User:Geo Swan/Guantanamo/training camps/The Felter memo is only based on the first 516 CSRT allegation memos

__NOINDEX__ See User:Geo Swan/Stale drafts

Another contributor has been asserting the same misconception, in a lot of different discussions.

Because short explanations, in those discussion foras apparently weren't read or understood, I drafted a longer explanation on their talk page. Which they seem to have erased, without reading.

Most recently they asserted it on Articles for deletion/Moroccan training camp. They, inaccurately, asserted that a 200 page paper, prepared by a team at West Point, was based on ALL the allegation memos, when it was clearly based on only the first 516 memos.

When I answered the misconception, on their talk page, and advised participants of that answer on Articles for deletion/Moroccan training camp they promptly erased my explanation. So I compiled both explanations here, and will point respondents in the afd to this sub-page.

I placed a second, different, shorter answer, which they also deleted.

I will put the second, shorter explanation first. {| class="wikitable"

The Felter paper was based on memos prepared in 2004 (redux)

 * I offered you a good faith explanation why your challenges to my truthfulness over which memos the Felter paper was based on.


 * On User talk:Geo Swan you repeated your misconception, stating: "To your recent message. No the report is based on all 516 memos. That includes the one we are speaking about."


 * lists the 572 CSRT allegation memos
 * lists the 464 allegation memos prepared for the 2005 annual status reviews
 * lists the 330 allegation memos prepared for the 2006 annual status reviews
 * lists the 229 allegation memos prepared for the 2007 annual status reviews


 * That is a total of 1595 memos. An unknown number of memos were prepared in 2008, in the last year of the Bush Presidency, before President Obama replaced OARDEC with his own interagency task force.


 * I remain mystified as to how you can keep repeating this misconception, after all my good faith attempts to explain to you how you are mistaken. Geo Swan (talk) 00:30, 21 July 2010 (UTC)


 * }

Here is the first explanation they excised: {| class="wikitable"

The Felter paper was based on memos prepared in 2004

 * In this comment you assert: "Your claims are almost ridiculous and just repeated false claims without providing serious valid arguments and proof. Where does it say 2004 in the article title???"

Short version

 * I know you know that the Felter paper's title is "An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries".  And I know you know that that 558 Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held from August 2004 through January 2005.  So I am mystified as to why you would claim we don't know that the memos the Felter paper is based on were drafted in 2004.

Long version

 * I know you know that the Felter paper's title is "An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries".


 * I know you know that that 558 Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held from August 2004 through January 2005. It took a further two months of paperwork, including an unknown number of "do-overs", for OARDEC to publish the list of results.


 * The Associated Press submitted a large number of Freedom of Information Act requests around documents generated at Guantanamo. The DoD declined to release some documents.  And those documents were challenged and released in March 2006.  But the DoD didn't challenge the request for the CSRT Summary of Evidence memos, starting in January 2005 they released the Summary of Evidence memos -- after redacting the captives' names.  They released five portable document format files, that, together, contained 516 of the 558 memos.


 * The first big scholarly studies of the Guantanamo documents, from Seton Hall University, were based on these five files. The Felter group intended to rebut some of the conclusions of the Seton Hall studies, so, even though more documents had been released, they chose to analyze the same 516 memos.


 * A further 14 CSRT memos were drafted for the recently arrived "high value detainees" who had been in CIA custody, in late winter of 2007. Those 14 memos were published in the spring of 2007.


 * All the CSRT allegation memos were republished, without the names being redacted, in September 2007. All the memos prepared for the annual reviews in 2005 and 2006 were published in September 2007.


 * You have implied bad faith on my part. Yet I know you should know the CSRT memos were drafted in 2004 -- with the exception of the 14 former CIA captives, who were not included in the Felter paper.  I know you should know this as you have expressed this misconception before, and I explained how I believed your misconception was based on misreading the passage from http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/index.html that prefaced the nine files that contained all 572 CSRT memos.  The first 8 files contain all 557 memos drafted in 2004, or January 2005.  The final ninth file contains the 14 memos prepare for the former CIA captives who arrived in September 2006.


 * I am not going to turn around and state or imply bad faith on your part. Instead I will say I simply don't know why you continue to repeat this misconception.  Geo Swan (talk) 23:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)


 * }

They replied to my second explanation, stating: "Reply to your second message. No that is wrong. And i do not understand why you not just read the report instead of original research. The reports leaves no doubt that the memos we are speaking about were included in their research."