US government and military officials have repeatedly exaggerated both the danger posed and the intelligence provided by the detainees held in the US Guantanamo military prison in Cuba, The New York Times newspaper reported Monday.  

For nearly two and a half years, the report said, American officials have maintained that the detainees at the US Naval base military prison in Guantanamo are some of the world's most dangerous terrorists -- "the worst of a very bad lot," as Vice President Dick Cheney has called them.

Information gleaned from the detainees has exposed terrorist cells, thwarted planned attacks and revealed vital intelligence about al-Qaeda, and the secrets they hold justify holding them indefinitely without charges, the officials were quoted as saying.

But none of the detainees was ranked as leader or senior operator of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, contrary to the repeated assertions of senior administration officials, the report said, citing interviews with dozens of high-level military, intelligence and law-enforcement officials in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

Only a relative handful -- some put the number at about a dozen, others more than two dozen -- were sworn al-Qaeda members or other militants able to elucidate the organization's inner workings, according to the officials.

While some Guantanamo intelligence has aided terrorism investigations, none of it has enabled intelligence or law-enforcement services to foil imminent attacks, the official said.

Compared with the high-profile Qaeda operatives held elsewhere by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Guantanamo detainees have provided only a trickle of intelligence with current value, the report said.

Nearly 600 prisoners from about 40 countries, mostly captured during the US-led war in Afghanistan, are still held at Guantanamo without charges or trial.

Some 130 detainees have been transferred recently to their home countries for release or continued imprisonment.

(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2004)