Posted By Josh Rogin
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - 11:37 PM
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Top Obama administration officials briefed eight senior Senate leaders Tuesday on a pending deal to transfer as many as five Taliban prisoners from the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Qatar.
The Cable staked out the classified briefing in the basement of the Capitol building Tuesday afternoon. The eight senators who attended the briefing were Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Intelligence Committee heads Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Senate Armed Services chiefs Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), and Senate Foreign Relations Committee leaders John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN).
The identities of the administration briefers were not shared, but we were told it was a high-level interagency briefing team.
All of the senators refused to discuss the contents of the briefing as they exited the secure briefing room in the Senate Visitors' Center. But Levin and McCain both discussed the issue in question before entering the briefing, namely the administration's negotiations with the Taliban over transferring the Taliban prisoners into Qatari custody.
Levin told reporters Tuesday that the briefing was "about the ongoing Taliban reconciliation efforts." Levin is open to the idea of transferring Taliban members to Qatar, but said the devil was in the details.
"It depends on what assurances we have from the [Qatari] government that they are not going to be released," Levin said. "But I also think the Afghans have to be very much involved in any discussions and any process. They weren't for a while."
"We're not releasing them. As I understand it they will be imprisoned in Qatar," Levin continued. But can the Qataris be trusted to keep them behind bars? "That's the question," Levin said.
Levin said he didn't know what the United States was getting in exchange for transferring the prisoners to Qatar, where the Taliban are preparing to open an office. But he said the possible transfer was not a significant concession to the Taliban, provided the prisoners remain in custody. "If that's what [the Taliban] are getting, it's not much of a gain [for them], going from one prison to another."
McCain, talking to reporters before the briefing, lashed out at the idea that the prisoners would be moved to Qatar in a possible exchange for a Taliban statement renouncing international violence, as has been reported.
"The whole idea that they're going to ‘transfer' these detainees in exchange for a statement by the Taliban? It is really, really bizarre," McCain said. "This whole thing is highly questionable because the Taliban know we are leaving. I know many experts who would say they are rope-a-doping us."
McCain said that Congress probably can't stop the administration from going ahead with the transfer if that's what it decides.
"I don't think right now we can do anything about it, but these people were in positions of authority. One of them was responsible for deaths of several Americans," said McCain, referring to reports that the prisoners being considered for transfer include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan, and former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund.
Is McCain confident that the Qataris will keep the Taliban prisoners locked up? "No I am not. And the Taliban don't think so either, otherwise the Taliban wouldn't want them transferred," he said.
McCain said he was last briefed about the potential deal in December.
Some of the confusion about the negotiations was caused when the State Department's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman said on Jan. 22 that talks with the Taliban were a long way off and that no deal to transfer prisoners had been finalized. Grossman was in Kabul when he made the statements and he traveled to Qatar the next day.
On Jan. 28, several former members of the Taliban government said that talks with the United States had begun over the prisoner transfer. "Currently there are no peace talks going on," Maulavi Qalamuddin, the former minister of "vice and virtue" for the Taliban, told The New York Times. "The only thing is the negotiations over release of Taliban prisoners from Guantánamo, which is still under discussion between both sides in Qatar."
At Tuesday morning's open hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Chambliss pressed Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director David Petraeus, and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Director Matthew Olsen to confirm that the Taliban under consideration for transfer were still viewed as too dangerous to release by the U.S. intelligence community.
"It appears from these reports that in exchange for transferring detainees who had been determined to be too dangerous to transfer by the administration's own Guantánamo review task force, we get little to nothing in return. Apparently, the Taliban will not have to stop fighting our troops and won't even have to stop bombing them with IEDs," Chambliss said. "I have also heard nothing from the IC[intelligence community] that suggests that the assessments on the threat posed by these detainees have changed. I want to state publicly as strongly as I can that we should not transfer these detainees from Guantánamo."
Clapper said he stood by the original intelligence community assessments, which concluded that the Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo were too dangerous to be released.
"I don't think anyone in the administration harbors any illusions about the potential here," said Clapper. "And of course, part and parcel of such a decision if it were finally made would be the actual determination of where these detainees might go and the conditions in which they would be controlled or surveilled."
