Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

$400 Million for Iran is to Prop up Their Economy, ah Yeah, Sure

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Press Statement John Kerry Secretary of State Washington, DC January 17, 2016

 

The United States and Iran today have settled a long outstanding claim at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in the Hague.

This specific claim was in the amount of a $400 million Trust Fund used by Iran to purchase military equipment from the United States prior to the break in diplomatic ties. In 1981, with the reaching of the Algiers Accords and the creation of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, Iran filed a claim for these funds, tying them up in litigation at the Tribunal.

This is the latest of a series of important settlements reached over the past 35 years at the Hague Tribunal. In constructive bilateral discussions, we arrived at a fair settlement to this claim, which due to litigation risk, remains in the best interests of the United States.

Iran will receive the balance of $400 million in the Trust Fund, as well as a roughly $1.3 billion compromise on the interest. Iran’s recovery was fixed at a reasonable rate of interest and therefore Iran is unable to pursue a bigger Tribunal award against us, preventing U.S. taxpayers from being obligated to a larger amount of money.

All of the approximately 4,700 private U.S. claims filed against the Government of Iran at the Tribunal were resolved during the first 20 years of the Tribunal, resulting in payments of more than $2.5 billion in awards to U.S. nationals and companies through that process.

There are still outstanding Tribunal claims, mostly by Iran against the U.S. We will continue efforts to address these claims appropriately.

*****

Congress Probes White House-Linked Campaign to Deceive Media on Iran Nuclear Deal

Funder of pro-Iran ‘echo chamber’ met with White House nearly 30 times

FreeBeacon: A member of the House Intelligence Committee has launched a probe into whether a leading architect of the campaign to sell the Iran nuclear agreement last summer coordinated with the White House to mislead the media and the American public, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The inquiry is part of a larger effort by lawmakers to discern the origins of a shadow campaign that top White House officials admitted to running in order to enlist journalists and experts to boost support for the agreement.

The latest probe, launched by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Ill.), centers on Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a left-leaning foundation that quietly bankrolled a core part of the White House’s campaign to sell the nuclear agreement.

Cirincione visited the White House almost 30 times in the past few years during the administration’s diplomacy with Iran, prompting Pompeo to launch a wide-ranging probe into Ploughshares’ efforts to slant reporting on the Iran deal, according to a copy of that inquiry obtained by the Free Beacon.

Ploughshares has been engulfed in controversy since the Free Beacon and other media outlets exposed its efforts to fund media organizations that provided favorable coverage of the Iran deal, including National Public Radio. The organization also held strategy sessions with White House officials to force support for the deal in Congress.

New information from the Pompeo inquiry shows that Cirincione downplayed his ties to the White House’s pro-Iran efforts to create the impression that he was a neutral foreign policy observer. Cirincione did several interviews at NPR and other outlets boosting the nuclear deal, and billed himself as a top source for reporters seeking information about the administration’s diplomacy.

“After the Obama administration cited your organization, the Ploughshares Fund, as a key surrogate in its selling of the Iran nuclear deal, the attention of the media and the American public turned to your group,” Pompeo wrote in a Wednesday letter to Cirincione. “Ploughshares’ contributions, totaling $700,000 to National Public Radio (NPR) over the past several years, raised concerns of bias and journalistic ethics.”

“Specifically, your behavior as the leader of this organization during the Iran deal debate has left many with questions,” wrote Pompeo, who has been investigating these ties since the Free Beacon disclosed that NPR had cancelled an interview with the lawmaker, a deal critic, after receiving funds from Ploughshares.

Cirincione failed to disclose his organization’s close financial ties to the media outlet during multiple appearances on NPR, according to Pompeo.

“After news broke of Ploughshares’ significant financial contributions to NPR, it was also discovered that no disclosure of these gifts were made, either by you or by NPR, when you appeared on NPR on March 23, 2015,” the letter states. “This disclosure ‘breakdown’ prompted the NPR ombudsman to conduct a review of NPR’s processes.”

