Detainees are a national issue in a NATO mission, so it could be that NDHQ did not believe that ISAF had a "need to know" this information. It would be interesting to know what "responsibilities" ISAF felt it had to discharge since all member countries knew--and indeed insisted upon--their responsibility for their "own" detainees, and their individual relationships with the Red Cross.

It could also be that there were concerns about the security of information passed to ISAF. If it's like most multinational/international organizations, it leaks like a sieve. What if information about a Canadian-transferred detainee was passed to a third-country, that then pressured the Afghans to either release the person, or hand them over so they can end up somewhere else (coughcough-Gitmo--coughcough). Wouldn't that be, er, problematic, too?

In short, there are a lot of questions that need to be asked and answered before drawing any conclusion about this particular e-mail. Given the government's handling of the entire situation so far, I would not be surprised if there is indeed something nefarious going on, but we need more information before jumping to a conclusion.

The whole "gotcha" handling of this issue is not serving anyone who wants to understand what's really going on. But then maybe I'm a minority of one.