A former Bush administration official says the US has continued to jail many Guantanamo Bay prisoners seized in Afghanistan despite knowing of their innocence. In an interview with the Associated Press, Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, said the US held onto the innocent prisoners in the hopes they could one day provide helpful intelligence. Describing the Bush administration mentality, Wilkerson said, “It did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance.” Wilkerson continued, “We need to put those people in a high-security prison like the one in Colorado, forget them and throw away the key. We can’t try them because we tortured them and didn’t keep an evidence trail.” Wilkerson says former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney fought efforts to improve vetting of Afghan prisoners.