That internal review found that NPR violated journalistic ethics during its interviews with Cirincione.

“What is disturbing to outside observers is that NPR is ‘looking into why the Cirincione interview in particular did not raise any red flags’ at the time, though it obviously had to be corrected,” Pompeo writes.

“Your enthusiastic defense of Ploughshares’ conduct after these revelations did not acknowledge or apologize for any mistakes,” the lawmaker adds. “I do not yet know if your organization had similar problems with other news outlets. I am concerned that this NPR incident it is part of a broader pattern of deceit.”

Congressional insiders who spoke to the Free Beacon about the latest probe said Cirincionce has not come clean about why he failed to publicly disclose his close ties to the White House’s pro-Iran deal spin machine.

“There’s a real disconnect between what Ploughshares’ president is saying and what he’s doing,” said one senior congressional aide familiar with the inquiry. “The Associated Press’s and NPR’s accusations against him and his group are serious—yet he continues using Obama administration talking points and refuses to recognize the clear errors in how he behaved.”

“You cannot give hundreds of thousands of dollars to public radio and then go on public radio many times without disclosing those contributions,” the source added. “And he is just one member of the organized ‘echo chamber’ promoting Obama’s agenda—imagine how many more like him there are.”

Pompeo seeks to obtain further information about Ploughshares’ efforts to boost the deal, including whether it obfuscated its financial ties to NPR and other organizations.

The probe also asks about potential coordination between Cirincione and the White House.

“Did the White House contact you about your NPR interviews and request you use any material or talking points?” Pompeo writes. “You have visited the White House almost 30 times in the last few years—years that were very critical for debate on the Iran deal.”

“Your official visit to the White House on March 15, 2015 is questionably close to your March 23, 2013 appearance on NPR to discuss the Iran nuclear deal. Similarly, your official White House visit on April 6, 2010 was right before your April 12, 2010 NPR appearance,” the inquiry states.

Cirincione has denied on multiple occasions that the White House had created a pro-Iran deal operation, despite the disclosure of such an operation by top officials.

He also has taken aim at critics of the Iran deal by alleging that they are part of a larger conspiracy to promote war with Iran. This has includedcriticism of Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol and Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.), who Cirincione has referred to as “neocons.”

“Deeply disappointed [Senator Cardin] caved to the neocon, pro-war camp,” Cirincione tweeted in 2015 after Cardin expressed opposition to the deal. “Weak statement excusing his vote against the historic Iran Accord.”

Most recently, Cirincione appeared in a Ploughshares video about the deal titled, “How we won.”

****

What is Iran saying?

(AFP). Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday the United States had wasted the opportunity presented by the nuclear accord and prevented the two countries from working more closely on regional issues.

“As the supreme guide said, the nuclear agreement was a test,” Rouhani said in a televised address.

“If the United States had implemented the nuclear agreement with good faith and precision, and had reduced the obstacles and delays that we see today, we could have had more trust and engaged in negotiations on other subjects, which could have been in the interests of the region, the United States and us,” added the president, a moderate who pushed hard for the deal sealed in July 2015.

The agreement, which came into force in January, saw Iran accept curbs to its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of sanctions by world powers.

While observers say Iran has met its commitments, Tehran accuses Washington of continuing to block the Islamic republic from the international banking system, limiting its ability to benefit from the end of sanctions.

“Sadly, (the United States) did not successfully pass the test and has not precisely respected its commitments,” said Rouhani.

Rouhani said the agreement had already led to a significant rise in oil exports, but “in other sectors, things have moved slowly” due to the ongoing concerns of international banks, who fear they are still liable for prosecution by the US Treasury if they do business with Iran.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Monday that negotiations with the West were like a “lethal poison”.

“Six months on (from the nuclear deal), do we see any effect on people’s lives?” he asked.

The Americans “ask to negotiate on regional questions, but the experience of the nuclear negotiations proves that this would be a lethal poison and that we can’t trust them on any subject”, he said.

