Thank God the US military are thorough

The US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld described the prisoners at camp X-ray as the hardest of the hard core. Blimey! Who are these Rambo types?, these elite warriors of terror. Where they hardened commando style soldiers of evil, trained to perfection to bring about maximum destruction and carnage? Err no! - one of the first prisoners to be released from Guantanamo Bay was Hagi Fiz a 72 year old peasant farmer with a white beard.

Fiz is so senile that when asked his age he replied, "I’m 105". He didn’t seem too put out by his ordeal because he said his old clothes had been taken away and he’d been given new ones. He went on to explain that he’d also had plenty to eat and he hadn’t been beaten. By Afghan standards it sounds like quite a holiday.

We are all aware that terrorism is an evil that must be eradicated and when the likes of Osam Bin Laden get a bullet in the head it won’t be soon enough, but come on!, locking up an old codger for that length of time, what do the US military expect to gain. What crucial part did they think this chap had in a terror network? Was he the man that master minded the food orders to the kebab shop? Did he keep Western spies distracted with his cunning use of getting lost in a busy town centre? Maybe while he appeared to be entertaining children by making a farting noise with one hand under his armpit, he was actually passing vital intelligence to his colleagues. Who knows? The enemy is very cunning.

Fiz, no doubt drove his interrogators to distraction with typical old man annoyances like ‘things were different in my day’ and ‘you don’t know your born, lad’. What led the intelligence service to suspect him in the first place? Was it is Al Qaeda membership card concealed in his breast pocket, only to be later revealed, once translated, that it was his bus pass.

I know it’s perfectly feasible that an old man can be a terrorist, but did the US military really need eight months to figure out that an old man; that can’t even work out how old he is, is innocent.

How did they finally get to the decision that Fiz wasn’t a terrorist?

"Colonel Walker!. We’ve had a crack team of experts break down and reassemble the prisoners Zimmer frame in 122 different configurations, and not one of them resembles an air to ground rocket launcher or a nuclear warhead. SIR!",

"Very good, Sergeant, Next"

"We’ve finished interrogating the prisoners live stock and not a single goat is capable of wiring a detonator. SIR"

"Well Fiz, looks like your innocent, but be warned – I’ve got my eye on you. Your free to go"

"Thank you colonel, can I have my shoe laces back?"

Thank God the US military are thorough.