Brass defends ongoing intelligence from Gitmo

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Military officials at Guantanamo Bay aggressively defend the "tremendous" intelligence value of detainees held at the naval base despite a legal battle over the detainees' rights and critics who say information from men imprisoned nearly three years is, at best, dated.

"Detainees under our charge right now have provided us tremendous insight and intelligence regarding how terrorist organizations recruit, fund, train and plan, and how they have the ability to compartmentalize information, operations and projects," said Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the Guantanamo prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Held at the prison are about 550 detainees, the vast majority captured in Afghanistan in the months after the September 11 attacks during the U.S.-led campaign to topple the al Qaeda-backing Taliban regime.

Gen. Hood, who spoke last week with reporters at Guantanamo, said intelligence gleaned during interrogation sessions "has been of extraordinary value to the United States as we take on terrorist organizations as enemies of our country."

But some intelligence authorities question the motivation behind continuing to interrogate men imprisoned in near-solitary confinement for nearly three years.

"The longer you keep these people, the less valuable they become," said Melvin A. Goodwin, a former CIA senior analyst. "They get socialized, they figure out what kind of answers interrogators want and they provide them.

"If you don't get [good intelligence] in an initial go-round, chances are you're never going to get it," said Mr. Goodwin, who heads the National Security Program at the Center for International Policy, an advocacy group for international cooperation, demilitarization and human rights.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA official who was involved with interrogations in the Near East, said that "the thing to remember is that information is amazingly perishable."

"When they are talking about holding people three years after the fact and still getting information from them, I just don't believe that," said Mr. Giraldi, who previously was an Army intelligence case officer. "The men at Gitmo probably know little or nothing about the current practices in al Qaeda."

Gen. Hood acknowledged that intelligence pulled from detainees "is far more on the strategic side than the specific-action side," meaning it cannot be used to guide immediate arrests or military action.