By Marina Koren
National Journal
GUANTANAMO — More than a decade after the Guantanamo Bay prison saw its first detainees, the man who established it says the center “should have never been opened,” and it’s time for the government to shut it down.
Michael Lehnert, the Marine major general charged with building the first 100 prison cells at the Cuban prison, says he knew early on that Guantanamo was a mistake. “I became more and more convinced that many of the detainees should never have been sent in the first place,” Lehnert, now retired, wrote in a column published Thursday in the Detroit Free Press. “They had little intelligence value, and there was insufficient evidence linking them to war crimes.”
While Lehnert believes some detainees should be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution, the majority of Guantanamo prisoners shouldn’t be held there. Supporters of keeping the prison in operation say released detainees could retaliate against the U.S. Lehnert says there is no guarantee that any detainee who is set free will not plan an attack against the nation, “just as we cannot promise that any U.S. criminal released back into society will never commit another crime.”
The retired general says maintaining the detention center threatens national security because it “validates every negative perception of the United States.”
Full story: The Man Who Opened Guantanamo Prison Says We Need to Shut It Down