DOJ Lawyer/Donor Spent 1500+ Hours Investigation IRS Targeting

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Judicial Watch: Obama Donor/DOJ Prosecutor Spent 1529.25 Hours Investigating the IRS’ Targeting of Conservative Groups

Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a letter from the Justice Department admitting that Democratic Party/Obama campaign donor and Justice Department attorney Barbara Bosserman spent 1,529.25 hours investigating the IRS’ targeting of conservative organizations in 2010 and 2012.  According to Federal Election Commission records, Bosserman contributed $6,750 to Obama campaigns and the DNC from 2004 to 2012, including 12 separate contributions to Obama for America between 2008 and 2012.  The Obama Justice Department and FBI investigations into the Obama IRS scandal resulted in no criminal charges.

The letter results from a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on February 16, 2016, which sought to overturn a lower court’s ruling allowing the Department of Justice to withhold these records (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 15-5271)).  After over two years, the Justice Department agreed to identify the number of hours just prior to the scheduling of oral arguments during which the agency would have had to justify the withholding of the information.

In February 2014 Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, for:

All Justice Department records from the Interactive Case Management System [a web-based system for storing and accessing information about contacts, calendars, cases, documents, time tracking, and billing, etc.] detailing the number of hours DOJ Attorney Barbara Bosserman expended on the investigation of the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status in the 2010 and 2012 elections cycles.

Subsequently, Judicial Watch sued the agency for failing to respond to the FOIA request.  (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:14-cv-01024)).

In what House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darryl Issa (R-CA) called “a startling conflict of interest,” Bosserman was appointed by then-Attorney General Eric Holder to oversee the FBI investigation despite her being a substantial contributor to the political campaigns of Barack Obama and to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). This lawsuit forced the Obama Justice Department to confirm the existence of a criminal investigation into the IRS’ abuses and that Bosserman, a major donor to Obama’s political campaigns and the Democratic National Committee, was part of the team of lawyers criminally investigating the issue.

In a joint letter to Holder on January 8, 2014, Issa and House Subcommittee on Economic Growth Chairman Jim Jordon (R- OH) asked that Bosserman be removed from the investigation, charging that her “conflict of interest has tainted any information she has gathered.” Holder refused to remove Bosserman, and she failed to appear at a February 6 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing titled: “The IRS Targeting Investigation: What is the Administration Doing?”

“These numbers, extracted from the Obama administration after two years of hard fought litigation, show the central role that a conflicted Obama donor played in the Justice Department investigation of the Obama IRS scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Is it any surprise that this compromised investigation found no reason to prosecute anyone in the Obama IRS scandal?”

Through a separate lawsuit, Judicial Watch released FBI investigation records that document interviews with key IRS officials about the Obama IRS targeting scandal.

Remember the Cincinnati excuse?

‘DC is like a black hole.’ – Cincinnati Group Manager

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 105 pages of newly obtained Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “302” documents revealing that, beginning in 2010 and lasting through the Obama reelection campaign in 2012, the Obama IRS orchestrated a deliberate policy of burying conservative groups’ tax exemption applications in bureaucratic delays. Interviews with numerous Cincinnati IRS employees in mid-2013 reveal that “Tea Party” group applications were automatically denied approval and assigned to a special “Group 7822” for an extended “inventory” process while waiting for decisions from IRS headquarters in Washington, DC.  One IRS manager “asked why progressive cases were not segregated similar to the Tea Party cases, but she did not get any satisfactory answers.”  FBI “302” documents are detailed narratives of FBI investigation interviews. The Obama Justice Department and FBI investigations into the Obama IRS scandal resulted in no criminal charges.

According to a Cincinnati “Group Manager” interview in July of 2013:

Group 7822 was composed of 12 to 15 people and was simply a place for the Tea Party cases to be held in inventory while the agent waited to receive guidance from the Washington office. There had been no precedence previously on these issues. If the case said it supports politics and political activity, it would be put into Group 7822. [Redacted] and then [Redacted] held the cases in inventory.

