Ghetto isolation
24 November 2007
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
Adrian Yeeles, London, UK

Dimitry Volchenkov's surprise in discovering that the ancient Ghetto area "was the most isolated district" in Venice is as nothing compared to that of those who actually know the city (3 November, p 8).

At a little over a kilometre, the Ghetto is a trivial distance from the city's heart at the Rialto Bridge. A few days ago it took my wife and I just 10 minutes, walking at a leisurely pace, to make the trip.

The Ghetto's isolation was juridical, not geographic: it was probably the world's first open prison, its population locked up at night and forced to wear a distinguishing uniform. Their "crime": being Jewish.

Isolation is clearly a major factor in social well being but there are many examples demonstrating that this is a complex issue: for example, the most notorious criminal ghetto in Victorian London, the St Giles Rookery, was but a stone's throw from opulent Oxford Street (the slum was knocked down to create New Oxford Street).

However, Volchenkov and Philippe Blanchard argue that "Geographical isolation is the prime cause of social deprivation, economic inactivity and crime" and had developed their algorithm to "capture a neighbourhood's inaccessibility" with the aim of exposing hidden islands of future deprivation. The fact that their equations showed that the ghetto was inaccessible, was therefore offered as somehow "proving" their starting point.

For this to be so, one has to implicitly accept both that their method is valid (it isn't, as you can discover for yourself if you visit this wonderful city) and that the Ghetto was socially deprived, economically inactive and prone to criminality. Despite problems due to severe overcrowding, the evidence for the latter is quite the reverse.

The Ghetto probably derived its name from the Italian word for the metal foundries that originally stood there. That the generic term ghetto has become, when describing some of the world's most deprived city districts, a term with more and more negative connotations should not be used as an excuse to rewrite history.

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04 November 2007

Tradjectory is much like Britain/Europe in Century past...
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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 02, 2007
Landless Chinese farmers migrate to Africa in search of agricultural opportunities
Jacques Cassiman, a famous European geneticist with a heart for Africa, was once asked what the future has in store for Europe's youth, who live in a continent whose population is ageing rapidly. His answer: in a 'reverse migration' of sorts, the creative and courageous ones will move to Africa, where they will find countless exciting opportunities no longer available in the old, grey continent. And when they migrate, they will be surprised to find many Chinese collegues in their newfound African homeland.

It seems like the Afro-optimist's vision is partly becoming a reality. China's presence in Africa is growing rapidly. As is well known, the People's Republic is involved in massive infrastructure projects, in the construction sector, in the oil and minerals industry. But what few people know is that more and more poor Chinese farmers are migrating to the continent too, in search for agricultural opportunities (see story below).

In fact, the Chinese government is actively encouraging them to do so. Landless and small farmers, as well as rural Chinese forced off their land and unable to find urban jobs in the emerging megacities are called on by the country's Export-Import Bank to move to Africa to become farm owners and practise their agricultural skills.

Rural exodus
China's rapid urbanisation is transforming millions of farmers into urban dwellers - a process described by some as the largest rural exodus in the history of mankind - but finding them jobs is becoming increasingly difficult.

The plans for the city of Chongqing speak for themselves: under a National Development and Reform Commission plan for rapid urbanisation, the place is being turned into a gigantic megalopolis that will house several tens of millions of people. The central government embarked on an economic policy that is aimed at developing western China - the 'China Western Development strategy' - and Chongqing is planned to become the 'Gateway' that will open up this part of the country. Chongqing is located at the head of the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam and will see ocean going ships arrive at its quays soon. Beijing wants the city to become the 'Chicago of the East', and is pumping billions into its infrastructures.

The project is estimated to result in the transformation of some 12 million farmers into urbanites by 2020. A large proportion of these relocated people will not find jobs easily and would be better of utilizing their skills to help both African farmers and themselves - so the government thinks.

Li Ruogu, head of the Chinese Export-Import Bank, explains the overseas migration plan, the logic of which is simple but powerful.
Chongqing is well experienced in agricultural mass production, while in Africa there is plenty of land but food production is unsatisfactory. There is huge room for co-operation on both sides. We have already supported several agricultural projects in Africa, all of which are generating very sound profits. Chongqing's labour exports have just started, but they will take off once we convince the farmers to become landlords abroad. [...] the bank will give full support to the farmers in terms of capital investment, project development and product-selling channels.
Chongqing's deputy mayor Zhou Mubing says the local authorities and business sector too will encourage farmers to go overseas.

