By Bill Kurtz, Carthage College
November 2010

Retired U.S. Army Col. Donald Woolfolk discussed highlights from his career at a Nov. 10 Business and Professional Coalition luncheon.

Mr. Woolfolk, who now holds a civilian position with the Navy Special Warfare Command, served as deputy commander of the joint task force that interrogated detainees at Guantanamo Bay in 2002.

Guantanamo, a U.S. naval base, was unprepared to house detainees, Mr. Woolfolk said, and the first hastily-built cages "looked like dog kennels," he admitted. But photos of those temporary cages came to symbolize the encampment.

A better facility, comparable to civilian prisons, was completed a few months later, he pointed out, "but we prevented the press from having access to those facilities."

Mr. Woolfolk said he regretted that "we didn't bring the press in and take them through that facility," and said he should have asked the Red Cross to be present at the facility "to document and attest to the fact that the U.S. was treating these guys humanely."

Mr. Woolfolk defended interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo, but said a majority of the detainees should not have been held.

"Was it tough? You bet," he said of interrogation efforts. "You try to get inside these guys' heads — it's a long, difficult process."

But Mr. Woolfolk said about 400 detainees, a majority of those held, were caught on a battlefield, and had "little or no intelligence value."

In the 1990s, Mr. Woolfolk quarterbacked the first successful effort to capture war criminals in the former Yugoslavia. He told how a newly-enlisted member of the U.S. Navy was tracked down at Great Lakes Naval Training Center because he could speak Serbian.

The sailor posed as a student to do research in a library and helped locate one of the targets, who were convicted of participating in "ethnic cleansing" atrocities.

The Business and Professional Coalition promotes interaction between Kenosha and Racine business leaders and Carthage by making the intellectual resources of the College available to the community. Coalition members include the leading business, professional, civic and government leaders in southeastern Wisconsin. Carthage regularly brings prominent speakers to campus for the Coalition's luncheons.

For more information about the Carthage Business and Professional Coalition, please contact Paul Hegland at (262) 551-5858 or by e-mail to phegland@carthage.edu.

Col. Woolfolk talks to students in Prof. Jonathan Marshall's Law and Society course on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010.