The article went on to quote Washington officials, and former officials, about whether the group that the Uyghurs were accused of belonging to had been added to the State Department's list of Terrorist organizations largely to secure acquiescence from the PRC to the then imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq. It quoted the Uyghurs' lawsuit: "In the crisis atmosphere of the time, the interests of a few dozen refugees paled beside the urgency of the Administration's war plans," and Susan Baker Manning, one of the Uyghurs' lawyers: "It is amazing to me that the US has agreed to in effect hold political prisoners for China in exchange for anything. That goes against everything that we, I thought, stood for in this country."