Olsen, who led the review task force that evaluated the Guantanamo detainees in 2009, confirmed that the 5 prisoners being considered for transfer "were deemed too dangerous to release and who could not be prosecuted," but Olsen said he had not evaluated those five prisoners since then.
Petraeus said that his staff had been asked for a more recent evaluation of the five prisoners and that the CIA completed risk analyses based on different possible conditions for the Taliban prisoners' transfer.
"In fact, our analyst did provide assessments of the five and the risks presented by various scenarios by which they could be sent somewhere, not back to Afghanistan or Pakistan, and then based on the various mitigating measures that could be implemented, to ensure that they could not return to militant activity," Petraeus said.
EXPLORE:SOUTH ASIA, AFGHANISTAN, AL QAEDA, MILITARY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, PAKISTAN, STATE DEPARTMENT, TALIBAN, TERRORISM, U.S. CONGRESS, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 
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"Your"?
Your performing a wonderful job.
Most entertaining! But, sadly, you're illiterate. And your ignorance are only to be succeeded and exceded by the ignorance of your " favorite child " .
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God bless you.
They are only going to get back on the battlefield and plan more attacks against the west. This is insane. At least before you send them back, debug them with some flea medication so they do not spread diseases to the people of Qatar. Sending these terrorists back is a huge mistake.
They will return to the battle field and they will do battle again. It just does not make any sense. We need to take all their belongings and sell them in storage auctions to pay back all the room and board we gave them during their luxurious stay at camp gitmo. I am sure they all weigh about 50lbs more than when they arrived there. Sending them home is plain idiotic.
Answer: They are either relatted to President Obama or have the
same goals in common of destroying the United States.
or maybe the Obama administration are all on drugs.
what the dictator is thinking...
I would inject them with some fatal disease thius assuring their participation in future killing of US soldiers null...
The whole idea of negotiating with Taliban and releasing dangerous criminals that took so much effort, money and human sucrifice to capture isn;t just insane I consider it treasonous....
OMG
Barak Hussein Bin Laden is doing the same thing his namesake (Hussein)did. That is-in his last days, knowing his regime was crumbling, he released all the criminals and looney bins from their prisons.
Stay tuned for more, especially with this justice dept.
Why are they sending these guys home.
Maybe he's just trying to make room for him and all his friends and family when they are tried, convicted and imprisoned for High T reason.
Dems running from the "Good War".
After telling us that we needed to be concentrating on the "good war" in afghanistan- instead of Iraq-. Iooks like the administration can't wait to capitulate to the Taliban
These terrorists won't spend the night in Qatar. They'll be off to Pakistan on the next doonda boat.
We're having Rogan Josh for dinner!
Obama is America's Neville Chamberlain and the military's bed wetter-in-chief.
http://www.zazzle.com/FirstPrinciples?rf=238518351914519699
Could not have said better. He is a muslin mole, set to destroy the USA. The people gave him a chance, let's not give him four more years to complete his mission.
I live and work for the last 15 years outside of the US because I see the end coming.
It hurts.
there is more suprises coming...
Looks like Obama may well be finally revealing Who he really is.....the release of those killers in just a beginning...
Weakening our country, muslimatization of our country, disappering personal freedoms, making the decisions without congression approval or in spite of it - all are very dangerous signs....especially since the media is doing all in it's power to cover up , to lie , to attack the critics and opponents ...race blame game had been taken to unbelievable proportions....
This just shows how naive this administration is. The Taliban is not to be trusted. War is a dirty game, yet Obama believes we can 'talk' them into living in peace and respect of other views. The Taliban will lie through their rotted teeth to get free from GITMO. We cuddled them and gave into their every demand. We have sacrificed our best and bravest, then called them criminals for pissing on dead enemy bodys.
Wake up America!!!! We are not living in a fantasy world, we live in the real world with bad people who will kill us or behead us at their earliest opportunity, then piss on our bodies.
