WASHINGTON — Think of them as Mad Libs, Gitmo edition.

Recent opinions from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit are studded with redactions that call to mind the zany game, the one where players fill in blanks in little stories, sometimes to absurd effect.

Consider the case of a Yemeni man who was picked up near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in December 2001. The main question in his case was whether a decade-old intelligence report could justify his indefinite detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

In a recent dissent, Judge David S. Tatel of the appeals court explained why he thought the report, “produced in the fog of war,” should not be given nearly conclusive weight.

“One need imply neither bad faith nor lack of incentive nor ineptitude on the part of government officers,” Judge Tatel wrote, “to conclude that [BLACKED OUT] compiled in the field by [BLACKED OUT] in a [BLACKED OUT] near an [BLACKED OUT] that contain multiple levels of hearsay, depend on translators of unknown quality, and include cautionary disclaimers that [BLACKED OUT] are prone to significant errors.”