Ret. Army Gen. Jack Keane said Wednesday he was not surprised to learn selected detainees at the military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were recruited by the CIA to work as double agents against al-Qaida.
"We have always recruited spies. That's the fact of it. We did it 40 years to penetrate into the Soviet Union . . . and we are doing it in many places in the world today," Keane told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
Guantanamo Bay detainees were recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency after 9/11 to work as double agents against al-Qaida. In return, they were promised freedom, money and safety for their families,
The Washington Post reported Monday.
However Keane maintained he had a "fundamental concern" about allowing information to leak about the program if agents were still involved.
"I would suspect some of these agents are still working for us. And, it doesn't do us any good to arouse the suspicion of organizations that they are a part of that somebody may be a spy in their midst, and look for interesting behavior that can contribute to it," he said.
Double agents provide an invaluable asset in gathering information beyond what can be monitored from other intelligence resources, such as satellite photos or Internet communications, Keane said.
"To have somebody inside the organization that knows what's going on who's reporting to you — that's of enormous value," he said.
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