“The United States, which this week said it would apply the Geneva Convention to captured Taliban fighters but not to members of al-Qaida, is struggling to differentiate between the prisoners held in Cuba, a senior Army officer said Saturday. Also Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Saturday that it disagrees with the Bush administration on the detainee issue, and that would keep trying to persuade American officials to change U.S. policy,” MSNBC reports.

Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert said on Saturday the U.S. Army had been unable to determine to which of the two groups many of the prisoners at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay belonged[…]

[…]Lehnert, in charge of the task force running the Guantanamo Bay prison, indicated the interrogation process was painfully slow and that many of the prisoners were being uncooperative and giving false information.

‘A large number claim to be Taliban, a smaller number we have been able to confirm as al-Qaida, and a rather large number in the middle we have not been able to determine their status,’ Lehnert said at a media briefing.

‘Many of the detainees are not forthcoming. Many have been interviewed as many as four times, each time providing a different name and different information,’ he added.

Each time providing a different name and different information, eh? Fine. Declare this an “Al Qaeda” tactic, cite the requisite pages in the Al Qaeda Terrorist Training Manual, and let’s just proceed apace with the handing out of the chocolates.

What a colossal farce. And all to make a bunch of silly sancto-crats feel good about themselves…

—–