Guantanamo captives' documents

Initially the Bush Presidency asserted that they did not have to release any of the Guantanamo captive's documents. They asserted that no captive apprehended in Afghanistan was entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention, and that those held in the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were not protected by US law either, because it was not on US territory.

This position was widely criticized, and was challenged in the United States's Judicial System, with several cases eventually being heard before the Supreme Court of the United States. In Rasul v. Bush the Supreme Court over-ruled the Executive Branch, and clarified that US law did apply in Guantanamo. Guantanamo captives were entitled to mount challenges to their detention through writs of habeas corpus.

By September 2007 Eleven official lists have been released. Many captives names were spelled inconsistently on these lists. cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_CSRT_unclassified_summaries.pdf
title=Index for Combatant Status Review Board unclassified summaries of evidence
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=July 17 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_CSRT_detainees_testimony.pdf
title=Index for testimony
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=September 4 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_publicly_filed_CSRT_records.pdf
title=Index for CSRT Records Publicly Files in Guantanamo Detainee Cases
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=August 8 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_ARB_Round_1_transcripts_documents.pdf
title=Index of Transcripts and Certain Documents from ARB Round One
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=August 9 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_ARB_Round_1_Detention_Transfer_Factors.pdf
title=Index to Summaries of Detention-Release Factors for ARB Round One
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=August 9 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_transfer_release_decision_ARB_Round_1.pdf
title=Index to Transfer and Release Decision for Guantanamo Detainees
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=July 17 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_Transcripts_ARB2.pdf
title=Transcripts and Certain Documents from Administrative Review Boards Round Two
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=July 17 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_ARB_Round_2_Detention_Transfer_Factors.pdf
title=Index of Summaries of Detention-Release Factors for ARB Round Two
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=July 17 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index_ARB_Round_2_Decision_Memos.pdf Index
title=Index of Transfer and Release Decision for Guantanamo Detainees from ARB Round Two
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
date=August 10 2007
accessdate=2007-09-29]

Documents prepared for Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Administrative Review Board hearings

One of the results of the Rasul v. Bush ruling was the creation of the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants (OARDEC). OARDEC was responsible for the implementation of a one time Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) and annual Administrative Review Board (ARB) hearings.

The CSR Tribunals and ARB hearings structure was modeled after the Tribunals described in Army Regulation 190-8 (AR 190-9), but with different mandates.

The mandate of the AR 190-8 Trinbunals is to fulfill the USA's Geneva Convention obligation to give captives a "competent tribunal" -- authorized to make a determination as to whether the captive is a "privileged belligerent" entitled to the Conventions protections, an innocent civilian, who should be immediately released, or a combatant who has violated the laws of war. According to the Geneva Conventions only combatants who a competent tribunal, like the AR 190-8 Tribunals, has determined are combatants who have violated the laws of war can be tried for hostile acts.

The CSR Tribunals mandate is to make a determination as to whether the Guantanamo captives had been correctly determined to have been "enemy combatants".

The ARBs mandate is to annually review each captive's case and make a recommendation as to whether the USA has a continuing reason to hold the captive.

Eventually close to ten thousand pages of documents prepared for captives CSR Tribunals and ARB hearings.

CSRT unclassified dossiers

179 Guantanamo captives had the unclassified documents prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) released to their lawyers. In 2005 the Associated Press hosted 58 of these unclassified CSRT dossier.

Documents released in 2005

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Associated Press the United States Department of Defense released 507 or the 558 Summary of Evidence memos prepared for the captives' CSR Tribunals.cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/detainees.pdf
title=Summary of Evidence memos, released in winter 2005
publisher=United States Department of Defense
author=OARDEC
date=Winter 2005
accessdate=2008-07-26
quote=] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_feb05.pdf
title=Summary of Evidence memos, released in February 2005
publisher=United States Department of Defense
author=OARDEC
date=February 2005
accessdate=2008-07-26
quote=] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_mar05.pdf
title=Summary of Evidence memos, released in March 2005
publisher=United States Department of Defense
author=OARDEC
date=March 2005
accessdate=2008-07-26
quote=] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/April_CSRT_FOIArelease4.pdf
title=Summary of Evidence memos, released in April 2005
publisher=United States Department of Defense
author=OARDEC
date=April 2005
accessdate=2008-07-26
quote=] cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/final_CSRB_6.pdf
title=Summary of Evidence memos, released in Spring 2005
publisher=United States Department of Defense
author=OARDEC
date=Spring 2005
accessdate=2008-07-26
quote=]

List of the captive's names, the transcripts from their Tribunals and hearings

The DoD challenged another FOIA request from AP, for a list of the captive's names, and the transcripts from their Tribunals. The DoD did not challenge this request on national security grounds. The DoD declined to release these documents, and based their refusal by arguing that they were concerned for protecting the captives' privacy.

