Detainees in Cuba slowly give up information

Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – Officials who are interrogating detainees at Guantanamo said Wednesday they are having trouble sorting fact from fiction.

Thirty-four more detainees have arrived from Afghanistan at the U.S. Navy base in eastern Cuba, bringing the number of people held there to 288. The camp has a capacity of 320.

Interrogations began last month, but the process has been tedious, officials say.

“We get many different stories, and quite often the way that you determine the truth is to match it against information you already have that you know to be truthful,” said Brig. Gen. Mike Lehnert, the Marine in charge of the detention mission.

Lehnert said he believed the detainees were still withholding information, but each day the picture was getting clearer. In some cases, officials have learned the detainees’ names through letters.

Many detainees “have been giving false names all along,” Lehnert said, but “when we give them an opportunity to communicate with their loved ones, they suddenly decide that it’s very important that they tell their loved ones who is really there.”

Since the first prisoners arrived just over a month ago, the population has grown to represent at least 26 nationalities. Detainees speak a dozen or more languages and dialects and represent at least two religions – Islam and Christianity, officials say.

On Sunday, a U.S. military official said the number of detainees at Camp X-Ray whose allegiance had not been established was larger than the number believed to be Taliban or al-Qaida.

Officials say some may belong to groups other than Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime or al-Qaida, the international terrorist network that the Taliban sheltered.

Officials have emphasized the importance of the interrogations in the war on terrorism.

“The information that we develop comes from a variety of sources all over the world,” Lehnert said, “Suddenly, seemingly irrelevant or nonessential pieces of information become much more important because people are able to see the big picture.”

Information from Guantanamo interrogations reportedly helped officials identify 17 suspected al-Qaida members believed to have planned to attack the United States or Americans in Yemen on or after Tuesday.