WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After four years of resisting disclosure of information on Guantanamo detainees, the Pentagon changed course on Monday and voluntarily released about 2,600 pages of documents relating to numerous prisoners.
The Pentagon generally has refused to release documents identifying the foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, citing security concerns such as keeping groups like al Qaeda in the dark about who is being imprisoned.
"It is an attempt to be transparent," Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, said of the document release.
It's not about being "transparent". It's about the Pentagon knowing that it can't hide this information forever.
The Pentagon disclosed transcripts of military hearings from the second half of 2005 reviewing detainees' detention, and submissions made by their lawyers. This comes a month after it released 5,000 pages of documents under a judge's order in a freedom of information suit brought by a news organization.
The recent flood of documents released by the DoD will take some time to evaluate, but there is no doubt that the methods and information contained therein will shed light on what's really going on in Gitmo, Iraq and the broader "war on terror" campaign.
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