In January 2006 US District Court Justice Jed Rakoff, the judge who was considering the Department of Defense's arguments dismissed the DoD's arguments, and gave the DoD a deadline of 6pm Friday, March 3 2006. The DoD did deliver a CD, with approximately 5,000 pages of documents, in 60 large portable document format files on March 3rd, but they didn't make the 6pm deadline. Even so they sent a military courier to retrieve the disk they had delivered late, and replace it with a more limited one.

The documents the DoD released were incomplete. While several dozen transcripts contained the captives names, because they had spelled them out, because they said their documents bore the wrong name, all the other documents were identified only by their Internee Security Number.

The DoD released updated versions of some of the original 60 pdf files, relased another 16 files containing transcripts from the first annual Administrative Review Board hearings. On April 20 2006 released a list of the names, nationalities and ISNs of the 558 captives whose cases were considered by CSR Tribunals.cite web
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/detainee_list.pdf
title=list of prisoners
publisher=United States Department of Defense
author=OARDEC
date=April 20 2006
accessdate=2008-07-26
quote=]

This made it possible to tie the 300+ transcripts identified solely by an ISN with individual captives.

On May 15 2006 the DoD released a list of the names, nationalities, ISN, date of birth, and place of birth, of all the 759 captives who had been held in Guantanamo. [http://www.dod.mil/news/May2006/d20060515%20List.pdf list of prisoners (.pdf)] , "US Department of Defense", May 15 2006]

Habeas Corpus documents

Thousands of pages from captives habeas corpus requests have been made public.

Military Commission charge sheets

In 2004 four captives faced charges before the first version of the Guantanamo military commissions. The charge sheets against these men were made public.

In 2005 a further five captives faced charges, before the second version of the military commissions. Their charge sheets were also made public.

In 2006 one more captive faced charges before the second version of the military commissions.

In July 2006 the Supreme Court ruled, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that the Bush Presidency lacked the constitutional authority to establish military commissions. It ruled that only the United States Congress had the authority to establish the commissions.

In the fall of 2006 Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This act established a third version of the military commissions. Three of the original ten captives who had faced charges under the earlier versions of the commissions had new charges filed under the new version. These charges were also made public.

14 "high value detainees"

On September 6 2006 President Bush transferred 14 "high value detainees" who had been held in secret CIA black sites. They were the first transfers since Rasul v. Bush.

Another five new captives were transferred in the year that followed.

eptember 10th, 2007 releases

The DoD quietly released nine new lists and 112 pdf files containing new documents, or new versions of previously released documents.cite news
url=http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index.html
title=Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) and Administrative Review Board (ARB) Documents
date=September 10 2007
author=OARDEC
publisher=United States Department of Defense
accessdate=2007-09-29]

November 19, 2007 release of captives released because they were not combatants

In late 2004 and early 2005 OARDEC's recommendations that thirty-eight captives had not been enemy combatants in the first place was confirmed by the Designated Civilian Official.

In 2006 the Washington Post could only confirm the names of 30 of the 38 men. [http://projects.washingtonpost.com/guantanamo/nlec/ Guantanamo Bay Detainees Classifed as "No Longer Enemy Combatants"] , "Washington Post"]

On November 19, 2007 the Department of Defense published an official list of the 38 men's names.cite news
url=http://media.miamiherald.com/smedia/2008/03/27/20/NLEC_DetaineeList.source.prod_affiliate.56.pdf
title=Detainees Found to No Longer Meet the Definition of "Enemy Combatant" during Combatant Status Review Tribunals Held at Guantanamo
publisher=United States Department of Defense
author=
date=November 19, 2007
accessdate=2008-04-15
quote=]

References