GATES ON GITMO RECIDIVISM.

One of the bludgeons torture apologists and supporters of indefinite detention without trial have been using to argue against Guantanamo's closure is the idea that a significant number of former detainees have "returned to the fight". They've been touting questionable statements from the Pentagon declaring that a certain number of detainees have returned to terrorism. The only problem is that, upon close scrutiny, those numbers turn out to be inflated and inaccurate. Spencer Ackerman reports that Defense Secretary Bob Gates gave a little more perspective today in his Senate hearing:

Gates doesn’t really make an overt pushback, but he subtly points out that Guantanamo isn’t something to be afraid of. The total recidivism numbers “until recently” from Guantanamo have been on the order of “four or five percent, but there’s been an uptick in recent months.” Worst of the worst, huh? So much for the bogus 61 detainees back in the fight number — which, by my back-of-the-envelope calculations based on about 750 detainees having gone through Guantanamo in total, would be about eight percent, or double Gates’ total.

Just to put that in perspective, the recidivism rate for the formerly incarcerated here in the United States is around 66 percent. 

-- A. Serwer