At the Pentagon, Army Lt. Col. Tanya Bradsher said the military would not comment on the findings, based on documents obtained by WikiLeaks and given to McClatchy, because "the documents disclosed by Wikileaks are the stolen property of the U.S. government. The documents are classified and do not become declassified due to an unauthorized disclosure."

Among the other informants, who were used in the assessments to both make direct allegations against detainees and explain more general issues such as the relationship between various militant groups:

• A Syrian detainee known as Abdul Rahim Razak al Janko, whose own file said that "there are so many variations and deviations in his reporting, as a result of detainee trying to please his interrogators, that it is difficult to determine what is factual." He was quoted or cited in records for 20 detainees.
• Muhammad al Qahtani, a Saudi man whose interrogations reportedly included 20-hour sessions and being led around by a leash, appeared as a source in at least 31 cases. A Guantanamo analyst note about Qahtani acknowledged that "starting in winter 2002/2003, (Qahtani) began retracting statements," though it argued that based on corroborating information "it is believed that (his) initial admissions were the truth."

  At the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, the firm that has championed Qahtani's unlawful detention lawsuit, senior attorney Shane Kadidal said that "the information that was given in the first place (by Qahtani) was not reliable." As a condition of his security clearance, Kadidal said, he couldn't discuss the specifics of the WikiLeaks documents.

• Ibn al Shaykh al Libi, a Libyan, told CIA de-briefers in 2004 that he had earlier exaggerated his status in al Qaida because he thought that's what American interrogators wanted to hear. He also said that he fabricated connections between Iraq and al Qaida to avoid mistreatment or torture by Egyptian interrogators. Information from al Libi, thought to have been collected elsewhere, was cited in at least 38 of the Guantanamo files.
• Mohammed Hashim, an Afghan whose reporting was described in one analyst's note as "of an undetermined reliability and is considered only partially truthful," showed up in assessments for 21 detainees.
• Statements from Ali Abdul Motalib Hassan, an Iraqi whose assessment said he “has admitted that he exaggerates in order to make himself appear more important” and who was seen as “unreliable,” appeared in 33 detainee files.
• Zayn al Abidin Muhammad Husayn, a Saudi-born Palestinian who's known more widely as Abu Zubaydah, was cited in about 127 detainee files. His interrogations are reported to have included at least 83 instances of water boarding, and his attorney, Brent Mickum, recently told McClatchy that "he provided tremendous amounts of information that was worthless."
• Fawaz Naman Hamoud Abdullah Mahdi was used in only six cases. But given a 2004 Guantanamo assessment of the Yemeni, it seems surprising that the fruit of his interrogations would be used as evidence against anyone: His "severe psychological disorder and deteriorating attention span" meant "the reliability and accuracy of the information provided by (Mahdi) will forever remain questionable," according to the assessment.