Stepping aside from the ongoing back and forth blasts between Sen. John McCain and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey on waterboarding, it's time for another Bush-era official to offer his take on the policies of the time. So Donald Rumsfeld talks WikiLeaks with vindicated verve in today's Washington Post. An excerpt:
The documents should also disprove some myths that have dogged Guantanamo and the reputations of those who honorably serve there. The classified record, for example, confirms that three detainees who died in 2006 were suicides â?? not, as some have irresponsibly alleged, victims of brutal interrogations. The documents chronicle the lengths to which military guards accommodated Muslim religious sensibilities: sounding a call to prayer five times a day, providing halal meals and touching Korans only with gloves â?? not flushing them down toilets, as was falsely alleged by one U.S. magazine. There was no policy of mistreatment, much less torture.The release of this classified information has compromised intelligence sources and methods, risking lives. The documents indicate, for example, that some al-Qaeda members turned and revealed large quantities of information about their colleagues. The cooperation of one Yemeni informant â?? since released â?? who fingered dozens of fellow detainees as members of al-Qaeda is now public, making him vulnerable to retribution.
Rumsfeld, one of the original co-sponsors of the Freedom of Information Act, has to smile at the results. In my recent interview with him - full transcript to come - Rumsfeld emphasized that with the release of his detailed documentation tied to his book project, he was interested not in revisionist history, but in putting out the truth about what happened for future historians to study and consider. Rumsfeld again:
Julian Assange hoped that his latest gamble with the lives of intelligence professionals, military personnel and terrorist informants would embarrass the U.S. government and inhibit its ability to strike our enemies. But the WikiLeaks documents, coupled with what we know about how bin Ladenâ??s hiding place was discovered, may be among the clearest vindications yet of the Bush administrationâ??s policies in the struggle to protect America and the free world from more terrorist attacks. They may prove the strongest arguments for keeping open the invaluable asset that is Guantanamo Bay.
(AP Photo)