Levin, McCain and Obama: Master Bridge Salesmen
" But he said the possible transfer was not a significant concession to the Taliban, provided the prisoners remain in custody. "If that's what [the Taliban] are getting, it's not much of a gain [for them], going from one prison to another."
MORONS.
I have a better idea - ship half of Congress and most of the WH back to "Pockeestan", as Ø calls it. I am sure Ø can get them superb accommodations from when he visited as a student and started planing his career with the ISI and Rashid Khalidi.
Maybe Panetta can get McCain and Levin seats at the execution of the Pakistani MD who will soon be killed by the "Taleebahn" / ISI for helping us get OBL, now that his name was released BY THE ØBAMA ADMINISTRATION.
Obama and the Dems (surface at least) are the idiots. McCain and Chambliss were the ones saying this was stupid and we shouldn't release them. McCain said he doesn't think Qatar will hold them in prison and neither do the Taliban, otherwise why would they be negotiating for this exchange? Unfortunately, he also said there's nothing much Congress can do to stop the Administration from making the transfer.
What is sad, is that Americans do not grasp that there are only two conditions in the world according to the Koran. Islam and non-Islam. If you are not Muslim, you are at war with Islam. Plain and simple. There is no compromise with Islam. To capitulate constantly is indeed a show of weakness that the Muslims will use to their advantage. Iran has already said they will destroy Israel and the United States.
This just shows how naive our country truly is...it is indeed a sad state of affairs.
There is the operative phrase. Rope A Dope. I keep saying that you just can't make this stuff up! But there they go again.
This just sickens me. These guy's should have been put to death for their crimes against America, now the Obamanation is going to let them go! Let's see, commit an act of terrorism, kill several people, spend less than 10 years in prison, go home a hero to your people. Thank's Obama I have no words to express the way I feel about you and your policies.
Terrorists first Americans seconds. Love that pos democrat in office.
Date turned into random number
Yeast infections are also known as Candidiasis, which is caused by group of microscopic Candida Albicans fungus. How to treat a yeast infection
Some people have the vocabulary to sum up things in a way you can understand them. This quote came from the Czech Republic . Someone over there has it figured out.
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of Idiots such as those who made him their president."
A process that produces such inferior choices ensured that one day we would get an "oddball." In many peoples' minds that has now occurred. We elected a gifted orator whose only experience was a sophisticated form of Chicago-style street hustling. How is it possible that this man-child, with no experience, could attain the highest office in the land?
AMEN
Obama is the result of ...the dumbing down of America?
The sooner we increase charter schools, the better.
Got a link for that article?
What is the village idiot, Jimmy obama, doing about getting our people back? The taliban has atleast one prisoner that it has held for the last 2 years.
Obama to release 5 Taliban prisoners
Stupid is as stupid does. Do not vote for 4 more years of stupid.
2012 Vote for Americans, The Constitution & Personal Freedoms...and prosecuting fraudster politicians and bankers.
'..Taliban reconciliation efforts' - What the..?
Michigan residents, are you aware your 'representation' wants to make nice with a peoples who have a 'religious police' which publicly beats, kills women and children, is partnered with Al Qaeda, employs suicide bombers, destroys other than Islam places of worship, at most times with people in said place of worship, knowingly and with pride keep their people/ country living as dolts in stone-age like conditions, has thee most strict Sharia Laws thought possible? Ad infinitum..
And Levin wants to offer an olive branch to these POS?
Heck Levin's an American, supposedly and is wanting to recognize a terrorist organization as an equal?
The dude sounds like an enemy of the state..
...we also make Qatar take Reid, Feinstein, Levin, and Kerry into custody too? Put all twelve of them in one dark, dank cell together. Maybe even toss Pelosi in for good measure. Let's see what they think about the Taliban THEN!
From being there in Afghanistan, I have seen known Taliban released immediatly (within 1 day) after attackingAfghan civilians and soldiers and ISAF soldiers by local Afghan officials. If you think President Obama's orders releasing GITMO prisioners is horrific, the quagmire/corruption of the Afghan government and restrictions placed on ISAF under ROEs is the true horror. The members being released from GITMO have been out of the fight so long their usefulness on the battlefield is marginal.
