The five-day series said that American forces detained innocent men, committed physical abuse on prisoners in Afghanistan and Guantanamo and denied them basic legal rights. For the series, two McClatchy reporters traveled to 11 countries and interviewed 66 released detainees about their treatment. The conclusion: Most were "low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals," not terrorists. At least seven worked for the U.S.-backed Afghan government after the ouster of the Taliban.

Some N&O readers saw the series as evidence of either bias or gullibility on the part of the reporters.

"From the very start of the current McClatchy series on military detainees, it shapes up as poisonous bias propped up by misleading innuendo and outright trash," said reader Doug Alexander. Ben Owens of Raleigh said the series was "one-sided," saying his own Google research on released detainees "indicated up to 36 other Gitmo releasees had been apprehended or killed on Mideast battlefields. Either a poor research job or a definite bias by the author is indicated."

One question from readers was: If the U.S. detained people incorrectly but then released them, what's the problem? Why is it news that the government discovered and addressed the problems? (About 500 Guantanamo detainees have been released.)

Because, says McClatchy Foreign Editor Roy Gutman, the broad sweep of the arrests, the often flimsy evidence for detention and the disregard of human rights reveal flaws in U.S. policy. "The system they had for determining who they were holding was so flawed that they could hold a[n innocent] person like that," Gutman said. "They operated under no law. They operated under executive order. They didn't have a system for identifying who they had on the battlefield or at Guantanamo."

McClatchy interviewed one Afghan held at Guantanamo for more than three years who had allied his tribe with the new Afghan government. He was harassed at Guantanamo by Islamic extremists.

The series was not flawless. Reader Alexander noted that the lead paragraph of a key story referred to detainees being herded cattle-like into pens surrounded by concertina wire. Concertina wire is not used for cattle. (A correction, published later, said the reference was to the size and character of the holding pens.)

All of the 30 McClatchy daily newspapers got an early look at the series -- none was required to run it, and some didn't. N&O editors objected to the amount of information attributed to anonymous sources. McClatchy then eliminated all but a few source-based references, retaining those where the information was crucial to the story but the informant's life would be in danger.

There were positive reactions to the series here as well. "I was delighted to see the paper shedding light on an issue that has been under the radar for too long," wrote Gale Kerbaugh. "Thanks to the N&O for an excellent job of journalism!" Linda Watson wrote, "It's great to see such in-depth reporting on such an important topic."

I actually was surprised that the series didn't receive more negative reaction in this very military-friendly state. Unfortunately, the disclosures aren't getting much attention in the place that it most counts, Washington. Bush administration officials declined repeated requests to be interviewed about the allegations, and inside-the Beltway journalists haven't given it much attention.

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