A second Cincinnati Group Manager interviewed in July 2013 told the FBI 302 interviewers a similar story, pinning the blame directly on the IRS Washington headquarters:

In the 14-month period when [Redacted] had the cases, he would ask for updates on guidance and was told they were still waiting on DC. He recalls receiving emails with contradictory guidance on whether the 501-c-3 or 501-c-4 cases should be denied. It was his understanding that a team would come and work the Tea Party cases when the guidance was provided … Nobody told him directly where the delay was in resolving the Tea Party issue. DC is like a black hole.

The FBI 302 interviews with Cincinnati IRS employees reveal that the agency adopted a series of policies assuring that Tea Party and other conservative group tax exempt applications would not be approved before the November 2012 presidential election. The strategy relied upon the IRS’ multi-tier “bucketing” system that determined from the time an application was received whether it would be quickly approved or indefinitely delayed.

The first bucket – the “incomplete bucket” – automatically kicked the application back to the applicant because of missing documents. The second bucket – the “merit close” – meant the application met all the criteria and was quickly approved. The third and fourth buckets meant that other issues needed to be addressed by the applicant.  According to FBI interviews with Cincinnati agency employees, top Washington IRS officials issued directives making certain that no BOLO (Be on the Look Out) Tea Party applications could be put in the “merit closed” bucket.

The strategy began in 2010, when the IRS Washington headquarters created its “BOLO” list and applied the term “Tea Party” to all political advocacy tax exemption applications. According to a Cincinnati Quality Assurance Specialist interviewed by the FBI, “The Tea Party was added to the emerging issues tab of the BOLO list in July or August 2010.”

Another Cincinnati agency official explained to the FBI what this designation meant to Tea Party and other conservative organizations: “If an item was on the BOLO list, that case could not be merit closed by the screeners/classifiers. [Emphasis added] A Cincinnati Grade 13 Revenue Agent explained to the FBI how this ended a Tea Party group’s hopes for early, or perhaps even eventual, IRS approval:

[Redacted] saw a few applications that were Tea Party cases and he sent them to a special group to work. [Redacted] identified cases by seeing if they had the Tea Party name or had verbiage that lined up with the Tea Party beliefs. If he saw this, he sent it for development because he knew he could not approve the case.

The “special group” the Revenue Agent sent the Tea Party applications to was known inside the IRS as Group 7822. As reported to the FBI by a Cincinnati Group Manager, “Group 7822 was composed of 12 to 15 people and was simply a place for the Tea Party cases to be held in inventory while the agent waited to receive guidance from the Washington office.”  He added, “In his experience, getting guidance from Washington takes a while; but this seemed to take longer. It was typical for cases to sit and wait until they got guidance on how to apply the tax law.”

Another Cincinnati Revenue Agent explained to FBI 302 interviewers that for those Tea Party groups consigned to Group 7822 to await Washington approval, the wait could be almost interminable:

The cases were old. He did not think that was right because the applicants were waiting so long….  He believes the problem was getting a response from Washington. People developing cases would not receive feedback from Washington for a long time.

A Cincinnati Quality Assurance Specialist told the FBI interviewers in detail of her frustrations with trying to get feedback in order to process Tea Party cases:

They called them “Tea Party cases.” She knew they were conservative groups from the stuff in the news in April 2010. Initially, she was assigned 20 cases. She received instructions from either [Redacted] or [Redacted] to contact EO Technical …

***

It then started to take longer and longer for [Redacted] to respond … By September 2010, he did not get back to her at all.… The Tea Party cases started to backlog since [Redacted] was no longer responding… She knew the Tea Party was vocal in the news, and could see the perception that big government, the IRS, was hold cases. She expressed her frustration about the delay. She felt that every taxpayer deserves as determination, approval or denial.

