WASHINGTON - Despite President Obama's assurances Tuesday that five released Taliban fighters will be closely monitored, there's reason to wonder.
Obama declared that the prisoner swap creates 'a structure in which we can monitor their activities,' but exactly how the Qatari government will keep an eye on the five former detainees was not clear.
The U.S. has significant economic and military relations with Qatar, including a highly classified facility there that oversaw surveillance missions for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Still, there was a report from Qatar on Tuesday that the five former Guantanamo prisoners are now free to roam the Persian Gulf emirate.
And a Gulf official told Reuters that no U.S. officials would be involved in monitoring the five men there.
Concerns about the diligence of Qatar reflect, in part, the case of Jarallah al-Marri, a former Guantanamo detainee released to Qatar in 2008 with a guarantee that he would not be allowed to travel outside of the emirate.
To the chagrin of the U.S., he flew twice to Britain in 2009 before he was arrested there and deported. Those U.S. qualms went public with previously-secret diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks in 2010.
Caitlin Hayden, spokesperson for the National Security Council, told the Daily News on Tuesday, 'While we cannot discuss the specific assurances we received from Qatar, they included, among other things, a travel ban and regular information sharing on the detainees between our governments.'
She said Obama and the Amir of Qatar 'discussed this personally before we proceeded. And they were sufficient to allow the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the national security team, to determine that the threat posed by the detainees to the United States would be sufficiently mitigated and that the transfer was in the U.S. national security interest.'
Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) said he does not trust Qatar to enforce any agreement.
'Having American security relying on Qatar,' he said, 'is a major mistake.'
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