Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump blames Obama for terror recidivists
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed Barack Obama for the release of more than 100 captives from Guantanamo whom U.S. intelligence agencies consider recidivists.
The president’s tweet, just after 7 a.m., referred to an Obama-era report from the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence as citing 122 former captives as “re-engagers.”
But it failed to note that 113 of the men described by Trump in his tweet as “vicious prisoners” were released by George W. Bush’s administration. The report, released in September, said nine captives sent to other countries by the Obama administration were confirmed to re-engage, the term of art for having returned to the fight.
The recidivism rate may have interested the new president because of the Pentagon’s disclosure a day earlier that a U.S. airstrike in Yemen had killed a captive repatriated by the Obama administration in December 2009.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to keep Guantanamo open and add new prisoners. He had not spoken about the prison since moving to the White House; only alleged draft versions of proposed detention policy have leaked.
In 2012, Congress established the regular reporting mechanism by the intelligence community on what has become of captives released from Guantanamo.
It breaks down the report between the 532 captives transferred to other nations’ custody during the Bush administration and the 196 captives transferred out by the Obama administration. Those release figures don’t include the seven captives who died at Guantanamo and the Tanzanian man serving life in prison after a federal trial in New York.
Separately on Tuesday, Trump greeted the first wave of tourists to the White House since his inauguration.
He emerged from behind a French screen to a throng of cheering tourists — many of them fifth-graders from an Alabama school — who had packed into the East Wing of the White House for a chance to catch a glimpse of the 45th president.
“Oh my god!” they shouted as the president stretched his arms open to announce his arrival.
The White House was closed for tours since Inauguration Day as the new administration sorted out staffing and other logistics needed to usher in visitors to the 217-year-old house.
Among the first group of tourists was a group of fifth- graders from the Briarwood Christian School in Birmingham, Ala. Trump randomly pulled one young boy from the crowd — 10-year old Jack Cornish of Birmingham — hugging him and patting him on the shoulders before sending him back to the crowd of envious schoolmates.
One of them shouted, “You’re famous, Jack!”
President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary opened the White House to tours the day after they moved in, in January 1993. The Clintons welcomed about 1,000 winners of a lottery drawing along with then-Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper.
Under the Obama administration, the White House Visitors Office director welcomed some 3 million tourists.
Information for this article was contributed by Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald and by Vivian Salama of The Associated Press.