And an Exempt Organizations Determinations Manager in the Cincinnati IRS office told the FBI 302 interviewers that while she did not think Tea Party organizations were targeted, “The Tea Party designation [in the BOLOs] looks bad, especially since progressive cases were not included in these categories … [Redacted] asked why progressive cases were not segregated similar to the Tea Party cases, but she did not get any satisfactory answers.”

“IRS officials described for the FBI unlawful and purposeful bureaucratic delays orchestrated by top IRS officials in Washington, DC ,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “One IRS official details how concerns about the Obama IRS targeting of conservatives were ignored.  We hope a future Justice Department follows up on this information in a renewed criminal investigation.”

Judicial Watch previously released 294 pages of FBI 302 documents revealing that top Washington IRS officials, including Lois Lerner, who was interviewed in June 2013 and again in October 2013, knew that the agency was specifically targeting Tea Party and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public.  The Obama Justice Department and FBI investigations into the Obama IRS scandal resulted in no criminal charges.

$400 Million to Tehran on Pallets in Unmarked Cargo Plane

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We don’t pay ransom, and there were 7 prisoners. Since, Iran has kidnapped our navy sailors and captured 2 more Iranian-Americans.

Where are the emergency congressional hearings?

Washington, D.C. – House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) issued this statement in response to the Wall Street Journal’s report on the Obama administration’s $400 million cash payment airlifted to Iran the same day Iran released American prisoners:

“The logistics of this payment – literally delivering a plane full of cash to evade U.S. law – shows yet again the extraordinary lengths the Obama administration will go to accommodate Iran, all while hiding the facts from Congress and the American people.  Hundreds of millions in the pockets of a terrorist regime means a more dangerous region, period.  And paying ransom only puts more American lives in jeopardy.  We already know the Iran nuclear deal was a historic mistake.  It keeps getting worse.  What else is the Obama administration hiding?” 

NOTE: In February, Chairman Royce sent a letter to Secretary Kerry requesting detailed information about the administration’s handling of a $1.7 billion payment to Iran.  Following an incomplete reply, the Chairman sent a follow-up urging the administration to comply with Congressional inquiries.  In particular, Chairman Royce asked for detailed information on how the payment was processed and delivered to Iran.  To date the administration has not responded.

U.S. Sent Cash to Iran as Americans Were Freed

Obama administration insists there was no quid pro quo, but critics charge payment amounted to ransom

WSJ: WASHINGTON—The Obama administration secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran, according to U.S. and European officials and congressional staff briefed on the operation afterward.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.

“With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well,” President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.

Senior U.S. officials denied any link between the payment and the prisoner exchange. They say the way the various strands came together simultaneously was coincidental, not the result of any quid pro quo.

“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim…were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said. “Not only were the two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of The Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years.”

But U.S. officials also acknowledge that Iranian negotiators on the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to show they had gained something tangible. Read more here from the WSJ.

Border Patrol Website Promotes Lawlessness = Insurgency

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Border Patrol docTemporary Protected Status Designated Country: Syria Through 2018, which means forever.

 

 

The document above is just a suggestion. Always explained as compassion –>> A visa and passport are not required of a Mexican national who is in possession of a Form DSP-150, B-1/B-2 Visa and *Border Crossing Card, containing a machine-readable biometric identifier, issued by the Department of State and is applying for admission as a temporary visitor for business or pleasure from contiguous territory by land or sea. 

Mexican citizens using the Border Crossing Card may travel 55 miles into the U.S. – except in the Nogales/Tucson area, where travel to Tucson is authorized.

The Border Crossing Card (BCC) is acceptable as a stand-alone document (by itself) only for travel from Mexico by land, or by pleasure vessel or ferry. Together with a valid passport, though, it meets the documentary requirements for entry at all land, air, and sea ports of entry (to include travel from Canada).  Note: You must be a Mexican citizen and a resident of Mexico to have a BCC.

Border Patrol’s website offers advice on eluding … Border Patrol

FNC: Immigrants who want to enter the U.S. illegally can learn how and where to avoid the Border Patrol from an advisory on the agency’s own website, which critics say is evidence of the Obama administration’s “schizophrenic” approach to enforcement.

