Trump’s blame off base on Guantanamo release

MIAMI - President Donald Trump targeted the wrong president Tuesday when he criticized the Obama administration for releasing “122 vicious prisoners” from the Guantanamo Bay detention center who later resumed militant activities.

The latest report from the office of the director of national intelligence shows that 122 men who were held at the U.S. base in Cuba are confirmed to have re-engaged in hostilities after they were released. But more than 90% of those were released by President George W. Bush, the report says.

Every six months, the DNI is required by law to publish statistics on the number of former Guantanamo prisoners either confirmed or suspected of recidivism, a response to congressional fears that potentially dangerous terrorists would be released amid efforts to close the detention center.

Trump said during last year’s presidential campaign that he wants the detention center, often referred to as “Gitmo,” to be kept open. At one point, he pledged to “load it up with some bad dudes.”

On Tuesday, he said on Twitter that “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!”

But his statement lumped together the prisoners who were released under Bush and Obama and were later determined to have resumed some association with alQaida, the Taliban or some other militant group.

The U.S. opened the detention center in January 2002 to hold and interrogate suspected enemy combatants. At its height in July 2003 it held about 680 prisoners. A total of nearly 800 passed through the facility.