Report: US wants to hold Gitmo prisoners indefinitely
But leading GOP senator says 'it's a bad idea'
As allegations grow that "one-in-six" prisoners at the US military
detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba may have been tortured, the
Guardian newspaper reports Monday that the US is considering a plan to
hold terrorism suspects "indefinitely" even if it doesn't have enough evidence to charge them. The US will also replace temporary facilities at the base with permanent prisons.
But the
Washington Post reports Monday that Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the plan a "
bad idea" and said that the government should "just get over it."
The debate about indefinite detention comes as Washington faces growing allegations that torture has been used regularly as a method to interrogate suspects,
despite government statements to the contrary.
In a story widely covered by foreign media, The
Observer reported Sunday that a British prisoner told his lawyer that
he was tortured using "strappado" (a method commonly used by Latin American dictatorships in which a prisoner is left suspended from a bar with handcuffs until they cut deeply into his wrists) when he was caught reciting verses from the Koran at a time when talking was banned.
Those charges come as Bush administration officials are still dealing with the fallout from FBI memos and e-mails released in early December about interrogation methods at Guantanamo.
The New York Times reported two weeks ago that FBI agents saw detainees "being beaten, choked and
having lit cigarettes placed in their ears."
At the same time,
Reuters reported that the memos also allege that these practices were often
carried out by Pentagon interrogators who impersonated FBI agents in order to avoid being held accountable when they used torture techniques. The memos alleged the impersonations were approved by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
A December 5, 2003, e-mail said that "these tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature" and that the "techniques have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee.""If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done (by) the 'FBI' interrogators. The FBI will (be) left holding the bag before the public," the e-mail said.
Reuters reported that a spokesman for Mr. Wolfowitz said Wolfowitz "did not approve interrogation techniques."
Meanwhile
The New York Times reported on Saturday that military intelligence officials and interrogators confirmed that detainees were
interrogated using methods that would be considered torture in most cases.
While all the detainees were threatened with harsh tactics if they did not cooperate, about one in six were eventually subjected to those procedures, one former interrogator estimated. The interrogator said that when new interrogators arrived they were told they had great flexibility in extracting information from detainees because the Geneva Conventions did not apply at the base. The
Times piece noted that authorities at the base, including Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, commander of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo, have repeatedly said the detainees have not been abused, and even offered journalists visiting the base a chance to watch an interrogation.
Journalists who were permitted to view an interview session from behind a glass wall during General Hood's tenure were shown an interrogator and detainee sharing a milkshake and fries from the base's McDonald's and appearing to chat amiably. It became apparent to reporters comparing notes in August, however, that the tableau of the interrogator and prisoner sharing a McDonald's meal was presented to at least three sets of journalists. In an apparent move to counter some of the growing criticism, the
BBC reported Friday that the US Justice Department
revised its definition of torture on its Web site Thursday night, and "retracted its previous assertion that the practice has to involve excruciating and agonising pain."
The Daily Telegraph notes that the new definition
reflected several changes from the previous edition. The document, for instance, now says that torture could include "lasting mental anguish," but has dropped the statement that the president can supercede anti-torture laws in times of war.
Trent Duffy, a spokesman for George W. Bush, said that the Justice Department sought comments from the president's office of legal counsel before pressing ahead with the changes. He said it was to "reiterate the president's determination that the United States never engage in torture". An editorial in
The Boston Globe on Saturday said while the actions of the US military personnel "may pale in comparison" to what Saddam Hussein's thugs did during his regime,"that is
not the standard the United States should be measured by as it fights for a democracy under rule of law in Iraq."
Also, setting aside Geneva Convention rules, as the United States did with its Afghan war captives, or ignoring them, as US interrogators have done in Iraq, invites future adversaries of the United States to behave in a similar way with US servicemen or women they capture. The Bush administration must make clear to its forces and to the world at large that prisoner abuse will never be tolerated.
Also...
•
Details of Guantanamo detentions emerge (
Associated Press
•
Guantanamo express (
Sunday Herald, Scotland)
•
Is Bush being disobeyed on torture? (
Washington Times)
•
Questions [about torture] touch core of nation's principles (
MassLive)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Tom Regan
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