Safety and sanctuary can generally be found at schools, churches, hospitals and protests, where Customs and Border Protection agents are barred under a “sensitive locations policy” from carrying out their duty of enforcing border security. In fact, the agency’s website states that actions at such locations can only be undertaken in an emergency or with a supervisor’s approval.

“The policies are meant to ensure that ICE and CBP officers and agents exercise sound judgment when enforcing federal law at or focused on sensitive locations, to enhance the public understanding and trust, and to ensure that people seeking to participate in activities or utilize services provided at any sensitive location are free to do so, without fear or hesitation,” the government website states in both English and Spanish.

While the explanation is apparently meant to show the deference Customs and Border Protection agents show to sensitive societal institutions, critics, including the Media Research Center, say it also tells illegal border crossers where to go if they are being pursued. Agents are barred from interviewing, searching or arresting suspected illegal immigrants in such locations.

“So, almost any illegal alien can escape arrest by either walking with a second person (a march), attending some type of class, or finding a nearby church, medical facility or school bus stop,” the Center wrote in a post bringing the advisory to light.

A “Frequently Asked Questions” section explains in detail what the Customs and Border Patrol’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, considers safe zones for illegal immigrants.

  • Schools, such as known and licensed day cares, pre-schools and other early learning programs; primary schools; secondary schools; post-secondary schools up to and including colleges and universities; as well as scholastic or education-related activities or events, and school bus stops that are marked and/or known to the officer, during periods when school children are present at the stop;
  • Medical treatment and health care facilities, such as hospitals, doctors’ offices, accredited health clinics, and emergent or urgent care facilities;
  • Places of worship, such as churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples;
  • Religious or civil ceremonies or observances, such as funerals and weddings;
  • During public demonstration, such as a march, rally, or parade.

Critics of the Obama administration’s immigration policies have long complained that it undermines the mission of border enforcement by imposing rules on agents that they say leave them unable to do their jobs.

“This administration has systematically and maliciously attacked and deconstructed all phases of border enforcement,” said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform. “It’s to the point now where virtually nobody has to go home. ICE is no longer carrying out its core mission, of finding, identifying and removing illegal aliens from the country.

“Agents are in a state of despair,” Stein added. “They are being turned into nursemaids, chaperones and bus drivers.”

Telling people suspected of breaking the law where they can seek refuge makes no sense, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

“It’s schizophrenic,” Vaughan said. “What the Obama administration has done is to create sanctuaries for illegal aliens and to publicize them. That is fine for a social welfare agency, but not for a law enforcement agency. No law enforcement agency would ever want to broadcast where lawbreakers can go to be shielded from the consequences of their actions.”

The site does say the “sensitive locations policy” does not apply to places directly along the border, but warns its own agents that if they plan to move on a suspect in such a location near the border they “are expected to exercise sound judgment and common sense while taking appropriate action, consistent with the goals of this policy.”

The CBP website also provides a toll-free number and email address to allow illegal immigrants to report possible violations of the “sensitive locations” policy.

 

Half of Those Remaining at Gitmo are Cleared for Release

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There remains a key question to be asked: If those remaining are not a risk or a threat then why has it taken a more than a decade to form this conclusion? Additional questions include how much are we paying other countries to take a detainee as no agreements or conditions have ever been published.

Is this the right time to be doing this? Not so much as noted here:

Key takeaways in this month’s Terror Threat Snapshot include:

– There have been 24 ISIS-linked plots or attacks against Western targets in the first half of 2015, up from 19 in all of last year.

– The number of homegrown terror plots since 9/11 has reached 116, tripling in just the past five years.

– Foreign fighters continue to flow into Syria and Iraq.  There has been an 80 percent increase in fighters traveling to the conflict zone since ISIS declared its “caliphate” one year ago.

– More than 200 Americans are believed to have traveled—or attempted to travel—to fight in Syria, a 33 percent increase overall since the beginning of this year.

