General Michael Lehnert on Closing GITMO
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2015
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we invited Major General Michael Lehnert (Ret.), the first commander of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, onto the show. In January 2002, General Lehnert deployed to Guantanamo Bay as Commander of Joint Task Force 160 with the mission to construct and operate the detention facilities for Taliban and Al Qaeda Detainees. He is now one of the most prominent voices calling for the closure of the prison facility. In the interview, Gen. Lehnert describes those early days before GITMO became GITMO, how he managed the facility, and what he thinks should be done with the remaining detainees. In the end, he offers advice for avoiding mistakes when conducting critical missions and making hard national security choices.
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Transcript
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| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
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| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | And I called the Pentagon and I said, |
| 0:34.0 | why is this man here? |
| 0:36.0 | If you think you're going to get intelligence from him, |
| 0:39.0 | he has no grasp of reality. |
| 0:41.0 | He actually spoke some English. |
| 0:44.0 | He kept playing in his Donald Duck. |
| 0:46.0 | And I said, if you're going to charge him with war clock crimes, |
| 0:48.0 | I said he was picked up naked on the battlefield |
| 0:51.0 | with a Polish McCaw rifle and a white bird feather. |
| 0:53.0 | That's all he had. |
| 0:54.0 | Any compliment. |
| 0:56.0 | A court martial or court is probably going to declare him insane. |
| 1:01.0 | I said, so why is he here? |
| 1:03.0 | There was a resounding silence. |
| 1:05.0 | And it took almost eight months to get him open. |
| 1:08.0 | Because I used to say it takes a captain to make the decision to put a detainee on the plane. |
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