John Brennan: “[Guantanamo] has served as a propaganda tool for Al Qaeda.” *UPDATE*

No More Guantanamo Detainees Sent to Yemen for Now, Gibbs Says
January 05, 2010, 02:52 PM EST

By John McCormick

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama’s top spokesman said the U.S. will suspend transfers of Guantanamo terrorist suspect to Yemen.

Yemen is “not capable of handling” them now, Robert Gibbs told reporters at a briefing. “Right now, any additional transfers to Yemen is not a good idea.”

Excerpt from Chris Wallace’s interview on Fox News Sunday with John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism

WALLACE: Several Guantanamo detainees who were released, it should be pointed out, by the Bush administration reportedly ended up in important roles in Al Qaeda in Yemen.

One such, Hani Abdo Shaalan, was killed on December 17th by Yemeni forces.

And yet the White House says that it has no plans to halt all transfers of detainees to Yemen, that it’s going to decide those on a case- by-case basis.

First of all, is that true that we have not decided to halt all transfers of detainees to Yemen? And if it’s true, why not? Why wouldn’t we want to, at this point, given the instability there, decide not to send any Yemeni detainees back to the country?

BRENNAN: Well, first of all, we ought to put this in context. During the last administration, 532 detainees were transferred from Guantanamo. During this administration, we have transferred 42. Seven of those have gone back to Yemen. The first one went about six or eight weeks ago and six went in December.

We’ve had close dialogue with the Yemeni government about the expectations that we have as far as what they’re supposed to do when these detainees go back.

Several of those detainees were put into Yemeni custody right away. We’re continuing to talk with them. What we’re trying to do is to do this in a very measured fashion.

Stephen Hayes remarks on the nature of a few of these seven Gitmo graduates:

the Obama administration repatriated six Yemenis who had been held at Gitmo. Among them, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, a graduate of al Qaeda’s famous Khalden training camp. Batarfi has been waging jihad since the late 1980s, when he fought the Soviets. Batarfi, an orthopedic surgeon, also stayed at al Qaeda guesthouses, worked for an al Qaeda front group, met with a “Malaysian microbiologist” who was almost certainly the head of al Qaeda’s anthrax program, and spent time with Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora.

And as the Long War Journal link provided on Hani Abdo Shaalan demonstrates, some of the past releases under the Bush Administration have been obvious mistakes. A number of the detainees who remained at Guantanamo are purportedly among the “worst of the worst”. So why entrust a weak government like Yemen with the detention of ruthless, unrepentant jihadi-roaches, when Yemen has a roach-infestation problem they cannot control?

Guantanamo facility must be closed. It has served as a propaganda tool for Al Qaeda. We’re determined to close it.

Why must Guantanamo be closed? The opinion of the matter is, President Obama desires to close it to fulfill a campaign pledge. A lot of things have served as propaganda fodder for al Qaeda. But you defeat that with counter-propaganda. Guantanamo remains the least bad option for holding committed Islamic terror nuts. We’ve poured over $54 million into making Gitmo the safest, most transparent and highly scrutinized holding facility in the world. It is insane to allow anti-war left-wing liberals, anti-American propaganda, and al Qaeda propaganda to write the narrative on Guantanamo.

I know the arguments are more complex than what Brennan was able to put forth on air with the time allotted to him; but saying “it has served as a propaganda tool for Al Qaeda” as a reason to close it drives me crazy! It’s another victory for al Qaeda that did not have to be conceded. We’re giving them a freebee.

We’re not going to, though, do anything that is going to put American security at risk.

So working closely with the Yemeni government, right now we are looking at the other detainees in Guantanamo from Yemen, and we are going to take the right steps, but we’re not going to do anything that put Americans at risk.

WALLACE: But you are going to consider on a case-by-case basis sending more Yemenis back to Yemen?

BRENNAN: Absolutely. We’re going to be looking at this, working closely with the Yemeni government, and ensuring that these security measures are put in place as we address the security situation on the ground.

I recommend reading the Stephen Hayes piece after reading that last block quote.