In a June 18 Washington Times article about former President Bush's comments to a Pennsylvania business group, senior White House correspondent Joseph Curl uncritically reported Bush's remark that “there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that -- persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind.” Curl then wrote: “The Obama administration has started to clear out some of the more than 200 detainees at the facility.” But Curl did not point out that the Bush administration itself released at least 500 detainees from Guantánamo since its opening. In a December 16, 2008, press release, the Defense Department noted that "[s]ince 2002, approximately 520 detainees have departed Guantanamo for other countries." The release also pointed out that "[a]pproximately 60 detainees remain at Guantanamo who the U.S. government has determined to be eligible for transfer or release."

Moreover, by presenting Bush's warnings about Obama's actions regarding Guantánamo while omitting the Bush administration's policies that preceded those actions, Curl offers another example, identified by Media Matters for America, of media advancing the claim that Bush's Guantánamo policies kept the country safe, and that, if the United States is now less safe, it is solely due to the Obama administration's actions. In fact, the suggestion that Bush administration policies with respect to Guantánamo “kept us safe” has been challenged on several grounds; indeed, there is evidence that the opposite is true.

For instance, experts and former military officials have stated that terrorists have successfully used Guantánamo as a recruiting tool. Also, McClatchy Newspapers has reported, citing “former U.S. Defense Department officials” who “acknowledged the problem” and interviews with 66 former Guantánamo detainees, that terrorists held at Guantánamo played a role in radicalizing other detainees, motivating some who had not been terrorists prior to their detainment to engage in suspected terrorist activity after their release. Moreover, several security and military officials who served in the Bush administration have disagreed with the claim that Bush's Guantánamo policies made the United States safe and that Obama, by ordering the prison's closure, will make the country less safe.

In addition, in reporting that Bush said, “Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind,” Curl did not mention that, as ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper noted in a June 18 blog post, “it was the Bush administration that sent some Gitmo detainees to a Saudi jihadi rehabilitation camp -- called the 'Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Centre for Care and Counseling.' To decidedly mixed success.” Indeed, in its April 2008 “Country Reports on Terrorism 2007,” the State Department praised Saudi Arabia for “implement[ing] an effective model rehabilitation program for returning jihadis to turn them against violent extremism and to reintegrate them as peaceful citizens.” The department noted that “Saudi prisoners repatriated to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo Bay underwent a similar rehabilitation program before reintegration into Saudi society.”

From Curl's June 18 Washington Times article:

Mr. Bush weighed in on some of the most pressing issues of the day: the election in Iran, the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, and his administration's interrogation policies of terrorists held there and elsewhere. The former president has not commented on Mr. Obama's decision to ban “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as waterboarding, which the current president has called “off course” and “based on fear.”

“The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again,” he said, adding that the country needs to stay on offense, not defense. On Guantanamo, which while in office Mr. Bush said he wanted to close, the former president was diplomatic.

“I told you I'm not going to criticize my successor,” he said. “I'll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work. Therapy isn't going to cause terrorists to change their mind.”

The Obama administration has started to clear out some of the more than 200 detainees at the facility.

Repeating a mantra from his presidency, he called the current war against terrorism an “ideological conflict,” asserting that in the long term, the United States needs to press freedom and democracy in corners across the world.

From the June 19 broadcast of The Washington Times' “America's Morning News”:

McCASLIN: Well Monica Crowley, could we see a Tiananmen moment in Iran with massive bloodshed. And if so, could that blood be on Barack Obama's hands?

CROWLEY: I think you are going to see a major crackdown of the kind we saw in Tiananmen Square in 1989, where those especially young people were agitating for greater freedoms in China. The Chinese communists rolled in the big guns, fired on the crowd, and you had death and blood and mayhem in the streets. We already in Iran have death and bloodshed and mayhem. The question is, is it gonna get worse? And based on what I saw with the Ayatollah this morning and his statement, which was completely tone-deaf and completely out of it, with no grasp on what was happening right under his feet, it tells me that yes, in fact violence is gonna escalate. They will encircle the capital with these 20,000 Revolutionary Guards troops from outside Iran and perhaps even outside of the country, meaning foreign troops that they're bringing in, meaning Hamas and Hezbollah, who have no qualms about firing on the Iranian people.

Your question about blood on Obama's hands? I think this is a very serious question because in the early days of this crisis, Obama was exceedingly cautious, and everybody said let's see how the dust settles. Let's see how it shakes out. Now we know how it's shaking out and it's not good. And for the President of the Untied States, who represents a country that is a shining beacon light and democracy in the world, for those protestors are looking toward us with pleading eyes. For the president to remain silent on this or morally equivocal, meaning the people on the street are just as equal as the Iranian government and those prehistoric Islamic thugs who run that government. That I think is a grave injustice to what is happening here. And if there is increasing bloodshed, yes, I think that the blood will be on the president's hands.