Boosting crop yields
Regional governments have been sending farmers to Africa for years, with more than 13,000 rural people from Baoding in Hebei province alone leaving for the troubled continent in the past decade, establishing 'Baoding villages' there. These farmers are working in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Senegal, growing crops efficiently with African partners and then turning them into food products.

The enormous availability of land and the potential to boost Africa's crop yields dramatically are key incentives for China's migrant farmers. African farmers themselves remain highly unproductive and their Chinese collegues may well be bringing the necessary catalyst to change this situation. They have the skills and increasingly the channels with which to import the basic inputs needed to make Africa's farming sector productive.

According to Liu Jianjun of the China-Africa Business Council, which helps Chinese firms find business opportunities in Africa, the mainland's farmers are effectively using their expertise to help Africans mechanise farms, select better seeds and inputs, manage production more efficiently, and market products better. The result is precisely what African countries need: an increase in crop yields and improved marketing of food:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: agriculture :: urbanisation :: migration :: China :: Africa ::

If the Chinese continue to help local ruralites acquire basic farming skills and cooperate with communities in marketing the products, this could prove to be a win-win situation for both. The process might be more effective than the countless asssistance programs offered by the West and international organisations, aimed at improving African agriculture.

Liu Jianjun, who has helped relocate more than 10,000 Chinese farmers, thinks the productive synergy between both continents will result in tens of thousands more farmers arriving in Africa over the coming years.
At first, people were not willing to go to Africa because it's too hot, there are diseases and there are wars. But after the Chinese government called for people to go, they were more positive.
There are no official figures on the total number of Chinese farmers in Africa yet, but the mainland's labour exports this year had grown by 33 per cent compared with last year, the Ministry of Commerce found. A gross estimate says that more than 750,000 Chinese are now making a living in Africa (in all sectors, including agriculture).

Personal motivation
This latest wave of Chinese migrants is, however, not the first to have travelled to Africa. In the 1960s, China's communist leader Mao Zedong forged close links with the continent in a bid to garner political support. But the Chinese who have moved to Africa in the last 10 years are going for economic, not political reasons as they did under Mao.

According to Chris Alden, of the South African Institute of International Affairs, who has written a book titled China in Africa, the Chinese are already changing the economic landscape there as they seek to enrich not just their companies and their country, but also themselves. And their influence is set to grow.

Alden says with so many poor farmers in China unable to make a living off the land, Africa presents a host of inviting opportunities. "There's not the sense that the streets are paved with gold but, for people who cannot find work, Africa is a realistic opportunity."
Story of a nurse-turned Chinese farmer in Zambia
An hour from Zambia's capital Lusaka towards the end of a 30-km highway and an 18-km rugged untarred road, Johnken Farm stands out like an oasis amongst the wilderness of Africa. This farm, as wild as any other surrounding unclaimed land 12 years ago, has now become a flagship and a token of the Chinese- Zambian cooperation in agriculture.

Eggs produced in Johnken Farm are sent to Lusaka and other cities every day, snatching 10 percent of the whole market of Zambia. Together with its 1,000 head of cattle and over 2,000 pigs, the 3,500-hectare farm is the biggest one among a dozen of Chinese-owned farms in Zambia.

Behind the success of Johnken is the middle-aged Chinese woman, Li Li, 43, who came to Zambia to support her husband, Wang Chi, former managing director of the farm, but ended to shoulder the task by herself after Wang passed away one and a half years ago.

The early days with the farm was a struggle of the couple against harsh wilderness, bad infrastructure and inexperience. Wang used to be a university lecturer in Beijing before he arrived in Zambia with his African dream. His wife, Li, gave up her nurse career in a famous hospital in the Chinese capital of Beijing and followed Wang here.

They had to begin their work with cutting down bushes and grass along with 100-plus local employees to turn the primitive area into cultivable farmland. Electricity was then connected to the farm and boreholes were drilled for irrigation.

They came to the farm in 1994 with 200 chickens. As there was no henhouse at that time, they had to share their house with the chickens. Li recalled that at the beginning neither she nor Wang knew the proper water temperature for unhairing until they finally looked it up shortly before they put their processed chicken on market.

