Lawfare Archive: General Michael Lehnert on Closing GITMO
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From March 21, 2015: This week, we invited Major General Michael Lehnert (Ret.), the first commander of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to chat on 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 more prominent voices calling for the closure of the prison facility. In the interview, General Lehnert describes those early days of uncertainty before GITMO became "GITMO," how, while facing a policy vacuum in Washington, he built and managed the facility, and what he thinks should be done with the remaining detainees now. In the end, he offers advice for how future policymakers can avoid mistakes when conducting critical missions and making hard national security choices.
You can read General Lehnert's most recent piece calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay detention facility at Politico.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | I'm Avery Schwarz, intern at LawFair, with an episode from the LawFair Archive for January 14, 2023. |
| 0:47.0 | This past Wednesday marked 21 years since the first detainees arrived at the US Military Prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. |
| 0:55.0 | For today's Archive episode, I chose an interview from March 2015 to highlight the anniversary. |
| 1:01.0 | In the episode, Cody Poplin sat down with General Michael Lenter, |
| 1:05.0 | the first commander of the Guantanamo detention facility, |
| 1:08.0 | to discuss the early days of Guantanamo, its development and controversy in the political sphere, |
| 1:13.0 | calls for its dissolution and more. |
| 1:16.0 | I'm Cody Poplin, and this is the LawFair podcast March 21, 2015. |
| 1:31.0 | That was Major General Michael Lenter, you just heard, |
| 1:34.0 | the first commander of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. |
| 1:38.0 | General Lenter deployed to Guantanamo Bay as commander of Joint Task Force 160 in January of 2002, |
| 1:45.0 | with the mission to construct and operate the detention facilities for Taliban and Al-Qaeda detainees. |
| 1:51.0 | He is now one of the most prominent voices calling for the closure of the prison facility. |
| 1:56.0 | This week, we invited General Lenter onto the show to describe those early days before Gitmo became Gitmo, |
| 2:03.0 | how he managed the facility and what he thinks should be done with the remaining detainees. |
| 2:08.0 | In the end, General Liner offers advice for avoiding mistakes when conducting critical missions and making hard national security choices. |
... |
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