribunals, which were held to determine whether prisoners were correctly classified as enemy combatants
"When I was in jail," he told the tribunal, "they said I needed to pay them money and if I didn't pay them, they'd make up wrong accusations about me and sell me to the Americans and I'd definitely go to Cuba. After that I was held for two months and 20 days in their detention, so they could make wrong accusations about me and my [censored], so they could sell us to you."
Another prisoner said he was on his way to Germany in 2001 when he was seized and sold for "a briefcase full of money," then flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo.
"It's obvious," he said. "They knew Americans were looking for Arabs, so they captured Arabs and sold them - just like someone catches a fish and sells it."
Several detainees who appeared to be ethnic Chinese Muslims - known as Uighurs - described being betrayed, along with about 100 Arabs, by Pakistani tribesmen. They said they went to Afghanistan for military training to fight for independence from China. When U.S. warplanes started bombing near their camp, they fled into the mountains near Tora Bora and hid for weeks, starving.
One detainee said they finally followed a group of Arabs, apparently fighters, being led by an Afghan to the Pakistani border. "We crossed into Pakistan," he said, "and there were tribal people there, and they took us to their houses and they killed a sheep and cooked the meat and we ate."
That night, they were taken to a mosque, where about 100 Arabs also sheltered. After being fed bread and tea, they were told to leave in groups of 10, taken to a truck, and driven to a Pakistani prison. From there, they were handed to Americans and flown to Guantanamo.
"When we went to Pakistan the local people treated us like brothers and gave us good food and meat," another detainee said. But soon, he said, they were in prison in Pakistan where "we heard they sold us to the Pakistani authorities for $5,000 per person." It may be time to run a strategic cost/benefit analysis on Gitmo, and for the Pentagon to decide whether this detention facility has really been worth the cost in dollars, strategic value, and moral/political capital. My opinion is that it has not, but obviously I'm not privy to any of the intelligence coming out of there. Still, all of the leaked and public reports indicate that what intelligence we have gotten out of Gitmo might have just as easily been gotten out of a standard military detention facility
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