Hard politics on Guantanamo

The NYTimes headlines this piece, 1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds, but the real story is in the politics of the sourcing.

Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.

In other words, two people who oppose closing Guantanamo (holdovers?) heard about an as yet unpublished report and decided to use it as a political tool, releasing elements, in their contextual framework, to the NYTimes.

In a technical sense, this report has nothing to do with closing Guantanamo. The story's political application rests on the rather thin assertion that closing Guantanamo means automatically and immediately releasing known terrorists which is not what anyone is talking about.

I have every reason to assume the report is true, but the connection to the argument is false. If anything, it would mean that either 1) the intelligence collected on those in Guantanamo is largely inaccurate which led to the Bush administration "releasing" the guilty or 2) the Guantanamo experience radicalized previously non-dangerous men.

Either way, this report only relates to the "closing Guantanamo" argument if you assume that means the US is going automatically release everyone who is there.

Bad, NYTimes. Bad, bad, NYTimes.