With its good reputation and considerable profit return, Johnken Farm was awarded by the Zambian National Commercial Bank ( ZANACO) a loan of about 1 million U.S. dollars. With the loan, Johnken Farm began to expand its business by planting wheat after it installed a computer-controlled center- pivot sprinkling irrigation system, which is widely used in large- scale commercial farms but the first one in a Chinese-owned farm in Zambia.

"You have to become big and strong with modern advanced technologies and have a bearing on the market. Otherwise you will risk being edged out of the market," Li said. With that in mind, she suggests that small- and medium-sized Chinese farms in Zambia merge to challenge the competition from other large-scale farms.

Meanwhile, Li said the Chinese government should encourage state-owned conglomerates to come to Zambia to turn the vast agricultural potential into reality.
When it comes to bioenergy and biofuels, it is well known that Africa has the largest longterm potential of all regions. By 2050, the continent is projected to be capable of sustaining a production of around 300 Exajoules of exportable bioenergy, in an explicitly sustainable manner, that is after all food, fiber, fodder and forest products for rapidly growing local populations are met and without any deforestation. To turn this theoretical potential into a reality, more efficient farming practises are a basic requirement. It could well prove to be the case that the influx of skilled Chinese farmers, and their growing investments in rural infrastructures, signals a first step in that direction.

As for Cassiman's vision of a Euro-African 'reverse migration': the Chinese are coming. But when will the Europeans?

Photo: a Chinese agronomist cooperating with an African collegue. Credit: SciDev.

References:
South China Morning Post: Landless farmers urged to migrate to Africa - September 19, 2007.

BBC: China in Africa: Developing ties - November 29, 2007.

People's Daily Online: Africa Feature: Story of nurse-turned Chinese farmer in Zambia - October 23, 2006.

Chris Alden, China in Africa, Zed Books, Series Title: African Arguments Series, 2007.

Two blogs by Biopact members on China's growing influence in Africa, but no longer maintained: China in Africa and Peaceful Rising.

POSTED BY BIOPACT TEAM AT 8:49 PM

The Army Adapts

In a superb piece from the Wall Street Journal, Michael M. Phillips illustrates just how profoundly the Army's new COIN evolution has transformed the force.

A natural-born insurgent, Sgt. First Class Jacob Stockdill was brimming with malicious suggestions when a group of American soldiers and Afghan security men sat down last month to plot their own defeat.

"I can put a guy out on a ridge with an AK-47 and have him take a couple of shots," Sgt. Stockdill proposed to fellow students at the Army's new Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy. "The Americans will shoot back with their big guns and disrupt the whole valley.... Being an insurgent would be so easy." Capt. Chris Rowe finished his thought: "All you have to do is not screw up, and, even if you do, you just blame it on the Americans."

Six years into the Afghan war, the Army has decided its troops on the ground still don't understand well enough how to battle the Taliban insurgency. So since the spring, groups of 60 people have been attending intensive, five-day sessions in plywood classrooms in the corner of a U.S. base here, where they learn to think like a Taliban and counterpunch like a politician.

The academy's principal message: The war that began to oust a regime has evolved into a popularity contest where insurgents and counterinsurgents vie for public support and the right to rule. The implicit critique: Many U.S. and allied soldiers still arrive in the country well-trained to kill, but not to persuade.

That soldiers are training to win a "popularity contest" demonstrates the depth of the institutional shift in Army thinking, as the subtle intricacies inherent in both the Afghani and Iraqi insurgencies force the Pentagon to reevaluate even its most elementary of doctrines. Phillips elaborates on the complexity of this new fight:

Col. Najeeb, the Afghan intelligence officer, complained to American classmates that coalition troops sometimes are so nervous about being hit that they mistrust all Afghans, including the security forces. He told of being sent to scout out a village before a coalition sweep. As he left the village on a motorcycle, NATO troops opened fire on him, even though he waved ID proving he is a government agent. He never got close enough to warn the coalition soldiers of the ambush that awaited them in the village, he said.

His classmate Capt. Nick Talbot, a 27-year-old from Washington, D.C., countered with a story about a car bomb in September in Nangarhar Province near Pakistan. U.S. troops arrived to find a man in a police uniform unconscious on the ground. When they did a routine body search for any unseen injuries, they discovered he was wearing a vest filled with explosives. The man woke up, but was unable to detonate the bomb before the soldiers killed him. "It can make you very hesitant to work very closely" with Afghan security forces, Capt. Talbot confessed to Col. Najeeb.