  The full report is here.

Half of Guantánamo’s uncharged captives are OK’d to go

Musab Omar Ali al Madhwani in a photo from his 2008 prison profile provided to McClatchy by WikiLeaks.

Musab Omar Ali al Madhwani in a photo from his 2008 prison profile provided to McClatchy by WikiLeaks.

McClatchy: The Guantánamo parole board on Monday said it had cleared a Yemeni captive for release to resettlement outside his homeland, reaching a milestone:

Now, 33 of the last 76 captives at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba can go to nations providing security assurances that satisfy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. Ten captives are charged with war crimes. So half of those long-held, uncharged detainees are now approved to go.

The figure could rise. Seventeen captives not currently facing charges await their parole board hearings, or decisions from them.

Musab Omar Ali al Madhwani, 36, “never held extremist views or any desire to harm Americans,” his U.S. military advocate told the Periodic Review Board on June 28. “I am confident Musab is honest in his intentions after Guantánamo” to pursue a career as an accountant, marry and have children.

Pakistani security forces captured him on Sept. 11, 2002, in a day of raids in Karachi, according to his 2008 prison profile, parts of which an updated assessment discredited. He arrived at Guantánamo on Oct. 28, 2002, after 30 or more days in CIA custody, according to a portion of the so-called Senate Torture Report on the spy agency’s secret prison network.

At Guantánamo, U.S. military intelligence dubbed him a member of the “Karachi Six,” calling him part of a six-member “al-Qaida operational cell intended to support a future attack” in the Pakistani port city, the country’s largest and most populous.

The decision released Monday by the board, however, noted that by March he had been “reassessed to be that of a low-level fighter” who was probably trying to get home to Yemen when he was arrested. The board said he should be resettled in a third country with “reintegration support” and security assurances.

His lawyer, Patricia Bronte, told the board that her client had grown at Guantánamo into someone she would welcome into her family home. She and two other no-charge defense lawyers who had represented him vowed to attend his wedding “regardless of where it takes place,” she said.

“Musab is no longer the shy, gullible youth whom two men convinced to run away from home and go to Afghanistan,” she said. Once, she added, he was “afraid of being alone in the dark.” Now, “he reaches out to calm his brothers’ fears and resolve their disputes.”

Madhwani was one of two Yemeni clients for whom Bronte bought socks and shoes last year after she noticed the men’s footwear looked scruffy. She said she didn’t mind the expense, but was disturbed by what appeared to be prison camp cost-cutting. The spokesman at the time called reports of shortages at the Most Expensive Prison on Earth “baseless”

*****

MIAMI (AP) — A review board has decided that a Saudi prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who attended flight school in the U.S. and was trained to make explosives by al-Qaida should continue to be held without charge.

The Periodic Review Board said in a decision released Friday that Ghassan Abdallah al-Sharbi should remain in custody at the U.S. base in Cuba because he remains a security threat.

Factors cited by the board include what it said was his past involvement in terrorism as well as “hostile behavior” while detained, including organizing confrontations between detainees and the guard force at the detention center.

A short statement added that “the board considered the detainee’s prior statements expressing support for attacking the United States, and the detainee’s refusal to discuss his plans for the future.”

The 41-year-old al-Sharbi attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, and later went to a U.S. flight school, where he “associated with” two of the hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, according to a profile released by the Pentagon before his review board hearing in June.

Authorities said he later received training by al-Qaida in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices and was captured in a raid on a terrorist safe house in Pakistan in 2002.

He faced charges that included providing material support for terrorism before the military commission at the base. But U.S. courts have ruled that material support at the time of the alleged offenses did not constitute a war crime that could be prosecuted at Guantanamo and the case was withdrawn. He cannot be tried in civilian court because Congress has prohibited the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for any reason, including prosecution.

Al-Sharbi is one of 76 prisoners held at Guantanamo, including 32 who have been approved for release and are awaiting transfer.