Newark, NJ – A West Point study of Seton Hall School of Law’s first Guantánamo report confirms one of Seton Hall Law’s key findings – that U.S. forces captured only 24 of the detainees – and Seton Hall Law now reports that only 21 detainees were captured on a battlefield, and of that number only one was captured by U.S. forces.

Seton Hall Law’s latest report concludes that of the 517 detainees at Guantánamo, for whom the United States has produced its unclassified evidence, 516 were not captured on a battlefield by U.S. forces and 496 were never on any battlefield regardless of who turned them in to U.S. forces.

“The West Point study upholds our conclusions that the government’s own data refutes the claims that Guantánamo detainees were captured by U.S. soldiers on battlefields while shooting at American or coalition forces,” noted Professor Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall Law, who along with his son Joshua and more than 30 Seton Hall Law students, has authored six Guantánamo reports.

“The tiny number of detainees alleged to have been on a battlefield is so low we repeatedly checked out data, but the number kept coming up as 21,” said David Gratz, of Denbeaux and Denbeaux, a 2007 graduate of Seton Hall Law and one of the authors of the Seton Hall Law Guantánamo reports.

“The arithmetic is simple. The number of detainees captured by U.S. forces – 24 – is almost as small as the number of detainees captured on a battlefield – 21,” added Joshua Denbeaux. “Only 21 of those detained in Guantánamo were alleged to have been on a battlefield, and with the exception of those 21, no detainee has been accused of fighting on a battlefield. Instead of being enemy combatants, the majority of detainees are actually civilians, making for a very empty battlefield.”

“We are grateful to West Point for opening this window into claims that detainees in Guantánamo are there because they were captured on the battlefield shooting at American forces. As a result of West Point’s evaluation of our data, all Americans can now know that the claims made by President Bush, Vice President Chaney, Condolezza Rice and many others are false. Our government officials should have checked their own data,” said Professor Denbeaux.

West Point’s response to the Seton Hall Law report also does not dispute any of its other data contained within that report.

Specifically, the West Point study confirmed Seton Hall Law’s findings that:

• Ninety-five percent of those detained as enemy combatants were not alleged to have been captured by U.S. forces; 55 percent of those detained were never accused of committing a hostile act; 92 percent were never accused of being a fighter; and 60 percent were not accused of being members of al-Qa`ida or the Taliban, but merely of being “associated” with those groups.

The West Point study, however, does attempt to recast the detainees as a threat based on criteria it developed to classify them. Rather than distinguishing between enemy combatant and non-enemy combatant, the West Point study classifies the detainees into the levels of “Demonstrated,” “Potential” and “Associated” threat based on 12 criteria, including possession of a digital watch, travel to three or more countries, or training in small arms.

“It’s reverse engineering,” said Professor Denbeaux. “They flat-out determined everyone at Guantánamo is dangerous, and then had to develop the criteria to support that.”

“According to West Point’s criteria for dangerousness if someone wears a digital watch, has traveled to three or more countries, or possesses any small arms training then they are a threat,” commented Joshua Denbeaux. “Under that sort of classification, if you eliminated an unspecified 13th criterion of being held at Guantánamo, millions of Americans with passports and all National Rifle Association members with small arms training would be a classified as a danger.”

The first report on Guantánamo detainees published nearly two years ago by the Seton Hall Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall Law, along with its subsequent reports on Guantánamo detainees, was based entirely upon the government’s own data. In April, the Department of Defense asked West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center to respond to Seton Hall Law’s first report, and establish whether a detainee’s enemy combatant status is justified by the unclassified summary of evidence in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT).

In response to the West Point study, Seton Hall Law has issued an analysis of those findings and the methodology utilized by West Point. Titled “The Empty Battlefield and the Thirteenth Criterion,” the Seton Hall Law report reveals that West Point’s methodology confuses rather than clarifies the issue of whether detainees are properly designated as enemy combatants. Furthermore, the Seton Hall Law report found that West Point failed to address whether the Combatant Status Review Tribunals were an adequate substitute for habeas corpus.

“In its analysis, West Point deviated from Defense Department data and terminology to draw its own conclusions based on mere anecdotal evidence,” said Gratz. “They engaged in double-counting and the piling up of irrelevant statistics instead of examining whether the detainees’ dangerousness was sufficiently evident from the CSRT unclassified summaries of evidence.”

Despite erring heavily on the side of over-inclusion, the West Point analysis, nonetheless, concedes that at least 27 percent of CSRT unclassified summaries of evidence did not necessarily indicate that a detainee is in fact threatening, and that more than 1 percent evidenced no threat whatsoever.



The only private law school in New Jersey, Seton Hall University School of Law was founded in 1951, and is located in the city of Newark. Seton Hall Law School offers both day and evening programs leading to the Juris Doctor (J.D.), Master of Laws (LL.M.) and Master of Science in Jurisprudence (M.S.J.) degrees. For more information on Seton Hall Law School, visit law.shu.edu.