Perhaps it is no accident that the US Department of Justice’s " review " of the treatment of post-9/11 detainees was released on a day when President George W. Bush was half a world away — attempting to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. From offhand comments by Bush political guru Karl Rove to a decision to push the 2004 Republican National Convention back to September 2004, all indications are that the Bush re-election campaign will rely heavily on trumpeting its role in fighting terrorism. The new Justice Department report, however, is unlikely to figure prominently in GOP campaign material.

In fact, the review — issued by the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General — is the clearest view Americans have been given of the mass arrests of immigrants following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Much of the Justice Department’s report tracks closely with other independent reports written by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee — but this report has the added weight of being issued by the government itself.

The substance of the 9/11 detainee report is a case study in the toxicity of combining obsessive secrecy and massive bureaucracy in a panicked atmosphere. Detainees were rounded up — in some cases on the most tenuous of grounds — and held indefinitely and in secret. The report observes that it was " unlikely " many of the detainees would have been pursued if not for the 9/11 investigation, and took note of one particularly coincidental arrest: " Another alien was arrested on September 22, 2001, because the phone company mistakenly put his phone calls home to [REDACTED] on the bill of a New York [REDACTED] office, and the [REDACTED] office called to report the ‘suspicious’ bill. The alien was arrested, detained on immigration charges, and considered a September 11 detainee. He was not cleared until January 9, 2002. "

The report observes that detainees’ attempts to gain access to counsel often were frustrated — both accidentally and willfully. The Justice review also found that a pattern of physical and verbal abuse against the detainees was prevalent at one of the confinement centers studied in the review — the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. " [W]e concluded, " the report noted, " that the evidence indicates a pattern of abuse by some correctional officers against some September 11 detainees, particularly during the first months after the attacks. "

Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, argues that the report " only confirms what we’ve been saying for a long time now — that there have been substantial abuses and mistakes " associated with the detentions. Ibish observes that the government deserves credit for releasing the report, and argues that " you have to give a little leeway " to the Justice Department and other agencies for its conduct during the first seven to 10 days after the attacks. " It’s true that they were overwhelmed, and that they were panicked, " says Ibish.

But much of the report deals with periods of time long after the initial shock to the judicial system, and Ibish takes a much dimmer view of those subsequent failings regarding the 9/11 detainees — particularly the obsessive penchant for secrecy in the proceedings that led to many of the abuses detailed in the report. " The first and most important conclusion to draw from this report, " says Ibish, " is that a properly functioning judicial system is incompatible with secrecy. This secrecy is the thread that links [the failings detailed in the report], in my view. "

Despite the specificity and the detail of the report, argues Ibish, the government has yet to implement the lessons that this latest case study in 9/11 wrongs teaches all of us. " The report doesn’t explain why this penchant for secrecy continues until this moment, " he says.