Spot on! This Gentleman is correct, but you'll never see it on the news...
Spot on! This Gentleman is correct, but you'll never see it on the news...
If a person can strap a bomb on their body, at least once, I wouldn't call that marginal.
The Taliban need 50 cents spent on each of them after interrogation for a lead infusion. Then ship em home....in a body bag, just as they'd have our boys and girls sent back...
I don't have a problem releasing them as long as we hang them first, video the process, let the corpses get smelly for a few days, pin a flash drive with video of the hanging to their eyeballs, and drop them into the "presidential" compound of Pockistan. We're going to have to kill these dirtbags in a most wholesale way sooner or later. The sooner the better for everyone. Mark my words.
Why not arm them as they leave so we can track their activities once freed...better yet...let's free them in different American cities with plenty of ammunition to show them just how much we trust them....Better yet...
we can put them in witness protection programs throughout the country give them new identies, Jewish names would be a nice touch and if by chance they do kill again we can have Haley Barbour commute their sentences so they know we're a forgiving christian society...
A statement is what Obama is after?! Hitler made a statement, even signed it, that he wouldn't attack Britain. The Taliban are, at the very least, as bad as Hitler, as untrustworthy, and as ruthless. They will be thrilled at the ignorance and naivity of the American president - IF - that is what is making this decision, but I don't believe so. He is just helping his muslim brothers (bortherhood) and the expense of lives everywhere else. Anyone who thinks these murders won't be in the field shorthly after exchanged hasn't been following radical islam.
While Retarded McCain is briefed on continuing unAmerican activities by the Obama Muslim regime, Americans continue to sleep, watching this illegal muslim destroys America. I wonder how long it will be for the American Stream to march on Washington to get this illegal dictator out of office...As this muslim continues to destroy America, I thought only blacks were the dumbest group of people on this earth...That is a fact, and there may be a few exceptions, but not many...The world sits back as this SOB, and rightfully stated, his mother was a Bitch, going from black man to black man, continues to destroy this great country...I do understand affirmative action, as mentally blacks cant (in most instances) compete on the same level, and must be given an opportunity to achieve some success in this world, However, this total useless idiot who was taught to read an idiot board, who makes his own laws which are unconstitutional, while the news media, along with the corrupt congress sits back and watches, needs to be tried for treason...It is really important, while and not for long...Free Speech should be screamed from every corner of the US, until this muslim Obama is defeated, and imprisoned for his criminal background...
Please re-read the article. McCain does not agree with this transfer. If only the ultra-conservatives would have just voted for McCain instead of sitting it out we wouldn't have Obama in office. Now they are going to do the same thing with Mitt Romney because people like Rush Limbaugh say he's not conservative enough. Whether he's conservative enough or not, he's a thousand times better than Obama, so please, I beg you, vote for him if he gets the Republican nomination!
Well, Edwin, I just actually read your entire post and now I don't want you to vote at all. You're a racist idiot!
Remember the Lockerbie bomber? The same thing will happen here.
I suggest that as these idiots impose on every doctor in Amerika, they present "Outcome based data" on this plan before being allowed to release anyone.
OR
personal responsibility: any of the released violate conditions of transfer or parole, the senators put their money where their mouths are and serve the rest of the time OR pay from their vast personal fortunes made off their meager government salaries for the recovery effort, OR if the released kills another human the Senator be held for contributing to the murder.
get real you bozos
There once was a terrorist thug,
Locked up in Gitmo safe and snug,
Instead of the noose,
Barack turned him loose,
Our soldiers again he will plug.
Why would obama not release his muslim brethren? You can tell what kind of person he is by the church and preacher he went to for 20 years, all his Anti-American policies, and antics, his Anti-White stance, his race baiting, his condemnation of Israel and pro stance for hamas and hezbolah...this is to be expected from the muslim-in-chief.
Obama is Public Enemy #1 - He is a Marxist
And we have had how many GIs die so this fool can do this to look good in the eyes of the Left, the world's Socialists and the Enemies of America? Obama must be Impeached now so that we can limit the damage he is doing to America and her People.
John Hudson reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
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