To be sure, Afghanistan is a geopolitical Rubik's Cube. Solving it is going to take time. The same goes for Iraq. But, despite common difficulties, one can't help but to admire the Army's remarkable comfort in adapting itself to the challenges faced in both theaters. Though they have a ways to go, their journey from a clunky, immobile Cold War bureaucracy to an agile, flexible fighting force has been nothing short of amazing.

Posted by John Noonan on December 3, 2007 01:21 PM | Permalink

From The Times
December 8, 2007
The book they used to burn now fires new revolution of faith in China

Jane Macartney in Nanjing
In China it is known as the “sacred doctrine” and it has become one of the country’s bestselling books. Yet it has nothing to do with the thoughts of Chairman Mao and its teachings have been in conflict with the forces of Communism for generations.

Demand for the Bible is soaring in China, at a time when meteoric economic growth is testing the country’s allegiance to Communist doctrine. Today the 50 millionth Bible will roll off the presses of China’s only authorised publisher, Amity Printing, amid public fanfare and celebration.

In the past, foreign visitors were discouraged from bringing Bibles into the country in case they received some heavy-handed treatment from zealous Customs officials.

Such is the demand in China for Bibles that Amity Printing can scarcely keep pace. Early next year it will move into a new, much larger factory on the edge of the eastern city of Nanjing to become the world’s single-biggest producer of Bibles.

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One book a second glides off the production line at this joint venture between a Chinese Christian charity and the United Bible Societies, a Protestant organisation. Amity has been printing Bibles since 1986. The new factory will have a capacity of one million Bibles a month, increasing the current output by one third.

New Zealander Peter Dean, of the United Bible Societies, bustles between the humming state-of-the-art presses. Mr Dean, who has been in China at Amity since 1991, said: “This platform has been built as a blessing to the nation. It will print Bibles for China for as long as it takes to do it.” Authorities at the officially approved Protestant and Catholic churches put the size of China’s Christian population at about 30 million. But that does not include the tens of millions more who worship in private at underground churches loyal to the Vatican or to various Protestant churches.

Of the 50 million Bibles Amity has printed, 41 million were for the faithful in Chinese and eight minority languages. The rest have been for export to Russia and Africa. Sales surged from 505,000 in 1988 to a high of 6.5 million in 2005. Output last year was 3.5 million and is expected to rise in 2007.

One of Mr Dean’s bestsellers is a pocket Bible, a version not suitable for the older generation to read and which may indicate a rapid expansion in the number of new, younger believers. He cited a surge in demand during the Sars crisis in 2003, but refrained from commenting. The enterprise has clearly flourished through its discretion and careful adherence to China’s laws that prohibit evangelising.

The Bible is not on sale in mainstream Chinese bookshops but through a distribution system managed by the official church, for example at stalls set up for people attending morning service. But it does figure on a recommended reading list of useful books in the glitzy metropolis of Shanghai.

A country where the Communist ideology has lost much credibility is seeing an upsurge in conversions to Christianity. Li Baiguang, a prominent lawyer and Christian activist who was received by President Bush at the White House last year, said: “Rising wealth means that more and more people have been able to meet their material needs, the need for food and clothing.

“Then they are finding that they need to satisfy their spiritual needs, to look for happiness for the soul. In addition, they are seeing a breakdown in the moral order as money takes over. Thus, more and more people are turning to Christianity.”

In the ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, Bibles were burnt as tomes of superstition. Much has altered since the 1980s when government policy required tourists and visitors not to bring in Bibles “in excess of personal use”. Many faithful took to smuggling the book into China to meet demand.

Cases of Bible smuggling are still reported and some people have been deported and locals even jailed. The Bibles they are smuggling usually contain the accepted gospel and an additional chapter slipped in among the pages relating to a particular sect or cult trying to spread its own beliefs.

It is such a sensitive issue that Chinese officials denied rumours recently that China would ban international athletes from bringing in Bibles to the Olympics in Beijing next August. However, the official Olympic website states: “Each traveller is recommended to take no more than one Bible into China.”

With China’s economy set to boom, Amity expects even higher demand when its new factory opens.

