NEW YORK, June 20 (UPI) -- Most of the detainees kept at Guantanamo are neither senior terrorist operatives nor the source of useful intelligence, the New York Times said Sunday.
After interviewing dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East the newspaper reported none of the detainees at the U.S. naval base rank as leaders or senior operatives of al-Qaida.
In fact, only as many as two dozen of the 595 men imprisoned at Guantanamo are sworn al-Qaida members, the report said.
The Supreme Court is preparing to rule on the legal status of the prisoners.
The Times said its reporters found government and military officials repeatedly exaggerated both the danger the detainees posed and the intelligence they provided and that long-term interrogations have provided only a trickle of intelligence with current value.
Several U.S. military officials defended the incarcerations and said intelligence generated at the base is still currently useful. But the commander of the task force running the prison, Brig. Gen. Jay Wood, said expectations of some White House officials as to what useful information would be generated "may have been too high at the outset."
