Terror inmates may be released in US: intel chief
Mar 26 07:59 PM US/Eastern
President Barack Obama's intelligence chief confirmed Thursday that
some Guantanamo inmates may be released on US soil and receive assistance to
return to society.
"If we are to release them in the United States, we need some sort
of assistance for them to start a new life," said National Intelligence
Director Dennis Blair at his first press conference.
"You can't just put them on the street," he added. "All that is
work in progress."
Obama has vowed to close the controversial prison camp by next
January and has ordered individual reviews for cases against each of the over
240 remaining prisoners.
Blair told reporters that the review of Guantanamo cases was still
underway, and that the government was "building dossiers on each of the
detainees."
The Obama administration is currently evaluating what could be done
with the prisoners, he said, but pledged that if they are sent to another
country, "we have to be sure that that country will treat them in a humane
fashion."
Twenty men detained at the remote US naval base at Guantanamo Bay
in southern Cuba have been cleared of terrorism charges, including 17 Chinese
Uighurs ordered released by a US court in June, seven years after their arrest.
But the US says they may face persecution if returned to China.
In an executive order signed days after he took office in January,
Obama also promised to uphold the Geneva Conventions for the remaining
prisoners until the detention center is closed.
Blair touched on the controversial interrogation techniques used on
terror suspects under the administration of president George W. Bush, saying
that those methods -- including waterboarding, or simulated drowning -- would
not be used under his tenure.
But Blair, a retired US admiral, added that his team was examining
other "enhanced interrogation techniques" for high-value detainees that comply
with international conventions on prisoners of war.
He did not elaborate on what methods would be used, but said such
interrogations should be carried out by "government employees; they shouldn't
be contractors; they should be highly trained, very supervised."
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indirectly in any medium
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.18e9e5692442aa61d7510553b5ffc14e.e01&show_article=1
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