Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Starting in 2006, the United States began transferring select terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for participation in their terrorist de-radicalization program. Some of the terrorists who have graduated from the Saudi program have engaged in further combatant activity against the United States and our allies, including two al Qaeda leaders in Yemen. President Obama has suspended the transfer of Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay in part because the government of Yemen does not have the capacity to mitigate the threat those detainees pose, and does not have a credible terrorist de-radicalization program. How do terrorist de-radicalization programs work? What do they do? Are they successful? Should we send more Guantanamo detainees to them?

Gartenstein-Ross discussed these questions and largely focused on the lack of the ideological component in these de-readicalizaiton schemes. His co-panelist was Marisa Porges, who served as a policy advisor on counterterrorism issues at both the Department of Defense and the Department of the Treasury.

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