Book Description

In March 2011,Chairman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon and Ranking Minority Member Adam Smith directed the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee to undertake an in-depth, comprehensive bipartisan investigation of procedures to dispatch detainees from the Guatanamo Bay detention facility)GTMO) over the past decade. This necessarily included an examination of mechanisms intended to prevent former detainees from reengaging in terror-related activities. In conducting this study, committee staff travelled to eleven countries, interviewed nearly every senior official directly involved in these matters in both the Bush and Obama administrations, received briefings from the Department of Defense and Department of State, consulted with eighteen subject matter experts, met with two former detainees, and reviewed thousands of pages of classified and unclassified documents. Despite earnest and well-meaning efforts by officials in both administrations, properly evaluating detainees and ensuring that their cases were handled appropriately by receiving countries was, and remains a challenge. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) estimated in September 2011 that 27& of the 600 former detainees who have left GTMO were confirmed or suspected to be presently or previously reengaged in terrorist or insurgent activities. In this report, you will find the four recommendations set out by this committee along with a timeline of events, Guatanamo population trends, snapshots of reengagement, country evaluations of the transferred detainees and more.