Mr Dean gestures to a new paper-sorting machine destined for the printing plant that had to be installed in the old facility recently to cope with demand. He is unconcerned about possible excess capacity. “Our lamp is full and the wick trimmed,” he said.

The believers

31% of China’s 1.05 billion adults consider themselves religious

200m of them are Buddhists or Taoists

40m the estimated population of Christians in China

1-2% are Muslims

1949 year China became officially atheist

Sources: China Daily; Central Intelligence Agency

After Guantanamo, 'Reintegration' for Saudis
By Josh White and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 10, 2007; A01

For five years, Jumah al-Dossari sat in a tiny cell at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, watched day and night by military captors who considered him one of the most dangerous terrorist suspects on the planet.

In July, he was suddenly released to his native Saudi Arabia, which held a very different view. Dossari was immediately reunited with his family and treated like a VIP. He was given a monthly stipend and a job, housed and fed, even promised help in finding a wife. Today, he is a free man living on the Persian Gulf coast.

The treatment is part of a Saudi "reintegration program" designed to help Dossari, 34, and other former Guantanamo prisoners adjust to modern society and learn the meanings of Islam. About 40 of the more than 100 Guantanamo detainees from Saudi Arabia who have been transferred to Riyadh since last year have been released after participating in the program, and the rest are scheduled to be let go in coming months.

The Defense Department considered more than 90 percent of the transferred detainees to be terrorist threats to the United States and its allies, but sent them home as part of an agreement that Saudi Arabia would mitigate the threat, according to Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.

"Our goal is to transfer out as many individuals from Guantanamo Bay as we can," said Sandra L. Hodgkinson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. "The Saudis have developed a reconciliation program to address the needs of their population, and we strongly appreciate them finding a way to mitigate the threats that these people pose. We believe this is a very, very good program."

Critics are concerned that the arrangement will simply return some extremists to the streets. Defense officials say about 30 of the nearly 480 detainees released from Guantanamo have again taken up terrorist activities.

Steven Emerson, a terrorism analyst, said the program is intriguing because it is an alternative to holding detainees at Guantanamo indefinitely. But, he said, there is a "major risk" of releasing former detainees into the general population.

"If they are allowed to re-engage in jihad, then I think it's criminal," Emerson said. "I don't always believe the Saudis are doing what they say they are doing. Could it work? Technically, it could work. Would I trust them to become babysitters? Not on my life."

Under an unpublicized agreement between Riyadh and the Bush administration, the Saudis are preparing to repatriate half of the approximately 20 of their citizens who remain at Guantanamo. They have promised that all will participate in the reintegration program, Saudi and U.S. officials said.

That will leave about 10 Saudis in Guantanamo, who are scheduled to be tried by military commissions, according to U.S. officials. A total of 138 Saudis have been held there.

The Saudi government contends that the reintegration program helps break the terrorist mind-set by linking former detainees with their families, their communities and a stable lifestyle. "No one who has gone through the program, completed it and been released has presented a threat," said Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

Defense attorneys, human rights advocates and former Guantanamo detainees say, however, that the Saudi program works because most of the men held at Guantanamo were not a threat in the first place.

Ramzi Kassem, a clinical instructor at Yale University's law school who represents two Saudis released to their home country, said the program is a "face-saving" measure adopted for the United States.

"Even the United States has acknowledged that the rhetoric of these men being the worst-of-the-worst is a great exaggeration," Kassem said. "I don't really think the Saudis genuinely believe these men are the sort of hardened men they need to worry about. That's really all fiction."

U.S. officials have become more comfortable with the program over time, and say the reintegration program has enabled the reduction of Guantanamo's prison population to its lowest point since April 2002, with just more than 300 detainees in custody, down from a peak of 680. The nationalities most represented now are 90 Yemenis, 50 Afghans and 20 Saudis.

The Saudis have briefed the CIA, FBI and Defense Department on the program, and U.S. officials have visited the reintegration facility in Riyadh. Saudi officials said officials of several European nations have inquired about the program and want to determine whether it could work in their countries.

President Bush has said he wants to close the prison, though there has been much internal disagreement on what to do with the captives, some of whom are acknowledged terrorists. But "even as Congress and the administration can't reach agreement [on closing Guantanamo], the numbers are declining," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

For Dossari, the transfer home was literally a life-saving measure. He fell into a deep depression at the prison and attempted suicide several times. One try was interrupted by his attorney, who found him hanging from a makeshift noose in a bathroom.

