MYTH #4 -- 61 RELEASED DETAINEES HAVE RETURNED TO THE BATTLEFIELD: One conservative talking point that has been especially effective at making its way into traditional media reporting is that 61 "of the people that were incarcerated at Guantanamo and then released have returned to the battlefield, have engaged in further terrorist activities," as CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr said yesterday. The Associated Press has made a similar claim. But in fact, as Media Matters has reported, "according to the Pentagon, the 61-detainee figure includes 43 former prisoners who are suspected of, but have not been confirmed as, having 'return[ed] to the fight.'" Bergen has also noted that "returning to the fight" could simply mean writing a negative op-ed. Mark Denbeaux, Director of the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Research, has been tracking the Bush administration's claims. He told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, "Their numbers have changed from 20 to 12 to seven to more than five to two to a couple to a few -- 25, 29, 12 to 24. Every time, the number has been different. In fact, every time they give a number, they don't identify a date, a place, a time, a name or an incident to support their claim."
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