How Terrorists Escaped Afghan Detention Center
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On TerrorismWe can’t win the war on terror if we don’t put adequate resources into making sure the people we detain stay put. Regardless of my opinions about our detainee policy, to read that this escape was fairly easy going doesn’t give me much confidence in our attention to the details.
And by the way, I think one of the more glaring problems with the war on terrorism is our handling of the details. Sure, we create grand, broad strategies that many get behind (in theory), but if the details are botched, we’re going to screw it all up. And as I’m sure most realize by now, the putrid little bits that slip through the cracks eventually make the biggest stink.
According to military officials familiar with the episode, the suspects are believed to have picked the lock on their cell, changed out of their bright orange uniforms and made their way through a heavily guarded military base under the cover of night. They then crawled over a faulty wall where a getaway vehicle was apparently waiting for them, the officials said.“It is embarrassing and amazing at the same time,” an American defense official said. “It was a disaster.”
The fact of the escape was disclosed by the American authorities shortly after it set off an intense manhunt at Bagram, 40 miles north of Kabul, on the morning of July 11. But internal military documents and interviews with military and intelligence officials indicate it was a far more serious breach than the Defense Department has acknowledged.
One of the four suspects was identified as Al Qaeda’s highest-ranking operative in Southeast Asia when he was captured in 2002, a fact that emerged only during an unrelated military trial last month. Another, a Saudi, was also described by intelligence officials as an important Qaeda operative in Afghanistan.
And counter to what was previously suspected, this was not an inside job.
Although an American military police guard was initially suspected of having helped the prisoners, he was eventually cleared.
Well, that’s a silver lining…I guess. Just general incompetence, not treason…
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 4th, 2005 and is filed under The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 5th, 2005 at 11:39 am
Y’know, no human project in history has ever been carried out perfectly. WWII was full of major screw-ups, killing US troops by the hundreds. That’s how the term “SNAFU” got coined. What amazes me about the current war is how few details are getting dropped. This is as good as it gets in war. Remember, what makes it a “war” as opposed to civil engineering is that the other side is trying to win too, and will continually try to come up with something new or take advantage of weaknesses.