The Detainee Issue Has a Naval Twist

The Guardian has an article out regarding the use of US Navy ships as floating prisons. Actually the accusations aren't quite to that extent, in fact the headline appears to be misleading based on the facts presented. What is presented though does have the feel of being potentially legitimate, does pass the smell test, however is also presented under a political slant from a certain perspective.

This is being introduced as the center of the discussion.

It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.

According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.

Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans.

Reprieve will raise particular concerns over the activities of the USS Ashland and the time it spent off Somalia in early 2007 conducting maritime security operations in an effort to capture al-Qaida terrorists.

At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were "disappeared" to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.

Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.

I'm pretty sure I could name all 17 ships, in fact when making a short list, I came up with 19 possibles based on news reports and known activity.

Most of this is political, not Naval centric, and we are going to avoid that aspect of the discussion for the most part. We are not impressed with the management of the detainee issue since 9/11, the lack of a policy remains a problem. However, we also need to recognize that policy has a process that begins at a certain point, and that point is not the second someone is taken into custody.

I'm not familiar with Reprieve, but I would guess it is some legal organization. It really doesn't matter, other than to highlight these people almost certainly wouldn't understand a military operation supported from sea even if they were present on the ship.

Basically the suggestion is being made that the Amphibious ships off Somalia are conducting special forces operations, something we already know, and within the context of those operations people are being detained (no evidence provided). According to Reprieve, it is presented as a shock that after people are detained and turned over to the US, people are being moved to a US Navy ship at sea supporting the special forces operations. It is then being suggested, under the banner of more shock, that once thrown into a brig or converted prison area of ships between 30-40 years old, the comforts of the people detained are not being met. In the Guardian article, it should be noted no claims of breaking the law during interrogation on the ships are being made, in fact the Navy is not being accused of doing anything wrong except potentially holding detainees for unspecified periods of time in groups of up to 50 people, which doesn't even sound wrong to us. From my point of view, all of what is being reported sounds very true.

First lets analyze what Reprieve is suggesting is taking place, then lets analyze the alternatives.

Reprieve is suggestion that special operations forces are taking prisoners when conducting operations against extremist targets in ungoverned regions. Sounds reasonable. Reprieve is then suggestion upon detained individuals coming into US custody, they are being taken aboard amphibious ships in the region. Sounds reasonable to us, better to hold them on sovereign US territory (A US Navy ship) than on some other countries territoriy. Reprieve is suggesting that after such operations, intelligence is being gathered from those detained through interrogations by CIA or FBI on the ships, to further support ongoing operations. Sounds reasonable. Reprieve is suggesting the ships remain at sea for periods of time, which we believe will ultimately be disclosed as several weeks, with detainees on board the ships. Sounds reasonable. Reprieve is suggesting that sometimes the number of people detained accumulates to totals of up to 50 people. Sounds reasonable. Reprieve is suggesting that these types of operations have been taking place since 2001. Sounds reasonable. Finally Reprieve is suggesting that the prisoner offloads from the ships holding detained individuals has taken place a number of times in Diego Garcia. Sounds reasonable. The question I have is, given all of these details, where is the problem?

From my unsatisfied perspective of the administration policy for managing detainees, I can't find anything wrong with this activity as described, the policy problems I have with the process begin after unloading from the vessel holding captured suspects.

Lets look at what the alternatives might be. Ignoring the political agenda of Reprieve for a minute, let us state up front we much prefer the use of special operations in ungoverned regions of existing states to the alternative, which is military invasion. We also believe it is absolutely appropriate to detain enemies of the United States in this process as opposed to killing them all and letting Allah sort them out. Note there is no evidence presented this process is undesirable.

We also fail to see the problem with holding the individuals aboard Naval vessels as opposed to shipping the individuals to land bases in other countries, which of coarse is what is often called rendition in this highly political environment. If your house has a walk in closet, the cubic square of that closet is probably larger than the amount of space given to American sailors and Marines on board the old amphibious ships currently in service, so the suggestion that some prisoner doesn't like being cramped on a ship is hilarious. We need to spend a couple hundred billion dollars on the comforts of our troops on a ship before we consider the conditions of a prison on a warship designed and built in the 1960s. Conditions on an old warship can really suck for comfort, welcome to the Navy.

During ongoing operations, the expectations a ship should stop and sail thousands of miles to offload prisoners is very unrealistic. If Americans don't like the process of holding detained individuals on ships for extended periods of time in remote places like the coast of east Africa, Americans need to support the investment of several billion dollars for the MV-22, because it is the only asset in the world that would meet the conditional requirements for transferring a detainee off ship. On the use of Diego Garcia as a transferring facility, what alternatives are there really? Is Reprieve and those offering outrage suggesting the prisoners remain detained on the ship for the duration of the ships 6 month deployment? The alternative in this scenario is rendition, exactly what is being accused of the United States.

Considering the perspective of the details exposed are coming from the perspective of someone detained, the details as provided can be seen as reasonable. However it also because of this perspective the article is attempting to illustrate and image that is unreasonable. It is a safe bet that in the report to be issued by the Reprieve organization, alternatives to what is being described as current operational conditions will almost certainly not be offered. It will be interesting how closely the western media analyzes the details of this story and the report once released by Retrieve, because from our point of view, what is being suggested as a bad thing by the Guardian is exactly the process we would prefer to see than the overt military option that was committed to Iraq. It would be a shame if the politics of this drove beyond reasonable expectations, because with the Democrats looking to take control of the military options for the Long War after the election, it would be stupid for them to tie their own hands.

The real problem is at the point the detained individual leaves the ship. Everything up until that point, at least given the details provided in the Guardian story and what we can assume based on our understanding of Naval special forces operations, the rest looks legitimate and within expectations from our point of view.