"When we were in Guantanamo, we lived there like in an underground cemetery," Dossari said in a telephone interview last week. "It was like going from underground to paradise."

The flight to freedom for Dossari and other Saudis began when a Saudi jumbo jet -- with three guards per prisoner -- took them back to Riyadh. The detainees were treated like airline passengers and could walk the aisles, according to Dossari and Kassem.

After a reunion of nearly a week with their families, the former detainees begin a six-week program to "correct their ideas" about jihad and non-Muslims, a government effort to woo them away from al-Qaeda's radical theology in one-on-one discussions with religious scholars, Saudi officials said.

"Our government gave people a chance to correct their mistakes and start a new life, to understand Islam and make people understand government," Dossari said. "This is the only solution for terrorism."

After completing the course, former detainees begin the second phase at a halfway house, replete with a pool, volleyball courts, video games and table tennis. "It's like outpatient treatment. It's like a camp or resort," said a senior Saudi official familiar with the program, who agreed to be interviewed only if he was not identified.

They receive vocational training, religious classes and counseling to deal with depression or to help them adjust psychologically after lengthy captivities. They can spend an occasional night with their families; during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, they spend a week with relatives.

They are under substantial pressure to return to the halfway house. "Everyone has come back. One was late, and he called to say he had an accident and would be late. Another got an extra day or so because he was married," the Saudi official said. "The social responsibility puts pressure on them. If they don't show up, then we will tell the Americans, who won't release any more Saudis."

When Dossari arrived in Riyadh with 15 other detainees, they stepped onto a green carpet and were welcomed by senior government officials. Dossari said he kissed the ground in elation.

The former detainees are required to report regularly on their whereabouts, information that is passed on to Washington. "The U.S. is more comfortable sending them back as they've seen the effectiveness of our program," a Saudi official said.

U.S. and Saudi officials doubt, however, that the program could be adapted to Yemen, Somalia and other countries that lack appropriate resources or strong central governments. Hodgkinson said the program uniquely fits in Saudi culture.

"It's hard to replicate that environment," Hodgkinson said. "There are things we can learn from what they've done. It is a good model, but it is not as ideally suited for us to try to implement at Guantanamo Bay."

U.S. officials never formally cleared Dossari for release but agreed to transfer him home under the repatriation arrangement. They had alleged that he was a terrorist who at one point traveled to the United States to give fiery sermons about jihad, but Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, Dossari's U.S. attorney, said his client's freedom at home proves he never should have been at Guantanamo.

Now living in the Saudi port city of Dammam, Dossari describes his detention in Guantanamo as his "black days" and says he was mistreated, without offering details. He said he considers the Saudi program a "gift from Allah."

Another former Guantanamo detainee, Khalid al-Hubayshi, 32, now works in the customer service department of a local Saudi Internet provider. He was married in February with the help of $20,000 from the Saudi government, which bought him a white Toyota Corolla upon his release and continues to provide him a monthly stipend of $800.

Hubayshi was a self-proclaimed jihadist enraged by images of Muslims massacred during the wars in Bosnia and went to the Philippines to fight. He was training in Afghanistan when U.S. forces began bombing there, and said he was sold to Pakistani authorities and was later turned over to U.S. officials.

"I was not there to fight Americans, but if the Americans had come into ground battle in Afghanistan, either I would have killed him or he would have killed me," Hubayshi said. "I was young. I was idealistic. I was full of zeal."

Hubayshi said he is unsure why he was sent home ahead of others with less involvement in Islamic insurgency. He said he told U.S. interrogators during more than 100 sessions that he was not a member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Unlike Dossari, Hubayshi -- among a small group of Saudis to leave Guantanamo in 2005 -- was imprisoned for nearly a year after his return to Saudi Arabia. But ultimately senior Saudi officials told him that he had learned his lesson.

Whether that turns out to be true is the central question for everyone, experts said.

"The proof will ultimately be in the pudding," said Bradford A. Berenson, a Washington lawyer who was associate counsel to Bush from 2001 to 2003. "If a lot of them end up in terror cells and on battlefields, we'll know that it doesn't work well enough to trust."

Correspondent Faiza Saleh Ambah in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

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